Charles Hood, No Writing
Contributor Notes, Issue #28
Anastasia Ananasova: Born in 1992, Riga, Latvia, lives in St. Petersburg, Russia. Linguist by education, journalist by profession, poet by worldview. Released her first collection of poems in 2021. It is called Noir-code («Нуар-код»), which is a wordplay: noir atmosphere of St. Petersburg is very special, you should have a special state of mind to understand it, and if you do, it’s your QR-code, your pass to this strange world. Before that, Anastasia participated and got prizes in many of poetical competitions and events. For example, won a publication in Triggerfish Critical Review as a Baltic poetry championship participant.
Devon Balwit sets her hand to the plough in the Pacific Northwest. Her poems can be found in The Worcester Review, The Cincinnati Review, Tampa Review, Rattle, Apt (long form issue), Tar River Poetry, Sugar House Review, Poetry South, saltfront, and Grist among others. Please visit her website at: https://pelapdx.wixsite.com/devonbalwitpoet.
Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal lives in California, works in the mental health field in Los Angeles, and writes poems and draws art on his work calendar. His poems have appeared in Blue Collar Review, Mad Swirl, and Unlikely Stories. His latest chapbook, Make the Light Mine, was published by Kendra Steiner Editions.
Joe Bisicchia writes of our shared dynamic. An Honorable Mention recipient for the Fernando Rielo XXXII World Prize for Mystical Poetry, his works have appeared in numerous publications. Commonality of humankind runs through all his work. The collection widewide.world to unwind has been published by Cyberwit. His website is www.widewide.world.
Dale Champlin, an Oregon poet with an MFA in fine art, has poems in The Opiate, Timberline Review, Pif, and elsewhere. She is the editor of /pãn| dé | mïk/ 2020: An Anthology of Pandemic Poems from the Oregon Poetry Association. Her first collection The Barbie Diaries was published in 2019 with Just a Lark Books. Callie Comes of Age was published by Cirque Press in 2021. Three collections, Leda, Isadora, and Andromina, A Stranger in America are forthcoming. Her sentient android, Andromina, protagonist of ninety-four poems, declares, “I wax magnetic as chunky biker jewelry, yet am susceptible to innuendo.”
Sue Chenette is the author of Slender Human Weight (Guernica Editions, 2009), The Bones of His Being (Guernica Editions, 2012), Clavier, Paris, Alyssum (Aeolus House, 2020) and the documentary poem What We Said (Motes Books, 2019), based on her time as a social worker during Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty. A classical pianist, poet, and editor, she grew up in northern Wisconsin and has made her home in Toronto since 1972.
Don Colburn came to poetry late, in the midst of a career as a newspaper reporter for The Washington Post and other papers. He was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Feature Writing. He has an MFA degree from Warren Wilson College. His poems have appeared widely in magazines and won the Discovery/The Nation Prize. He has published five poetry collections, including four chapbooks; all five found publication by winning or placing in national manuscript competitions. His newest chapbook, Mortality, With Pronoun Shifts, won the 2018 Cathy Smith Bowers Prize, and Hunger Mountain awarded him last year’s Ruth Stone Poetry Prize.
Ray Corvi: My work was published in the Journal of Poetry Therapy (December 2018) and is forthcoming in The Courtship of Winds, Euphony Journal, Nixes Mate Review, OPEN: Journal of Arts & Letters, Packingtown Review, Penmen Review, Plainsongs, Pennsylvania Literary Journal, and The Seattle Star. I have worked a number of odd jobs, including driving a yellow cab in New York City. I have received my bachelor’s degree in Philosophy.
Olga De is a Muscovite, a mother of many children, a laureate of the Order of Parental Glory. She graduated from the Moscow State University of Printing with a degree in Publishing and Editing. She collaborated with the publishing houses “Molodaya Gvardiya” and “Vagrius”. Published in the magazines “Foreigner”, “Youth”, “Ural”. Laureate and shortlister of the poetry competitions “Baltic Cup”, “Emigrant Lyre”, “45th parallel”. Participant of the project “Russian Bezrubezhye.
Chapman Hood Frazier’s first collection of poems, The Lost Book of the Bestiary, will appear in March from V Press LC. His work has appeared in The Virginia Quarterly Review, The Southern Poetry Review and other small press publications. He has written conversations with Contemporary American and Northern Irish poets which have appeared in The Writer’s Chronicle, Shenandoah and Agni Online and he’s been a poetry editor for the Dos Passos Review and guest editor for The Hampden Sydney Poetry Review. Currently, he is a Professor in Residence for James Madison University and lives with his wife, Deborah Carrington in Rice, VA.
