<h4>Lynn Melnick’s first collection of poetry, <em>If I Should Say I Have Hope</em>, was published by YesYes Books in 2012.</h4>

Lynn Melnick

I Would Have to Wake Up Young Again: On “Bay of Angels,” Personal Mythology, and the Enduring Badassery of Diane Wakoski

"I have nothing to say, and I am saying it, and that is poetry." — John Cage

Poetry

We Can Be Heroes: The Winter Poetry Olympics Part V: On Skeleton and Skeletonists 

<strong>Alex Dimitrov</strong> <strong>is the author of <em>Love and Other Poems</em>, which will be published in February of 2021, <em>Together and by Ourselves</em>, and <em>Begging for It</em>. With Dorothea Lasky he is the co-author of <em>Astro Poets: Your Guides to the Zodiac</em>. He lives in New York.</strong>

Alex Dimitrov

<h4>Metta Sáma is author of Nocturne Trio (YesYes Books, 2012) and South of Here (New Issues Press 2005 (published under her legal name). Her poems, creative non-fiction, and book reviews have been published or forthcoming in Blackbird, The Drunken Boat, Esque, Jubilat, HerCircleEzine, The Owls, Pebble Lake Review, Pyrta, Reverie, Sententia, Verse, Vinyl, Zone 3, among others. In addition to her creative work, she has published scholarship on Dionne Brand, Terrance Hayes, Audre Lorde, and Toni Morrison. She is the fiction editor editor of ragazine, as well as Social Media and Marketing Assistant at HerCircle.</h4>

Metta Sáma

Poets’ Roundtable on Person and Persona

<h4>Sean Hill is the author of two poetry collections, <em>Blood Ties &amp; Brown Liquor</em> (UGA Press, 2008) and Dangerous Goods, which is forthcoming from Milkweed Editions in early 2014. More information can be found at <a href="http://www.seanhillpoetry.com">www.seanhillpoetry.com</a>.</h4>

Sean Hill

John Murillo

<h4>Matthew Zapruder is an American poet, editor, and teacher. He<strong>&nbsp;is the author of five collections of poetry, most recently <em>Father’s Day</em>, from Copper Canyon in Fall 2019, as well as <em>Why Poetry</em>, a book of prose. He is editor at large at Wave Books, and teaches in the MFA and English Department at Saint Mary’s College of California.</strong></h4>
<h4>&nbsp;</h4>

Matthew Zapruder

<strong>Dan Beachy-Quick&nbsp;is the author of six books of poetry, six chapbooks (two in collaboration with Srikanth Reddy), and two prose collections, as well as criticism and fiction. His work has won the Colorado Book Award, and has been a finalist for the William Carlos Williams Prize, and the PEN/USA Literary Award in Poetry, and included on the&nbsp;<em>Best American Poetry</em>&nbsp;anthology. He is the recipient of a Lannan Foundation residency, and has taught at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. He was one of two Monfort Professors at CSU for 2013–2015, and his work has been supported by the Woodberry Poetry Room at Harvard University and the Guggenheim Foundation. He is a University Distinguished Teaching Scholar at Colorado State University, where he serves as assistant chair of the English Department and teaches in the MFA Program in Creative Writing.</strong>

Dan Beachy-Quick

<h4>Eloise Klein Healy is the author of seven books of poetry and three spoken word recordings. &nbsp;She is the founding editor of Arktoi Books, an imprint of Red Hen Press specializing in the work of lesbian authors. Her latest collection of poems is<em> A Wild Surmise: New &amp; Selected Poems &amp; Recordings</em>. Healy was recently appointed the first Poet Laureate of The City of Los Angeles.</h4>

Eloise Klein Healy

<h4>Reginald Dwayne Betts is a husband and father of two sons. The author of the memoir, <em>A Question of Freedom </em>(Avery/Penguin 2009) and the collection of poetry, <em>Shahid Reads His Own Palm </em>(Alice James Books, 2010), Betts has been awarded fellowships from the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies, the Open Society Institute, Bread Loaf Writers&rsquo; Workshop and Warren Wilson College. As a poet, essayist and national spokesperson for the Campaign for Youth Justice, Betts writes and lectures about the impact of mass incarceration on American society.</h4>
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Reginald Dwayne Betts

<h4><span>Adrian Matejka is an American poet. His most recent book, <em>Mixology</em>, was a winner of the 2008 National Poetry Series. He graduated from Southern Illinois University Carbondale with an MFA in Creative Writing.</span></h4>

Adrian Matejka

<h4><span>Brett Fletcher Lauer is the deputy director of the Poetry Society of&nbsp;</span><span>America and the poetry editor of <em>A Public Space</em>. His first book, <em>A&nbsp;</em></span><span><em>Hotel in Belgium</em>, is forthcoming from Four Way Books.</span></h4>

