Meet Our Poets ~ Profiles A
Janet Aalfs
Janet E. Aalfs, former poet laureate of Northampton, Massachusetts, weaves poetry and interpretive dance from traditional ancient movement arts in performing, teaching, and social justice activism locally, nationally and internationally. A 7th degree black belt and healing arts instructor, she has been the artistic director of Valley Women’s Martial Arts: Institute for Healing and Violence-Prevention Strategies since 1982. Recipient of an MFA in poetry from Sarah Lawrence College, Aalfs has performed and facilitated workshops at numerous events. She was a Dodge Festival Poet in 2008, and in 2009 traveled to South Africa as a member of a diverse performing artist teaching exchange that worked with youth in the townships. She received the 2013 Leadership and Advocacy in the Arts Award from the Center for Women and Community at UMass/ Amherst. Aalfs' most recent collection of poems is Bird of a Thousand Eyes (Levellers Press). Other books include Reach (Perugia); Full Open (Orogeny); Of Angels and Survivors (Two Herons); Lubec Tides, a finalist in the 2007 Bright Hill Literary Center Chapbook Contest; Red, and several self-published chapbooks. Her writing has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies including A Fierce Brightness: 25 Years of Women’s Poetry (Calyx Books). She won first prize in poetry contests of the Boston Herald and Peregrine Journal, and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Read.
David Adès
David Adès
David Adès is an Australian poet who has been living in Pittsburgh since 2011. He has been a member of Friendly Street Poets since 1979. His collection, Mapping the World, was commended for the Anne Elder Award 2008. His poetry is widely published and has recently been anthologised in Australian Love Poems, The Stars Like Sand: Australian Speculative Poetry, APoems 2013, Volume 2 of the Australian Poetry Members’ Anthology and Volume 3 of the Australian Poetry Members' Anthology 2014. David was recently awarded the University of Canberra Vice-Chancellor’s International Poetry Prize 2014 for his poem “Dazzled," and shortlisted for the Newcastle Poetry Prize 2014. Read.
Kelli Russell Agodon
Kelli Russell Agodon is the author of Letters from the Emily Dickinson Room (White Pine Press, 2010), winner of the ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year Prize in Poetry and a finalist for the Washington State Book Awards. She is also the author of Small Knots (2004) and the chapbook, Geography. Recently she co-edited the first eBook anthology of contemporary women’s poetry, Fire On Her Tongue. She is the editor of Seattle’s literary journal, Crab Creek Review and the co-founder of Two Sylvias Press. She recently had her third book of poems, Hourglass Museum, accepted for publication by White Pine Press and is currently working on a memoir entitled Retreat. She lives in Washington State where she is a mountain biker, paddle boarder, and kayaker. She can be found on Facebook and on her blog, Book of Kells. Read.
Naki Akrobettoe
Naki Akrobettoe was born and raised in Columbus, Ohio. She is the grand-daughter of an American coal miner and through her father's lineage heir of a Ghanaian royal chief. She started writing poetry as early as grade school and went on to attended The University of Toledo in 2002, where she developed as a spoken word artist. She has co-founded a number of organizations related to poetry, and has co--hosted a radio program. Her first album (Penstrokes) was released In May 2010 with her first single entitled “Black Is." Her most recent album, A Timeless Miracle, is set to be released in the fall of 2014. She maintains a website at NakiSpeaks, and invites your visit. Read.
John Alwyine-Mosely
John Alwyine-Mosely lives in Bristol, UK and writes for the fun of writing rather than for the fame of publishing. His fiction on his fiction blog ranges from twitter post card stories to flash fiction and his poetry on his poetry blog dips in and out of forms and themes while both refusing to fit on genre hooks. He was successful at being failed by his schooling but got himself educated way beyond useful—MSc and such like—in his thirties after a decade that will keep him in happy memories until his dotage. He has a newly acquired Diploma in Literature and Creative writing and a background in improvised storytelling. When no one is looking he reflects on living right in the world from a Quaker perspective. Read.
