Born in California’s Mojave Desert, poet Forrest Gander grew up in Virginia and attended the College of William & Mary, where he majored in geology. After earning an MA in literature from San Francisco State University, Gander moved to Mexico, then to Arkansas, where his poetry—informed by his knowledge of geology—turned its attention to landscape as foreground or source of action.

Gander’s books of poetry include Twice Alive (2021), Be With (2018), which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, Eye Against Eye (2005), Torn Awake (2001), and Science & Steepleflower (1998).

Source: PoetryFoundation.org

Poet Dana Levin grew up in California’s Mojave Desert and earned a BA from Pitzer College and an MA from New York University. Her collections of poetry include Banana Palace (2016), Sky Burial (2011), Wedding Day (2005), and In the Surgical Theatre (1999). Selecting Levin’s manuscript for the American Poetry Review/Honickman First Book Prize, Louise Glück praised the work as “sensuous, compassionate, violent, extravagant.” In the Surgical Theatre also won the John C. Zacharis First Book Award from Ploughshares, the Witter Bynner Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the PEN/Osterweil Award.

Source: PoetryFoundation.org

Sanchez is the author of over twenty volumes of poetry, including Collected Poems (Beacon Press, 2021); Morning Haiku (Beacon Press, 2010); Shake Loose My Skin: New and Selected Poems (Beacon Press, 1999); Does your house have lions? (Beacon Press, 1995), which was nominated for both the NAACP Image and National Book Critics Circle Award; Homegirls & Handgrenades (White Pine Press, 1984), which won an American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation; I’ve Been a Woman: New and Selected Poems (Third World Press, 1978); A Blues Book for Blue Black Magical Women (Broadside Press, 1973); Love Poems (Third Press, 1973); We a BaddDDD People (Broadside Press, 1970); and Homecoming (Broadside Press, 1969).

Source: Poets.org

Ada Limón became the 24th Poet Laureate of the United States in July of 2022. Limón is the author of the poetry collections The Hurting Kind (2022, Milkweed Editions); The Carrying (2018, Milkweed Editions), Bright Dead Things (2015, Milkweed Editions), Sharks in the Rivers (2010, Milkweed Editions); Lucky Wreck (2005, Autumn House Press, reissued 2021); and This Big Fake World (2005, Pearl Editions).

Limón earned an MFA from New York University and is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center, and the Kentucky Foundation for Women. Her work has appeared in numerous publications, including the New Yorker, Harvard Review, Pleiades, and Barrow Street.

Source: PoetryFoundation.org

Linda Gregerson earned a BA from Oberlin College, an MA from Northwestern University, an MFA from the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and a Ph.D. from Stanford University. She is the author of several collections of poetry, including Prodigal: New and Selected Poems, 1976–2014, The Selvage (2012), Waterborne (2002), and The Woman Who Died in Her Sleep (1996). A Renaissance scholar, a classically trained actor, and a devotee of the sciences, Gregerson produces lyrical poems informed by her expansive reading that are inquisitive, unflinching, and tender.

In 2015, she was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. She teaches at the University of Michigan.

Source: PoetryFoundation.org

David A. Romero is a Mexican-American spoken word artist from Diamond Bar, CA. Romero is the author of My Name Is Romero (FlowerSong Press). Romero has received honorariums from over seventy-five colleges and universities in thirty-three different states in the USA. Romero was a guest for the inaugural Elba Poetry Festival in Tuscany, Italy, and has featured for Paris Lit Up in Paris, France. Romero's work has been published in literary magazines in the United States, England, and Canada.

Romero has won the Uptown Slam at the historic Green Mill in Chicago; the birthplace of slam poetry. Romero's poetry deals with family, identity, social justice issues, and Latinx culture.

Source: DavidRomero.com

Nathan is a poet, editor, and educator living in Amherst, Massachusetts. He is the author of Scale (Four Way Books, 2017) and Previously Owned (Four Way Books, 2022). He is Assistant Professor of Creative Writing and African American Literary Arts at Hampshire College, and serves as Poetry Editor of The Massachusetts Review.

Source: NathanMcClain.com

Michael Kleber-Diggs (KLEE-burr digs) (he / him / his) is a poet, essayist, literary critic, and arts educator. His debut poetry collection, Worldly Things (Milkweed Editions 2021), won the Max Ritvo Poetry Prize, the 2022 Hefner Heitz Kansas Book Award in Poetry, and was a finalist for the 2022 Minnesota Book Award. His poems and essays appear in numerous journals and anthologies. Michael is married to Karen Kleber-Diggs, a tropical horticulturist and orchid specialist. Karen and Michael have a daughter who is pursuing a BFA in Dance Performance at SUNY Purchase.

Source: MichaelKleber-Diggs.com

Aurielle Marie is a Black and queer poet, essayist, and cultural strategist from the South. Their debut collection, Gumbo Ya Ya (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2021), won the Cave Canem Poetry Prize.

Co-founder of the grassroots community-led political coalition It’s Bigger Than You, and strong cultural strategist for organizations on the frontlines of abolition, demilitarization, and anti-racism/anti-policing efforts, Aurielle is also a powerful public speaker, facilitator, and multi-modal performance artist.

Source: PoetryFoundation.org

Tanya (Hyonhye) Ko Hong is a bilingual Korean American poet and translator. She has an MFA in poetry from Antioch University.

Tanya is the author of four poetry collections, most recently The War Still Within: Poems of the Korean Diaspora (KYSO Flash Press, 2019), written primarily in English. Before that, she published Mother to Myself (Prunsasang Press, 2015) in Korean, Yellow Flowers on a Rainy Day (Oma Books of the Pacific, 2003) in English, and Generation One Point Five (Esprit Books, 1993) in Korean with English translations. Her poetry appears in Rattle, Beloit Poetry Journal, Entropy, Cultural Weekly, WSQ: Women’s Studies Quarterly (published by The Feminist Press), the Choson Ilbo, The Korea Times, and the Aeolian Harp Series Anthology, among others.

Source: TanyaKoHong.com