Brett Fletcher Lauer

<strong>Natalie Diaz was born and raised in the Fort Mojave Indian Village in Needles, California, on the banks of the Colorado River. She is Mojave and an enrolled member of the Gila River Indian Tribe. Diaz teaches at Arizona State University, and her first poetry collection is <em>When My Brother Was an Aztec</em>. [Photo by Cybele Knowles.]</strong>

Natalie Diaz

<h4>Sarah Vap is the author of four collections of poetry. The most recent,<em> Arco Iris </em>(Saturnalia Books) was named a Library Journal Book Best Book of 2012. She is a recipient of a 2013 National Endowment of the Arts Grant for poetry. Her first collection, <em>Dummy Fire</em>, received the Saturnalia Poetry Prize. Her second collection, <em>American Spikenard</em>, received the Iowa Poetry Prize. She lives in Santa Monica and is pursuing her PhD at University of Southern California.</h4>

Sarah Vap

<h4>Jill McDonough's books of poems include&nbsp;<em>Habeas Corpus </em>(Salt, 2008), <em>Oh, James!</em> (Seven Kitchens, 2012), and <em>Where You Live</em> (Salt, 2012). The recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Fine Arts Work Center, the New York Public Library, the Library of Congress, and Stanford&rsquo;s Stegner program, she taught incarcerated college students through Boston University&rsquo;s Prison Education Program for thirteen years.&nbsp; She teaches poetry at UMass-Boston and directs 24PearlStreet, the online writing program at the Fine Arts Work Center. &nbsp;</h4>

Jill McDonough

<h4>Jessica Piazza is the author of the poetry collection <em>Interrobang&nbsp;</em>(Red Hen Press, 2013) and the chapbook&nbsp;<em>This is not a sky&nbsp;</em>(Black Lawrence Press, forthcoming 2014). Born&nbsp;and raised in Brooklyn, New York, she is currently a PhD candidate in English Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Southern California. She is a co-founder of&nbsp;<em>Bat City Review </em>and&nbsp;Gold Line Press and a contributing editor at&nbsp;<em>The Offending Adam</em>.</h4>

Jessica Piazza

<h4><strong>Dana Levin is the author of <em>In the Surgical Theatre</em>, <em>Wedding Day</em>, and <em>Sky Burial</em>, which was noted for 2011 year-end honors by <em>The New Yorker</em>, the <em>San Francisco Chronicle</em>, <em>Library Journal</em>, and <em>Coldfront</em> <em>Magazine</em>. A recipient of fellowships from the Rona Jaffe, Whiting and Guggenheim Foundations, Levin chairs the Creative Writing and Literature Department at Santa Fe University of Art and Design.</strong></h4>

Dana Levin

<h4><strong>Meghan O'Rourke is the author of the poetry collections <em>Halflife</em> and <em>Once</em>, and the memoir <em>The Long Goodbye</em>.</strong></h4>

Meghan O'Rourke

Heart-Shaped Box: LARB Poetry Valentine Edition

Lynn Emanuel, Valentine

<h4><strong class="Apple-converted-space">Michael Heald is the author of<em> Goodbye to the Nervous Apprehension</em>, a collection of essays. He lives in Portland, OR, where he runs the small press Perfect Day Publishing.<br /></strong></h4>

Michael Heald

<h4><strong>ALISON STINE<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span>is the author of<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><em>Wait</em>, winner of the Brittingham Prize (University of Wisconsin Press, 2011), and<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><em>Ohio Violence</em>, winner of the Vassar Miller (University of North Texas Press, 2009). A former Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, and a recipient of the Ruth Lilly Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation, her first book of essays,<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><em>The Last Hotel</em></strong><span><strong>, has been a finalist in the Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize. </strong><br /></span></h4>

Alison Stine

<h4><strong>P. Scott Cunningham is a poet. You can follow him <a href="https://twitter.com/cunningpscott">@cunningpscott</a>.</strong></h4>

P. Scott Cunningham

<strong>Nick Ripatrazone is the author of <em>Longing for an Absent God: Faith and Doubt in Great American Fiction </em>(Fortress Press, 2020). He has written for <em>Rolling Stone</em>,<em> GQ</em>,<em> The Atlantic</em>, the<em> Paris Review</em>, and <em>The Sewanee Review</em>. He is the culture editor of <em>Image Journal</em>.</strong>

