POETS in PLAY 2018-2019

Prompt: “today I wondered where I belong”

In 1985 Michael gave his first public reading of a poem he wrote. Since then he’s given hundreds of readings throughout the United States. Michael started working in schools as a poet-in-residence in 1990 and has since worked in scores of schools in numerous states around the country. From his 50 acre homestead on Wheeler Hill Michael goes out into the “dust of the world,” as the old Chinese poets would say, doing the work of a poet and oral memoirist. He travels down the road and then settles back in with his family on quiet, peaceful Wheeler Hill amongst my old-order Amish neighbors. The best of two worlds. Michael also operates Foothills Publishing from his home and is the author of several chapbooks, most recently, “There is Only this Moment.”

Prompt: “You could take the pokeweed personally.”

John Berry is a native Virginian living in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley. A self-taught woodworker and carpentry tradesman, he has been building ‘things’ since he was fifteen years old. In these latter years, his focus has turned to building relationships; with people, with Spirit, with the natural world, with poetry and with himself.

A reiki practitioner in the Usui tradition, John is volunteering at his local Hospice offering this gentle healing to those in transition. In 2017 he also graduated from a two year course of study through the Whitewinds Institute of Integrative Energy Medicine, and in the blending of these two modalities, John is practicing alongside his wife, Brenda, in their healing center, Sacred Celebrations.

John also hosts regular poetry nights in Winchester Va. at the Hideaway Café, and at the River House in Capon Bridge West Virginia as well as promoting and hosting readings for other poets. Again this year he will be hosting 100 Thousand Poets for Change in Winchester. A contributor to many fine publications including “The Sows Ear Review,” and “Peeking Cat Poetry,” John’s work has also been included in a number of anthologies including “Birdsong: a Celebration of Birds,” “Disorder,” “Trumped,” and most recently will be appearing in “Survival: A Poets Speak Anthology.” His first chapbook, “Wobbly Man,” was published in 2016 by Red Dashboard Press and his latest collection, “Medicine,” was published in 2017 by Foothills Publishing.

Prompt: “I enter on stage the world’s greatest….”

Mary A. Hood is a retired professor of microbiology whose students have become contributing members of the community of U.S. microbiologists.

Author of The Strangler Fig and Other Tales: Field Notes of a Conservationist (2004 Rowman & Littlefield), RiverTime: Ecotravels on the World’s Rivers (2008 SUNY Press), Walking Seasonal Roads (2012 Syracuse University Press), Mary has published several poetry collections, articles on conservation and the environment, and numerous scientific/technical articles in the field of microbial ecology. As a Bunting Fellow at Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, she worked at Harvard Medical School during the 80s, served as poet laureate for Pensacola, FL in the 90s and currently holds the title, Professor Emerita at the University of West Florida.

Prompt: “Dogs, when they chance to meet / on any human street, / prim pedigree or mutt / will circle nose to butt.”

Robert Darling has published two full-length collections of poetry, So Far (Pivot Press) and Gleanings (FootHills Publishing), three chapbooks of poems, Boundaries (SomersRocks), The Craftsman’s Praise (SomersRocks), and Breaking the Silence (FootHills), and a volume of criticism on the Australian poet A.D. Hope from Twayne.  He has contributed poems and reviews to well over fifty magazines, and articles in several reference books in the US, Great Britain, Canada, and Australia.  He is Professor in Humanities and Fine Arts at Keuka College, where he has hosted poetry readings for over 25 years.  He was voted Professor of the Year in 2003.

Prompt: “There isn’t one, you know—”

Philip Memmer is the author of four books of poems, most recently The Storehouses of the Snow: Psalms, Parables and Dreams (Lost Horse Press, 2012). His previous collections include Lucifer: A Hagiography, winner of the 2008 Idaho Prize for Poetry from Lost Horse Press, and Threat of Pleasure (Word Press, 2008), winner of the 2008 Adirondack Literary Award for Poetry. His poems have appeared in such journals as Poetry, Poetry Northwest, Poetry London, Southern Poetry Review, and Epoch, and in several anthologies. His work has also been featured in the Library of Congress’ Poetry 180 project, and in Ted Kooser’s American Life in Poetry syndicated column. He lives in Clinton, New York, and works as Executive Director of the Arts Branch of the YMCA of Greater Syracuse, where he founded the YMCA’s Downtown Writers Center in 2001. He also serves as Associate Editor for Tiger Bark Press.

Julio Montalvo Valentin is the author of two chapbooks, Don’t Give up the Ship and Ship Lost, with a forthcoming chapbook on Rice next year with NightBallet Press. No longer an editor and publisher, you can find him working on his next project, converting a school bus into a poetry caravan within the next year.