Poet Talk on WMUA

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.

Ted Pearson

In a career spanning six decades, Ted Pearson has published thirty-two books of poetry, most recently Epistrophy and Trilogy. He also co-authored The Grand Piano, a ten-volume experiment in collective autobiography; edited Epilogue, a posthumous edition of Craig Watson’s last poems, and co-edited Bobweaving Detroit: The Selected Poems of Murray Jackson. His work has appeared in Canada, England, France, Spain, and India.  Ted was born and raised on the San Francisco peninsula, a seventh generation Californian. His musical education began in 1960. His first sa teacher was Lee Konitz. In 1964, he began writing poetry at the suggestion of Paul Desmond, a family friend. He subsequently attended Vandercook College of Music, Foothill College, and San Francisco State University.   His first book appeared in 1976, when he began his life-long association with the San Francisco Language Poets. He has been a visiting lecturer in poetics at Cornell University, and has taught Composition and Rhetoric at Wayne State University and the University of Redlands. He now lives in Northampton.

Robin Barber

Born 1947 in Northampton, Robin Barber, M.A., is a writer, teacher, and photographer.He loves writing workshops--first joined Pat Schneider's workshop in 1987, then Gene Zeiger's, then Carol Edelstein's from 1994 to the present. Certified by Amherst Writers and Artists leadership program,  he's been leading the Wednesday evening and Monday morning workshops since 1997. In 2010, Robin helped Carol Edelstein ( they're married ) establish non-profit Gallery of Readers Press, using a small annual grant and donations to fund Carol's reading series with 18 writers each season, a website with many resources, and the publication of 21 books. Find out more at www.galleryofreaders.org

J.K. Lawson

JK Lawson is a visual artist and poet. Over the past 30 years his work has been exhibited extensively throughout the USA including the American Visionary Museum in Baltimore, the Californian African American Museum in Los Angelos, Ogden Museum of Southern Art, Time and Space Limited, Hudson, NY and currently at the New England Visionary Arts museum, in Northanpton, Ma. He is the author of seven books, including Zombie Love, his third collection of poems in the Some Guy Upstairs Trilogy. His novel, Hurricane Hotel, set at the Audubon Hotel in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, has been successfully adapted for the theater with several staged readings both in the USA and UK. JK helped establish a poets/songwriter residency at the Rame Center for the Arts in Cornwall, U.K. and along with the poet Jane Ormerod, hosts the Galerie of Poetic Autopsies. A monthly gathering of poets, songwriters, and other undisrables, held at the Park Theatre in Hudson, NY. He is the recipient of both the Mass Individual Grant and the Berkshire Taconic grant and currently lives in Sheffield,Ma with his wife and son and 16-year-old puppy ,Sunshine. For more information, please visit www.lawsonworks.com or follow him on social media.