Iris Cai: “I like to write poetry because I’m in love with words, people, books, and things. I love English, which is not even my first language. Even now, I’m unacquainted with the feeling of these words on my tongue, but when I am writing poetry, I can create a syntax that is entirely my own. It’s a kind of empowerment: I can put a name to all the complex, confusing feelings I otherwise could never express. What comes out is small and pulsing and jagged with line breaks, but it is an ode to all the people who have made me, all the books that have sustained me, all the words I know and will never know. For me, poetry is the next closest thing to love.”
Anna Lucia Deloia: “Most of the best things I know, I learned from elementary schoolers: for example, that enthusiasm is a superpower and that we can approach even the biggest ideas with playfulness. I try to live up to those lessons in my poems. When I’m not writing, I make things for/with kids and families—especially things to help us all take better care of each other.” (web)
Traci Brimhall: “I was born in Little Falls, New Mexico, although all I remember is the library, playground and Dairy Queen. Now I live in New York City where there are still plenty of books, parks and ice cream. As a child, my grandmother recited Edward Lear’s ‘The Owl and the Pussycat’ every time I stayed with her. I don’t know if I knew I wanted to write poetry then, but I did learn that marriage is an arduous journey filled with talking animals.”
Rohan Buettel: “I like writing ghazals, like sonnets, because they have strict formal requirements. There is a pleasure in meeting the challenge of writing a formal poem complying with the requirements. Then there is the pleasure of writing more contemporary poems dispensing with some of those elements (such as rhyme). As there is no metrical requirement, there is also the pleasure of experimenting with different meters or free verse. I see the ghazal as the equivalent of the sonnet form developed in the Middle East. Some ghazals in English work very well when they incorporate sonnet-like aspects, such as a strict iambic pentameter. I have always felt uncomfortable using my own name in the last stanza, so use a more self-effacing reference.”
Sally Bliumis-Dunn: “I think I write poems to try and discover what I feel. Try as I might, I’ve never found another vehicle that does as well. I live in Armonk, New York, with my husband John. We share four children, Ben, Angie, Kaitlin and Fiona.” (web)
Jen DeGregorio: “I woke up one morning last July and sat down hoping to write a poem. I had just gotten back into a regular poetry-writing practice after a long hiatus and was fearful that my creative well had gone dry. While pre-poem internet surfing, I somehow happened upon the news about the millipede discovery, and this poem poured out of me in about an hour (though I’ve been studying and writing poetry seriously for twenty years, so I’m no savant). The care with which the journalist had written about this millipede species and the entomologists studying it struck me as so touching; I felt overwhelmed by feeling for the journalist and the entomologists, doing what I’ll call God’s work (though I’m not sure what I mean by God). So much is heartbreaking in our world, but reading this story lifted my spirit: The Earth is still full of mystery, and there are good, curious people out there who wish to help us unravel it. Journalists—often maligned—are heroes to me. Entomologists are heroes. Anyone who is committed to nurturing this world—including through study, through the sharing of knowledge—is a hero. But such heroes, these quieter ones, often go unsung. Let poetry sing their praise.” (web)
Alison Luterman: “I find myself unable to watch either of the two candidates currently vying for the office of the President of the United States of America. I will vote for the Democrat, of course. But I am still not over my disappointment that Elizabeth Warren was bumped out of the 2020 race, or the other qualified women who could be leading our country brilliantly right now were it not for patriarchy.” (web)
