Six Poets Recite (Maddy Robinson, George Yatchisin, Mara Scrupe, Karin Krieger, Yael Valencia Aldana, Rachel Richmond)

What is light, really// not as noun// or object// but as undoing// light// untangling rivers// easing into water//…

Excerpt from light// [verb]

Maddy Robinson is a writer from the Rocky Mountains. She writes in many genres, including short stories, news articles, and travel impressions. Her creative work has been featured on CBC Books, Ember Chasm Review, and elsewhere. She interviews writers for Calgary’s monthly literary radio feature.

Damned if it’s dawn or dusk, the sun
reflecting like a quarter wobbled on…

Excerpt from Gathering Light at a Ferry Stop, Jesolo, Italy

George Yatchisin is the author of Feast Days (Flutter Press 2016) and The First Night We Thought the World Would End (Brandenburg Press 2019). His poems have been published in journals including Antioch Review, Askew, and Zocalo Public Square. He is co-editor of the anthology Rare Feathers: Poems on Birds & Art (Gunpowder Press 2015), and his poetry appears in anthologies including Reel Verse: Poems About the Movies (Everyman’s Library 2019).

were I eagle red tail hawk or any kind
of raptor/ from the Latin rapio..

Excerpt from a brief history of birds of prey she said

Mara Adamitz Scrupe is a writer, visual artist, and documentary filmmaker. She has authored six prizewinning poetry collections and received numerous creative grants and fellowships. Twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize, her poems have been published in national and international literary magazines and have won or been shortlisted/ nominated for Bridport Prize (UK), Canterbury International Arts Festival Poet of the Year (UK), Forward Prize for Poetry (UK), Rubery Book Award (UK), Brighthorse Poetry Book Prize (USA), Fish Prize (Ireland), Aesthetica Award (UK), erbacce-press Poetry Book Prize (UK), Plough Prize (UK), Periplum Book Award (UK), Cornwall Festival Competition (UK), Canberra Vice-Chancellor’s Award, (Australia), and National Poetry Competition (UK), among others. Her poetry and essays have been published worldwide in literary journals and arts periodicals and her environmental installations, sculptures and artist books are held in the collections of international museums and sculpture parks. Mara co-directs Low Rent Pictures, an independent film company producing documentaries about rural America. She serves concurrently as Lance Williams Resident Artist in the Arts & Sciences, University of Kansas/ Lawrence, and Dean and Professor Emerita, University of the Arts/ Philadelphia. Mara lives with her husband on their farm bordering the James River in the Blue Ridge Mountains countryside of Virginia. https://www.facebook.com/mara.scrupe https://www.instagram.com/marascrupe/

standing Yakshi female nature spirit
mature spirited buxom
goddess, dispensing coins…

Excerpt from MET

Karin Falcone Krieger is a writer, visual artist, master gardener, personal chef and social justice warrior. Her recent reviews, interviews, journalism, poetry and essays have been published in Tupelo Quarterly, Tofu Ink Arts Press, LITPUB, Newsday, Contingent Magazine, BlazeVOX, The Laurel Review, and other publications. She composes poems made to order in public spaces on a 100 year old typewriter, and produced the pop-up zine artICHOKE. She is an alumna of SUNY Stony Brook and The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University. She taught freshman composition as an adjunct instructor at several New York area colleges from 1999-2019. Links and other projects can be seen at www.karinfalconekrieger.com

I could not imagine that such a creature
could be caught. I could not imagine…

Excerpt from Hammer Head

Yael Aldana is a Caribbean Afro-Latinx writer and poet. Yael and her mother and her mother’s mother and so on are descendants of the indigenous people of modern-day Colombia. She earned her MFA in creative writing from Florida International University (FIU). Her work has appeared or is upcoming in Typehouse, The Florida Book Review, South Florida Poetry Journal, Scapegoat Review, Antithesis Blog, and Slag Glass City, among others. She teaches creative writing at FIU, and she lives in South Florida with her son and too many pets.
You can find her online at YaelAldana.com, on Instagram at @Yaelwrites, and on Twitter @ Yaelwrites71.

Ever since I learned (from a swingset and a car crash) that death
is an eternal passenger in each car we drive, every time I see cardinals…

Excerpt from cardinals (they come in pairs)

Rachel Richmond is a senior at Hollins University majoring in English. She is an editor for Gravel magazine, and spends her time writing and spending time with her dogs. Her work has been seen in American High School Poets: Just Poetry anthology, as well as a Hollins University anthology about mental health. She writes as a form of healing, as well as as a passion.