U.S., Southern

Jessie Leitzel (she/they) was born in the mountains of Pennsylvania and raised in Charleston, South Carolina. They are a YoungArts award winner with distinction, a Presidential Scholar in the Arts, and a gold...

Chris Watkins (they/them) is a genderqueer poet, environmental activist, and PhD candidate in English studying at Florida State University. Their recent work has appeared in Harvard Review, Redivider, Frontier...

Theaster Gates (he/him) is an artist whose practice finds roots in conceptual formalism, sculpture, space theory, land art, and performance. Trained in urban planning and within the tradition of Japanese ceramics...

Jessica Smith (she/her) is a writer, teacher, editor, and librarian. Smith’s full-length poetry collections include How to Know the Flowers (Veliz, 2019), Life-List (Chax, 2015), and Organic Furniture Cellar...

fahima ife (she/her) is an American poet, essayist, and editor. She is the author of the poetry books Septet for the Luminous Ones (Wesleyan University Press, 2024) and Maroon Choreography (Duke University...

John B. Burroughs served as the National Beat Poetry Foundation’s 2022–2023 U.S. Beat Poet Laureate. Burroughs previously served for two years as Ohio’s Beat Poet Laureate. His poetry collections include The...

Caroline Earleywine is a poet and educator who spent 10 years teaching high school English in Central Arkansas. She earned an MFA from Queens University in Charlotte, and her chapbook, Lesbian Fashion Struggles...

George B. Bailey (he/him) is an associate professor of English, emeritus, in the English department of Columbia College Chicago. He earned a BA in creative writing from Columbia College Chicago, an MA in English...

Metta Sáma is author of Swing at your own risk (Kelsey Street Press, 2019), the year we turned dragon (Portable Press @ Yo-Yo Labs, 2016), and the chapbook After “Sleeping to Dream”/After After (Nous-zot Press...

Kira Alexis Tucker (she/they) is a poet and artist from Memphis, Tennessee. She was a finalist for a 2024 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship. Their work, which centers on dreaming, ...

Samyak Shertok (he/him) is the author of No Rhododendron (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2025), selected for the 2024 AWP Donald Hall Prize for Poetry. His poems have been published in The Cincinnati Review...

Rob Macaisa Colgate (he/she/they) is a disabled, bakla poet and playwright. Colgate is the author of the poetry collection Hardly Creatures (Tin House, 2025) and the verse drama My Love is Water (Ugly Duckling...

Mia S. Willis (they/them) is a poet, a popular educator, and a cultural historian from Charlotte, North Carolina. Their work, twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize, has been featured by The Slowdown, The ...

Sarah Alcaide-Escue is a writer, artist, and editor from Florida. Her poetry chapbook, Bruised Gospel, was published by The Lune in 2020. A Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, her work has been published...

Diamond Forde's debut collection, Mother Body, won the 2019 Saturnalia Books Poetry Prize. Her awards and prizes include the Pink Poetry Prize, the Furious Flower Poetry Prize, and the College Language Association...

Born and raised in East Tennessee, Kristi Maxwell earned an MFA from the University of Arizona, where she served as editor of Sonora Review, and a PhD in Literature and Creative Writing along with a graduate...

Ada Limón became the twenty-fourth Poet Laureate of the United States in July of 2022. Limón is the author of the poetry collections The Hurting Kind (2022, Milkweed Editions); The Carrying (2018, Milkweed...

Dr. Robert Eric Shoemaker is an interdisciplinary poet, artist, and scholar. He earned a PhD in humanities from the University of Louisville and an MFA in creative writing and poetics from Naropa University...

Marissa Davis (she/her) is a poet and translator from Paducah, Kentucky. Davis is the winner of a 2024 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship, and in 2023, she received an Emerging Translator ...

A poet of African, Indian, and Dutch ancestry, Gerald William Barrax was born in Attalla, Alabama. When he was 10, his family moved to Pittsburgh. He attended Duquesne University as a pharmacy major, but because...