In Celebration of Poetry Month and the Release of
Poetic Voices Without Borders 2:
Thursday April 23, 2009 at 7 PM
The Arlington Arts Center
3550 Wilson Blvd. (across from the Virginia Square Metro stop)
Arlington, VA ~ 703.248.6800
A Special Reading with the Following Poets Luis Alberto Ambroggio, member of the North American Academy of the Spanish Language and PEN, is the author of ten published books of poetry. His poetry is recorded in the Archives of the Hispanic-American Literature of the Library of Congress.
Naomi Ayala, recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, is the author of two books of poetry: Wild Animals on the Moon and This Side of Early. She has been featured on Poetry Daily, and her poems and book reviews have appeared in such publications as Ploughshares, MARGIN: Exploring Modern Magical Realism, Saheb Ghalam Daily (Afghanistan), Feminist Teacher, and the Washington Post.
Mel Belin’s first book, Flesh That Was Chrysalis, was published by The Word Works, Inc. He has been a winner of Potomac Review’s third annual poetry competition, a runner-up in an Antietam Review competition, and published widely in journals and magazines nationwide. His poetry has been aired on a program distributed by National Public Radio.
Jody Bolz, the author of A Lesson in Narrative Time (Gihon Books, 2004), has published widely in literary journals (the American Scholar, Indiana Review, and Ploughshares, among them) and in many poetry anthologies. She taught for more than twenty years at George Washington University, serving twice as acting director of the creative writing program there. Bolz edits Poet Lore, America’s oldest poetry magazine, established in 1889.
Ye Chun, a native of China, has published one book of poetry: Travel Over Water (The Bitter Oleander Press).
Teri Ellen Cross holds an MFA in Poetry from American University. A Cave Canem fellow, her poems have been published in many anthologies and online. She resides in Silver Spring, Maryland.
Patricia Garfinkel has published three books of poetry, the latest, Making the Skeleton Dance (George Braziller Publishers). She has published numerous poems in literary journals and magazines, won two Poetry-in-Public-Places awards, and gave the first poetry reading ever held at the National Air and Space Museum. She is a senior science policy analyst and speech writer for the director and deputy director of the National Science Foundation.
Peter Klappert is the author of six collections of poems, including Lugging Vegetables to Nantucket (Yale Series of Younger Poets, 1971), The Idiot Princess of the Last Dynasty (Knopf, 1984), and Chokecherries: New and Selected Poems 1966-1999.
Carolyn Kreiter-Foronda, Virginia’s former Poet Laureate, is the author of five poetry books and co-editor of two poetry anthologies. Her award-winning poems have appeared throughout the United States and abroad in numerous publications, including Nimrod, Prairie Schooner, Poet Lore, and Mid-American Review. In 1992, she was named a Virginia Cultural Laureate for her contributions to American literature.
C. M. Mayo is the author of Miraculous Air: Journey of a Thousand Miles through Baja California, the Other Mexico (Milkweed Editions), and Sky Over El Nido (University of Georgia Press), which won the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction. Her poetry has been widely published in literary journals, among them, BorderSenses, Lyric, Natural Bridge, Rio Grande Review, and West Branch, and several anthologies, most recently in the first volume of Poetic Voices Without Borders. Visit: www.cmmayo.com.
Judith McCombs has published poetry and short-short fiction in Calyx, Feminist Studies, Kansas Quarterly, Nimrod (a Neruda Award), Poet Lore, Poetry, Poetry Northwest, Potomac Review (Poetry Prize), Prairie Schooner, among other publications. Her poetry books include Against Nature: Wilderness Poems and The Habit of Fire: Poems Selected & New, which was a finalist for the 2006 Milt Kessler Poetry Book Award. She teaches at the Writer’s Center in Bethesda, Maryland, and arranges the Kensington Row Bookshop Poetry Readings.