Rowyda Amin
Rowyda Amin was born in Newfoundland, has lived in Riyadh and London, and is now based in Connecticut in the US. Rowyda won first prize in the 2012 Venture Award for poetry chapbooks from Flipped Eye Press. In 2009, she was awarded the Wasafiri New Writing Prize for poetry. Rowyda has performed at many UK venues including the 2011 Ledbury Poetry Festival, the Brighton Festival, the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Royal Festival Hall. Her poems have appeared in several magazines, including Poetry Review, Magma and Wasafiri, and in the anthologies Ten (Bloodaxe Books 2010), Bird Book : Towns, Parks, Gardens and Woodland, (Sidekick Books, 2011), Lung Jazz: Young British Poets for Oxfam (Cinnamon Press, 2012), Coin Opera (Sidekick Books, 2009) and Exposure (Cinnamon Press, 2010). She has reviewed books for Modern Poetry in Translation, the Poetry Book Society website and drfulminare.com and is currently a guest editor at Toe Good Poetry. She maintains a website at www.rowyda.com, and invites your visit. Read.
Ramesh Anand
Ramesh Anand is the author of Newborn Smiles (CyberWit.Net, 2012), finalist of the Muse India Young Writer of the Year Prize in the open category. He is an award winning haiku poet, winner of Akita Sakigake Shimpo President Award, 2014 and Dr. Sandeep Chauhan Commendable Haiku Prize, 2013. His haiku was honored in the International Matsuo Bashō Award, 2014. One of his haiku was shortlisted out of 400 entries and currently displayed in flower beds around the Golden Triangle neighborhood in Washington by Golden Triangle BID. His haiku are regularly published in esteemed print journals including Frogpond, Modern Haiku, Bottle Rockets and Acorn, as well as e-journals such as A Hundred Gourds, The Heron's Nest and Cattails. His works have been published in various anthologies including Award-winning Haiku 21 anthology, Basho Anthology 2014, Contemporary World Haiku: A Vast Sky, Lifting The Sky, and The Temple Bell Stops. His tanka, haiga and senryu are published regularly in tinywords, Atlast Poetica, Chrysanthemum and DailyHaiga. He lives in Bangalore, India where he is an engineer for Philips Healthcare. He maintains a blog, and welcomes your visit. Read.
Marilyn Annucci
Marilyn Annucci’s poems have appeared in a variety of journals, and she is the author of two chapbooks: Waiting Room, which won the 2012 Sunken Garden Poetry Award (Hill-Stead Museum, 2012), and Luck (Parallel Press, 2000). Also, her book The Arrows That Choose Us (due out in spring, 2018) recently won the Press 53 Poetry Award. Marilyn has been involved in a number of poetry projects with visual artists, and she very much enjoys working on her own photography. Originally from New England, she has been living in Madison, Wisconsin, for the last twenty years and teaches at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. Read.
Marie Anzalone
Marie Anzalone is a poet currently splitting her time between residences in the United States and Latin America. Originally from Appalachian Pennsylvania, she spent her early years studying ecology and nature first-hand in the woods around her home. Her life was changed forever by her time spent as a Peace Corps volunteer living and working among the Maya Indians of rural Guatemala, later returning to work more with them over the span of a decade. She is an artist, scientist, writer, master's degree student, and start-up director of an international organization. She has been published in human rights studies, scientific journals, and poetry anthologies. She writes fiction and non-fiction in both English and Spanish, and attempts to bridge the gap between real world influence and the individual's inner journey to find spirit and meaning. Her current professional project is a collaborative effort to create a trilingual work that combines words, photos, and artwork to tell the story of the Mayan's struggle to adapt the modern social, economic, and climate change pressures. Read.
Hank Archer
Hank Archer is a journalist by trade and paper media diehard. He has only recently begun writing poetry and pursuing publication on line. He takes inspiration from every aspect of the human experience but tends to favor the romantic and melancholic. Follow this Canadian writer on twitter @HANKarcher or read more at HankArcher, his blog at wordpress. Read.
Narendra Kumar Arya
Narendra Kumar Arya was born and educated in Varanasi, India. He is a graduate of Banaras Hindu University there, where he received degrees in political science and later, a PhD specializing in the the politics of globalization. He taught as an assistant professor for nearly a decade before becoming a sales professional. Still, he finds his solace in books, photography, sketching, and, of course, writing poetry. His work has appeared in a number of online and print magazines, including Camel Saloon (2012, 2013), EWR (2010, 2011), Dark Snakes (2011), Raven (2011), All Poetry (2010), Atom (2011), Vaak (2013), Sliver Line (2013), Asmita (2014), Dust (2012), Hans (2010, 2011), People’s Street, (2012), and Second Hump, (2014). His poetry, he states, is often an attempt to find a "systemic equilibrium in the face of the destruction and annihilation of the individual, society, and mankind.” Read.