Anna M. Evans: “Recent polls suggest that about two thirds of Democrats do not have Republican friends. Bucking this trend, I spent five summer days in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, visiting a woman I first met outside of both our home states, and it was blissful, even though our political views are complete opposites. Poetry can be used to explore such large, complex subjects, and because form needs to match content, this subject called for a heroic crown of sonnets. I have been advised that some people on my side of the aisle may object to the congeniality of my poem, and that is, of course, part of the point.” (web)
Chris Huntington: “I recently read a harrowing essay by John Matthias in which he asked his wife, who was suffering from Parkinson’s, if she was awake. She answered, ‘I don’t know,’ which terrifies me every time I think of it. I’m trying to make something beautiful out of this idea instead.” (web)
David Galloway: “I’ve been to the Tretyakovskaya Gallery in Moscow more times than I can count, but I will always remember the first time I encountered Serebriakova’s painting. It was winter, my favorite time to travel to Russia, which creates a different feeling when you’re in a museum, a kind of humans grouping together for warmth sensation because there’s no rush to experience the weather outside. It wasn’t very crowded, and after the umpteenth time of studying it again and delving into Serebriakova’s life, I wrote this to celebrate her and to interrogate what the painting means to me.” (web)
Michelle Bitting: “I was at a workshop in Florida writing this poem, halfway into it, had conjured Isadora and the sewing element. I decided to do a little extra online research into Ms. Duncan’s life. Lo and behold the father of her children was none other than Eugene Singer, the sewing machine tycoon. Synchronicity: I knew I was on the right track.” (web)
Shavahn Dorris-Jefferson: “The commentary, online and elsewhere, about the slap at the Oscars is troubling on many levels, but what has been most disturbing is when people suggest that Will Smith’s behavior somehow reflects badly on all black people. I read one post by a black man that said white people saw him as ‘one of the good ones,’ as if Smith took away white people’s ability to feel good about liking at least one of us. Even Kareem Abdul-Jabbar suggested that Smith’s actions were a ‘direct hit’ to the black community. It’s disheartening that many white people perpetuate the idea that black people are a monolith, but it’s even worse when black people buy into that narrative. Just recently, we’ve seen white people try to overthrow the government, and a white man just invaded another country for what seems like no reason at all. And yet we don’t say, ‘See what they did. That’s just how white people are.’ When white people behave badly, we don’t paint with such broad strokes, and we are much more forgiving.” (web)
Ann Giard-Chase: “The title of this poem, ‘Encephalon,’ denotes the upper part of the central nervous system that resides inside the human skull. When I graduated from college years ago, I worked as a registered EEG (electroencephalography) technologist in the neurology department of a major hospital. Patients of all ages and disease states came and went, presenting with a variety of symptoms to be analyzed by attaching electrodes to the patient’s head and recording their brain’s electrical activity. Based on this data, neurologists were able to detect certain brain abnormalities since brain waves change as a function of disease states. Being young myself, I was especially saddened when a young woman whose EEG I conducted was diagnosed with a brain tumor. I hadn’t dealt with early death or the potential for early death at this time in my life, and it impacted me greatly, and I never forgot her.”