Yes, Poetry

The December issue is now online for a free download here!

Contributor’s Notes

Charles Bassey lives in Abuja, Nigeria, where he works full-time with a financial services regulatory agency and writes part-time. As a creative writer with the sociological imagination, he stares at life actively and reflects on human existence and emotions through poetry, essay and creative fiction. His poetry has appeared in an anthology and on the internet. As a life traveller as well as a path follower who believes in parenting as a child, he envisions a world of radiant people living their best. He is a member of Abuja Literary Society.

Kory Beach is an undergraduate student at Colgate University; he is 18 years old and previously unpublished. He writes and reads frequently and hopes to one day be a well-known poet.

Les Bernstein has been published in the California Poetry Society Quarterlies, The Marin Poetry Center Anthologies, and other small presses. His chapbook, Borderland, was published by Finishing Line Press. He lives in Mill Valley, California with his very large and boisterous family

Ann Cummings, who lives in Florida, has had work published previously in a few select religious magazines. This is her first attempt at submitting to a secular magazine.

For about a year, writing has come to her as poetry. Brevity appeals to her now, packing the most into a few words. Briefly, her life experience has included motorcycle riding, mountain climbing, and other sports. Married twice, now widowed, she has one daughter.

Andrew P. Dillon received his bachelor’s of arts in English from the University of Tennessee. He has been published in Phoenix Literary Arts Magazine of the University of Tennessee, and Siren and Tourist, both of Knoxville, Tennessee. He writes poetry and short fiction, but not as often as he discusses music with his father, attempts to become fluent in Korean, and plays soccer. He strongly supports the use of semi-colons, dashes, and the serial comma. He can be reached at andrewpdillon@gmail.com

Casey Francis is currently pursuing a graduate degree in English at New Mexico Highlands University, but he’s desperate to get back to the humid summers and frigid winters of the Midwest. He has published or has work forthcoming in Boston Literary Magazine, Red River Review, Verse Wisconsin, and the Blog for Rural America (www.cfra.org/blog).

Will Greenway’s tenth collection, Everywhere at Once, won the Poetry Book of the Year Award from the Ohio Library Association, as did his eighth collection Ascending Order. Both are from the University of Akron Press Poetry Series. His publications include Poetry, American Poetry Review, Southern Review, Georgia Review, Missouri Review, Southern Poetry Review, Prairie Schooner, Poetry Northwest, and Shenandoah. He is currently Distinguished Professor of English at Youngstown State University.

John Grey is an Australian born poet, US resident since late seventies. Works as

financial systems analyst. Recently published in Poem. Kestrel and Writer’s Bloc with work upcoming in Caveat Lector, Prism International, and the Cider Press Review.

John Grochalski’s poems and stories have appeared in several journals including The Lilliput Review, Underground Voices, Zygote In My Coffee, The Big Stupid Review, and Bartleby Snopes. Grochalski is the author of two books of poems The Noose Doesn’t Get Any Looser After You Punch Out (Six Gallery Press 2008) and Glass City (Low Ghost Press, 2010). Grochalski currently lives in Brooklyn, New York, where he constantly worries about the high cost of everything.

Born in Windsor, Ontario in 1960,Gregory Gunn grew up in small towns before settling in London in 1970. A graduate of Fanshawe College in 1982 as an electronics technician, he has worked in that field ever since. Mr. Gunn began writing during his tenure at Fanshawe and has done so for over thirty years. He is most passionate about poetry.

Some of his credits include: Cyclamens & Swords, The Toronto Quarterly, Glimpse Magazine, Ascent Aspirations, Butterflies Are Free To Fly, Carcinogenic, Psychopoetica, Afterthoughts, Ditch Magazine, One Earth, and myriad others. His other interests comprise music, astronomy, foreign languages, psychology, gardening, photography, and philosophy.

Joe Massingham was born in the UK but has lived the second half of his life in Australia. Major employment has been as a Navy officer, university student from first degree to PhD, tutor, lecturer and Master of Wright College, University of New England, NSW. Has run his own writing and editing business but retired early because of cancer and heart problems and now spends time waiting to see medical practitioners, writing poetry and prose and smelling the roses.He has had work published in Australia, UK, Eire, USA ,NZ and India.

Jeffrey Park is a native of Baltimore, Maryland. He has been a movie theater manager, an IT specialist and a middle school English teacher. He currently lives in Munich, Germany where he works as an educator in a private secondary school and teaches business English to adults.

Vincent Renstrom lives with his wife and daughter in Middletown, Ohio. He received his Ph.D. in Hispanic Literature from Indiana University in 1996 and spent a decade chasing that elusive tenure-track position before packing it in in 2006 to become a full-time househusband and stay-at-home Dad. He is one lucky son-of-a-gun. Since 2008 his poems have appeared in MARGIE/The American Journal of Poetry, Vol. 7, as well as in the online journals Alba, The Centrifugal Eye, Silenced Press, Slow Trains, and Tertulia.

Doris Shores, a New Yorker, has been a college-level English teacher, a pharmaceutical-advertising copywriter, and a freelance editor. Her earlier publications were feature articles, mostly in newspapers. More recently, a poem and an essay of hers appeared in 14th Street Gold.

Alyssa Grace Sorresso is a post grad student in London, studying for an MA in Applied Theatre. She ran away from her home in Chicago only to discover that she likes writing and making videos much more, and laughs about it sometimes. You can find more of her writing and videos at www.tactlessgrace.com, and follow her on twitter at tactless_grace.

M. G. Stephens has published eighteen books, including the novel The Brooklyn Book of the Dead (“a great, great book,” says Roddy Doyle) and the essay collection Green Dreams, which Joyce Carol Oates picked as one of the notable nonfiction books of the 20th century in Best American Essays of the Century.

Patrice M. Wilson’s poetry has been published by the Journal of New Jersey Poets, Nimrod, Barbaric Yawp , Hawai‘i Review, Hawai‘i Pacific Review, Byline, and Common Ground among others, and is forthcoming in Eclipse. She has three chapbooks by Finishing Line Press, On Neither Side (2009), When All Else Falters (2003) and A Different Current (2011). Her ancestors are African-American, Tsalagi (Cherokee), and Irish. She is an assistant professor of English at Hawai‘i Pacific University.

Amos Jasper Wright is a native of Birmingham, Alabama. After two years drifting hand-to-mouth in Boston, he returned to Birmingham and recently completed a master’s in English at the University of Alabama, Birmingham. Upon realization that he must work for a living, and after acquiring experience in architecture and planning, he applied and was accepted to Tufts University, where he will enroll in the fall of 2011 to begin a master’s degree in urban planning. He has high hopes that two master’s degrees will equal a PhD.

Editor Biographies

Joanna C. Valente is a MFA candidate in Poetry Writing at Sarah Lawrence College. She is also a part-time mermaid. More can be found at her website: http://joannavalente.com

Stephanie Valente lives and writes in New York. Her work has appeared in Italics Mine and other journals. She is currently working on a collection of short stories and as always, poetry. She enjoys candlelit smiles and diamond cut laughter. One day, she would like to become a silent film star. Her favorite desserts are crème brûlée and strawberry-rhubarb pie. She can be found at: kitschy.tumblr.com.

G. Taylor Davis, Jr is from the Milky Way.