E. Ethelbert Miller, a literary activist, is board chair of the Institute for Policy Studies and a board member of the Writer’s Center and editor of Poet Lore magazine. The author of several collections of poems, his last book How We Sleep on the Nights We Don’t Make Love (Curbstone Press, 2004) was an Independent Publisher Award Finalist. He received the 1995 O.B. Hardison Jr. Poetry Prize. In 2003 his memoir Fathering Words: The Making of An African American Writer (St. Martin’s Press, 2000) was selected by DC WE READ for its one book, one city program sponsored by the D.C. Public Libraries. Poets & Writers presented him with the 2007 Barnes & Noble/Writers for Writers Award. Two books will be released in 2009: On Saturdays I Santana with You (Curbstone Press) and The 5th Inning (Busboys and Poets/PM Press), a second memoir.
Miles David Moore is a member of the board of directors of The Word Works. He is founder and host of the Iota poetry reading series in Arlington, Virginia. His books are The Bears of Paris (Word Works, 1995); Buddha Isn’t Laughing (Argonne House Press, 1999); and Rollercoaster (Word Works, 2004).
Richard Peabody is the founding editor of Gargoyle Magazine, and co-editor of the Mondo series (Mondo Barbie, Mondo Elvis, et al.). Between juggling kids, teaching, trying to write, and worrying about the state of the world, he has edited twenty-two anthologies and has five books of poetry and three books of fiction of his own. In addition, he runs Paycock Press in Arlington, Virginia. Visit: www.gargoylemagazine.com.
Kim Roberts is the author of two books of poems, The Kimnama (Vrzhu Press, 2007), and The Wishbone Galaxy (WWPH, 1994). She edits Beltway Poetry Quarterly, an on-line journal of authors from the greater Washington, DC area.
Blake Robinson’s poetry has appeared in Pairs and the one-volume Effing the Ineff and Distich Farm. He has translated works by Sandro Penna (Remember Me, God of Love), Eugène Fromentin (Between Sea and Sahara), Alberto Savinio (Paris Then) and, most recently, C. H. Ramuz (The Young Man from Savoy).
M. A. Schaffner has had poetry published in Stand (UK), the Beloit Poetry Journal, ARC (Canada), Poet Lore, the Mississippi Review, and many other journals in the USA and abroad. He is also the author of the collection, The Good Opinion of Squirrels (Word Works, 1997) and the novel, War Boys (Welcome Rain, 2002). When not writing, Schaffner works as a civil servant in Washington, DC.
Gregg Shapiro, pop-culture journalist, has had interviews and reviews appear in a variety of regional LGBT publications and websites. His poetry and fiction have appeared in numerous outlets including literary journals such as Beltway, modern words, Bloom, White Crane Journal, Blithe House Quarterly, Mipoesias, and the anthologies Sex & Chocolate: Tasty Morsels for Mind and Body (Paycock Press) and Blood to Remember. His collection of poems, Protection, was published in 2008 (Gival Press).
J. D. Smith, who was awarded a 2007 Fellowship in Poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts, is working on his third collection of poems. Visit: www.jdsmithwriter.com.
Robert L. Giron, founder of Gival Press, has written five collections of poetry and is the editor of the Poetic Voices Without Borders series and the online journal ArLiJo.com. He teaches English and creative writing at Montgomery College-Takoma Park/Silver Spring, Maryland, where he also serves as a poetry editor for Potomac Review.
More anon.
Founding editor of Gival Press, Robert L. Giron, is an amigo from my days in Washington DC, and a fellow El Pasoan, so I am especially delighted that he will be my publisher. I am even more honored, however, to know that Robert did not select Meteor for the prize; for Gival Press he runs a blindly judged contest (no names on the manuscripts), the winner chosen from a pool of finalists by the winner of the previous year's Gival Press Poetry Award. So Meteor was chosen by someone I have not yet had the privilege of meeting: Linwood D. Rumney. His book is the haunting Abandoned Earth.