Robbie Gamble divides his time between Vermont and Boston. His chapbook, A Can of Pinto Beans, came out this year from Lily Poetry Review Books. Recent poems have appeared in the Atlanta Review, Pacifica Literary Review, Spillway, and Rust + Moth. He was the winner of the 2017 Carve Poetry prize. Robbie worked for many years as a nurse practitioner caring for homeless people in the greater Boston area. You can find out more about him and his work at robbiegamble.com.
Sergey Gerasimov translated several poems in Issue #28 into English from Russian. He lives in Kharkov, Ukraine. His writings span the gamut from philosophical poetry to surrealism and tongue-in-cheek fantasy. His stories have appeared in Adbusters, Clarkesworld Magazine, Strange Horizons, and other venues. Also, he is the author of several novels and more than a hundred short stories published mostly in Russian and a translator of Russian poetry and prose.
Charles Hood has studied birds and natural history from the Amazon to Tibet, and he has seen more than five thousand species of birds in the wild. A widely published poet, he has received numerous fellowships and writing awards and is the author of A Salad Only the Devil Would Eat. Other titles include field guides to mammals and birds, and for the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County he was the lead author and photographer for the book Wild LA.
Marc Janssen lives in a house with a wife who likes him and a cat who loathes him. Regardless of that turmoil, his poetry can be found scattered around the world in places like Pinyon, Slant, Cirque Journal, Off the Coast and Poetry Salzburg. His book, November Reconsidered, was published by Cirque Press. Janssen also coordinates the Salem Poetry Project, a weekly reading, the annual Salem Poetry Festival, and was a 2020 nominee for Oregon Poet Laureate.
Paul Jones: Poems in Poetry, Red Fez, Broadkill Review, 2River View, and anthologies including Best American Erotic Poems as well as previously in Triggerfish Critical Review. Chapbook: What the Welsh and Chinese Have in Common. Book: Something Wonderful (Redhawk Publishing, November 2021). Manuscript of poems crashed on the moon in 2019. NC State Computer Science Hall of Fame, November 2021. http://smalljones.com
Debra Kaufman is the author of the poetry collections God Shattered, Delicate Thefts, The Next Moment, and A Certain Light, as well as three chapbooks, many monologues and short plays, and four full-length plays. Recent poems appeared or are forthcoming in Tar River Poetry, Cordella, The Phare, and the anthology Crossing the Rift. She recently adapted Johnny Johnson, Paul Green’s 1936 antiwar play. http://www.Debrakaufman.info
Vyarka Kozareva resides in Bulgaria. Her work has appeared in Adelaide Literary Magazine, Ariel Chart, Poetry Pacific, Basset Hound Press, Bosphorus Review of Books, Mad Swirl, Ann Arbor Review, Fevers Of The Mind, Juste Milieu Lit, Trouvaille Review, Aberration Labyrinth, and is forthcoming in Abstract: Contemporary Expressions and Sampsonia Way Magazine.
Yevgeniya Krasnoyarova was born in 1981 on the shores of the Sea of Okhotsk in the city of Magadan аnd has lived in Ukraine since 1992. Still loving the northern lands and seas she works in the Department for the protection of cultural heritage of Odessa on the Black Sea. She cannot imagine her life without books and libraries, without the steppes and the boundless sky above them. Her poems have appeared in Ukrainian and foreign literary magazines including Khreschatyk, Soborna Street, Klyap!, Palisаdnik, Deribasovskaya-Rіshеlievskaya, Debut-newspaper. She is the author of Silver Mongolfiers, Watermarks, Probability Measure, and Papyrus.
DS Maolalai has been nominated nine times for Best of the Net and five times for the Pushcart Prize. His poetry has been released in two collections, Love is Breaking Plates in the Garden (Encircle Press, 2016) and Sad Havoc Among the Birds (Turas Press, 2019)
Ron McFarland retired after 50+ years of college teaching (English), mostly at the University of Idaho. His twenty-odd books include a study of regional memoir, The Rockies in First Person (2008), Appropriating Hemingway: Using Him as a Fictional Character (2015), a biography of Brevet Lt. Col. Edward J. Steptoe and the Indian Wars, and prose and poems on angling, Professor McFarland in Reel Time (2021). His book on prolific Chicano writer Gary Soto is slated for publication in 2022 as Gary Soto: A Career in Poetry & Prose. His current projects include a book of short stories, “The World According to Wibbles,” and a collection of poems, “A Variable Sense of Things.”
Sean Murphy has appeared on NPR’s “All Things Considered” and been quoted in USA Today, The New York Times, The Huffington Post, and AdAge. A long-time columnist for PopMatters, his work has also appeared in Salon, The Village Voice, Washington City Paper, The Good Men Project, Memoir Magazine, and others. His chapbook, The Blackened Blues, was published by Finishing Line Press in July, 2021. This Kind of Man, his first collection of short fiction, is forthcoming from Unsolicited Press. He has been nominated three times for the Pushcart Prize, and twice for Best of Net. He served as writer-in-residence of the Noepe Center at Martha’s Vineyard, and is Founding Director of 1455, a non-profit literary organization (www.1455litarts.org). To learn more, and read his published short fiction, poetry, and criticism, please visit seanmurphy.net/ and @bullmurph.
