J.K. Lawson

Kevin Carberry & Ellen Miller-Mack

Kevin & Ellen read from Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass : the first 25 "cantos", in honor of its publication on 4July 1855. Walt Whitman is America’s world poet—a latter-day successor to Homer, Virgil, Dante, and Shakespeare. In Leaves of Grass (1855, 1891-2), he celebrated democracy, nature, love, and friendship. This monumental work chanted praises to the body as well as to the soul, and found beauty and reassurance even in death. Along with Emily Dickinson [http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poets/detail/emily-dickinson], Whitman is regarded as one of America’s most significant 19th-century poets and would influence later many poets, including Ezra Pound [https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/ezra-pound], William Carlos Williams [https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/william-carlos-williams], Allen Ginsberg [https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/allen-ginsberg], Simon Ortiz [https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/simon-j-ortiz], C.K. Williams [https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/c-k-williams], and Martín Espada [https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/martin-espada]. from The Poetry Foundation

Lesle Lewis

Lesle Lewis is the author of six poetry collections:  Small Boat  (2003), Landscapes I & II (2006),  lie down too (2011), A Boot’s a Boot (2014),  Rainy Days on the Farm (2019), John’s Table (2026) and the chapbooks,  It’s Rothko in Winter or Belgium  (2012), and Hydrogen (2025).  A new book, Survival of the Fittest Pronoun, is due out this fall.  She graduated from the UMass MFA program in 1995 .   She lives in the New Hampshire woods.

Carol Edelstein

Carol Edelstein, with Robin Barber, co-founded Gallery of Readers Press. With Liz George, she edits Switch, a journal of micro fiction. She is the author of three books of poems, most recently Past Repair (Simian Press, 2021). Her poetry and fiction have been featured in numerous anthologies and literary magazines, including The Massachusetts Review, The Georgia Review, and Alaska Quarterly Review. Her collection titled 73 very short stories will appear in the fall.

Samantha Pious

Samantha Pious translates women's poetry, especially sapphic women's poetry. Her aim is to contribute to a canon—or canons—of our own. So far, she has translated the selected poems of Renée Vivien, Natalie Barney, and Judith Teixeira. Her translations of Teixeira have been shortlisted for a Lambda Literary Award and for a Golden Crown Literary Award. She has also translated A Lover and His Lady: One Hundred Ballades, by Christine de Pizan, which is forthcoming with The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe: The Toronto Series through Iter Press. A volume of her original poems, Sappho Is Dead, is available through Headmistress Press.

Amy Gordon

Amy Gordon's poems have appeared in Antiques Magazine, The Amsterdam Review,  Ekphrastic Review, The Massachusetts Review, and other journals. She is the author of three chapbooks: Deep Fahrenheit (Prolific Press) and The Yellow Room (Finishing Line Press).  Leaf Town is the winner of the 2023 Slate Roof Press Elyse Wolf Chapbook Prize. Before turning to poetry, she wrote and published primarily for young readers. She taught drama at the Bement School for almost forty years and now she runs an after-school theater program for the elementary school kids in Gill.