Nick Ripatrazone

<h4>Jake Adam York was an award-winning American poet. He published three books of poetry: <em>Murder Ballads</em> (2005), selected by Jane Satterfield for the Fifth Annual Elixir Press Awards Judge&rsquo;s Prize; <em>A Murmuration of Starlings</em> (2008), which was selected by Cathy Song for the Crab Orchard Series in Poetry and won the 2008 Colorado Book Award in Poetry; and <em>Persons Unknown </em>(2010), an editor&rsquo;s selection in the Crab Orchard Series in Poetry; as well as a work of literary history, <em>The Architecture of Address: The Monument and Public Speech in American Poetry</em>, published by Routledge in 2005. York was an associate professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of Colorado Denver, where he directed an undergraduate Creative Writing program and produced the literary journal <em>Copper Nickel</em> with his students and colleagues.</h4>

Jake Adam York

<strong>Deborah Paredez</strong> <strong>is the author of the poetry volumes, <em>Year of the Dog</em> and <em>This Side of Skin</em>, and the critical study, <em>Selenidad: Selena, Latinos, and the Performance of Memory</em>. She is a Co-Founder of CantoMundo, a national organization for Latinx poets. She lives in New York City where she teaches creative writing and ethnic studies at Columbia University.</strong>

Deborah Paredez

<h4>Sarah Blake lives outside of Philadelphia with her husband and son. She is the author of <i>Mr. West</i>, an unauthorized lyric biography of Kanye West, forthcoming from Wesleyan University Press in Spring 2015. Her poems have appeared in <i>Boston Review</i>, <i>The Threepenny Review</i>, <i>The Awl</i>, and elsewhere. She was awarded an NEA fellowship for poetry in 2013, and she’s Assistant Editor at Saturnalia Books and co-founder of Submittrs.</h4>

Sarah Blake

<h4><strong>PATRICK ROSAL<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span>is the author of three full-length poetry<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span>collections, Boneshepherds, My American Kundiman, and Uprock Headspin<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span>Scramble and Dive. His poems and essays have appeared in numerous<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span>journals and anthologies, including Tin House, American Poetry Review,<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span>Harvard Review, Drunken Boat, and Language for a New Century. He haswon, among other honors, a Fulbright Fellowship, the Association of<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span>Asian American Studies Book Award, the Global Filipino Literary Award,<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span>and the Asian American Writers&rsquo; Workshop Members&rsquo; Choice Award. He is<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span>a member of the Creative Writing faculty at Rutgers University-Camden.</strong></h4>

Patrick Rosal

<h4><strong>Lytton Smith is Lecturer in English and Creative Writing at Plymouth University. He is the author of a book of poems, <em>The All-Purpose Magical Tent</em>, and two translated novels from the Icelandic.</strong></h4>

Lytton Smith

We Can Be Heroes: Poetry at the XXX Olympiad (Part 7)

<h4><strong>Liam O'Rourke lives in Brooklyn, NY and teaches English at Pierrepont School in Westport, CT.</strong></h4>

Liam O'Rourke

<h4><strong>PAISLEY REKDAL<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span>is the author of a book of essays,<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span><em>The Night My Mother Met Bruce Lee<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span></em>and four books of poetry.&nbsp;A hybrid photo-text memoir that combines poems, nonfiction and fiction entitled<em>Intimate</em></strong><span><strong><span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span>has just been published by Tupelo. Her work has received a Village Voice Writers on the Verge Award, an NEA Fellowship, a Pushcart Prize, the University of Georgia Press&rsquo; Contemporary Poetry Series Award, a Fulbright Fellowship, and the Amy Lowell Poetry Traveling Fellowship. </strong><br /></span></h4>

Paisley Rekdal

<h4 class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination: none; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; color: #222222;">Gabrielle Calvocoressi is the author of <b>The Last Time I Saw Amelia</b></span><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; color: #222222;"> Earhart (Persea. 2005) and <b>Apocalyptic Swing</b></span><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; color: #222222;"> (Persea. 2009), which was a finalist for The Los Angeles Times Book Award. She is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships including a Stegner Fellowship and Jones Lectureship from Stanford University, a Rona Jaffe Woman Writer's Award and a fellowship to Civitella di Ranieri in Umbria. She was recently awarded a prestigious Writing Residency Fellowship from the Lannan Foundation in Marfa. Her poems have been featured in the <i>Washington Post</i></span><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; color: #222222;"> and on Garrison Keillor's <i>Poet's Almanac</i></span><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; color: #222222;"> and in numerous journals. She lives in Los Angeles where she is the Poetry Editor for <i>The Los Angeles Review of Books</i></span><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; color: #222222;">. She is currently at work on her third book of poems, <b>Rocket Fantastic</b></span><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; color: #222222;"> and a book of prose, <b>The Year I Didn&rsquo;t Kill Myself</b></span><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; color: #222222;">.</span></h4>

Gabrielle Calvocoressi

We Can Be Heroes: Poetry at the 2012 Summer Games

Lynn Melnick’s first collection of poetry, <em>If I Should Say I Have Hope</em>, was published by YesYes Books in 2012.