I have always been fascinated by machines: cars, airplanes, trains… Every vehicle feels like it’s connecting the past where we have been with the future where we are going. Maybe that is why I’m drawn to art that deals with history and movement. When I first read Christopher Kemp’s poem “After,” I felt that same…
I have always been interested in poetry that expresses deep emotions and invokes thoughtful interpretations. Even more so, I have always had a passion for teaching and I am interested in the techniques and thoughtful lesson plans that are required to effectively pass down knowledge and inspire students. When I first saw “330 College Avenue”…
Born in 1961, Andrea Cohen grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, where she developed a love for poetry at a young age, stemming from her frequent walks with her dog through the woods where she would compose songs in her head. Currently, she teaches at Boston University and directs the Blacksmith House Poetry Series in Cambridge,…
I have always been drawn to the moments where doing something normal feels electric. Taking a test and knowing you are going to do really well, standing in the rain at night, laying down and listening to music, just to name a few. In those moments I sense that poetry isn’t just something made in…
This year, I’ll finally turn an age I can’t say in Hindi. And even if I get around to finally inputting “fifteen” into Google Translate, I still won’t know how to say it: the syllables will rust and bend around my tongue like cheap metal, and I’ll roll my “r’s” in a way learned in…
Teenagers scroll on social media for hours. I myself realize how much I spent time on my phone staring at the screen for hours, looking for something interesting, silly, or funny to fill that void of boredom. High schoolers like myself spend so much time online, while we could be learning new knowledge through books,…
Sometimes I find it intriguing how the media portrays wars. No matter how it’s supposed to be seen by the average viewer, when watching war on the news I’m horrified. I’m horrified that humans are capable of that level of violence. I bring this up because Donika Kelly’s poem “I Never Figured How to Get…
In the beginning of English class this year, my teacher emphasized an important idea that he wanted us to keep in the back of our minds when entering class discussions. As an introduction to this idea, he presented to the class a quotation from “Self-Reliance” by Ralph Waldo Emerson: “A man should learn to detect…
Bruce Bond, born on June 25, 1954 in Pasadena, California, is the author of 37 novels and many poems. Bond pursued his creative writing career at three colleges, receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree in English at Pomona college, a Masters of Arts degree in English at Claremont Graduate school, and a PhD in English…
Paul Hoover was born in 1946, in Harrisonburg, Virginia. He was a poet in residence at Columbia College Chicago for many years before accepting an offer to go work as a teacher at San Francisco State University in the year 2003. He is known for being an editor of both the magazine New American Writing…