Muriel Nelson’s publications include Part Song (Bear Star Press, Dorothy Brunsman Poetry Prize), Most Wanted (ByLine Press, ByLine Chapbook Award), and her book Sightsinger is forthcoming from Encircle Publications in September. Nominated five times for the Pushcart Prize, Nelson’s poems have appeared in Beloit Poetry Journal, Guesthouse, Four Way Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Hunger Mountain, New American Writing, Ploughshares, Smartish Pace, Superstition Review, and several anthologies. Two of her poems have been set to music. She holds master’s degrees from the University of Illinois School of Music and the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College.
Robert Nisbet is a Welsh poet whose work has appeared widely in Britain and the USA. He won the Prole Pamphlet Competition in 2017 with Robeson, Fitzgerald and Other Heroes. In the USA he has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize four times in the last three years.
Paul Pruitt: “Driving at Dawn, 1970” is a poem derived from the re-imagined experiences of my youth, when I made the titular commute several times. “Driving at Dawn, 1970” is a poem derived from the re-imagined experiences of my youth, when I made the titular commute several times. “The Storyteller” and “Dream Grandparents” are from a series of poems that I’ve called “Scenes from Childhood,” inspired in concept by Robert Schumann’s piano music. I’ve most recently published in the Birmingham Arts Journal and The Dillydoun Review.
Zeke Sanchez is a writer/poet living in Tennessee. He won in-house competitions in The Critical Poet and has been published here in Triggerfish. His poetry may at times reflect his background: migrant worker, forest firefighter, Vietnam veteran, technical writer. The Shadows of Our Mind, a book of photography, done with professional photographer Doug Stoffer, contains a number of Zeke’s poems. He’s also published The Fire With Two Dragon Smokes, a book about his experiences with a “Hotshot” Forest Crew in the Northwest and beyond.
Carla Schwartz: Filmmaker and photographer Carla Schwartz’s poems have been widely published, including in The Practicing Poet (Diane Lockward, Ed) and in her collections Signs of Marriage and Intimacy with the Wind. Her CB99videos youtube channel has 2,400,000+ views. Find her at carlapoet.com, wakewiththesun.blogspot.com, or on Twitter, or Instagram @cb99videos. Recent publications appear in The Ear, Channel, The MacGuffin, and Leon.
Claire Scott is an award winning poet who has received multiple Pushcart Prize nominations. Her work has appeared in the Atlanta Review, Bellevue Literary Review, New Ohio Review, Enizagam and Healing Muse among others. Claire is the author of Waiting to be Called and Until I Couldn’t. She is the co-author of Unfolding in Light: A Sisters’ Journey in Photography and Poetry.
Kevin Swanwick: I am a Hudson Valley poet, having lived along its highland ridges for many years. The mountains, rivers, creeks and grasslands inform my writing as do family relationships. After working for many years in software startups, I have retired to devote myself to poetry, a life-long desire. Some earlier work has appeared in Chronogram, Hip-Pocket Press (Canary) and Prometheus Dreaming with further work pending publication in Spring 2022.
Johnny T. lives in the Pacific Northwest teaching writing in rural communities and working towards an MFA from University of Texas El Paso. When they can find the time Johnny likes to get lost in the mountains looking at mushrooms and talking to trees. Work by Taylor has won the Mikrokosmos Journal 2020 fiction contest and has appeared in West Trade Review, Allegory Ridge, Cardinal Sins, and more.
Alexey Tarasov was born in 1981 in Moscow, where he currently lives. Alexey is a mathematician by education and oil reservoir engineer by profession. Married, has two children. Alexey has been writing poetry since 2006, he is the winner of several Russian poetry awards. In his free time he enjoys traveling, skiing and cycling. Alexey’s favorite writer is Erich Maria Remarque.
Don Thompson has been publishing poetry for over fifty years, including a dozen or so books and chapbooks. A San Joaquin Almanac won the Eric Hoffer Award for 2021 in the chapbook category. For more info and links to publishers, visit his website at www.don-e-thompson.com
John Tustin is currently suffering in exile on the island of Elba but hopes to return to you soon. fritzware.com/johntustinpoetry contains links to his published poetry online.
Dick Westheimer has—with his wife and writing companion Debbie—lived on their plot of land in rural southwest Ohio for over 40 years. His most recent poems have appeared or are upcoming in Rattle, Paterson Review, Chautauqua Review, RiseUp Review, Minyan, Gyroscope Review, and Cutthroat. More can be found at dickwestheimer.com.