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…
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…
Dr. Ruben Quesada is a poet who was born in 1976 in Los Angeles, California and currently resides in Chicago, Illinois. He is an instructor at Cedar Crest College and an affiliate faculty member at Antioch University. He has written multiple books, including Brutal Companion, which won a Barrow Street Poetry Prize, 2023 Editors’ Choice,…
Destiny O. Birdsong is an African American poet born in 1981 in Louisiana and currently lives in Nashville. She attended Fisk University, where she received her BA in English and history, and Vanderbilt University, where she received her MFA in poetry and PhD in English. Over time, some hallmarks of her work have become exploring…
Robert Pinsky was born on October 20th, 1940, in Long Branch, New Jersey. He graduated from Rutgers University and then attended Stanford University to receive his PhD, graduating in 1966. He is currently a professor at Boston University, teaching English and Creative Writing in the graduate writing program. Pinsky has written numerous books, including At…
Francisco Márquez, born in 1983 in Miami, Florida, and raised in Maracaibo, Venezuela, holds an MFA from New York University and currently teaches Creative Writing at the University of New Mexico. His work has appeared in The Best American Poetry (2021), The Yale Review, and Narrative and has earned him fellowships from the Fine Arts…
Jessica Greenbaum was born in 1957 in Brooklyn, New York. Her first novel, Inventing Difficulty, was acknowledged in the Silverfish Review in 1998, her second novel, The Two Yvonnes, won the Gerald Cable Prize, and her third novel, Spilled and Gone, was named the ‘Best Book in Poetry,” by Library Journal in the University of Pittsburgh Press (2019). Additionally, Greenbaum co-edited,…
Alex Dimitrov was born in Bulgaria on November 30th, 1984, and currently lives in New York City. He attended the University of Michigan for his Bachelor’s degree, Sarah Lawrence College for a Master of Fine Arts, and Columbia University in the City of New York to get his Professional Certificate in Publishing. He has lectured…