Poet of the Week

Dick Westheimer lives in rural southwest Ohio with his wife and writing companion, Debbie. He is winner of the 2023 Joy Harjo Poetry Prize and a Rattle Poetry Prize finalist. His poems have appeared in Whale Road Review, Rattle, Abandon Journal, Sugar House Review and Minyan. His chapbook, A Sword in Both Hands, Poems Responding to Russia’s War on Ukraine, is published by SheilaNaGig.

Maya C. Popa is the author of Wound is the Origin of Wonder (Norton) and American Faith (Sarabande). Her newsletter, Poetry Today, is one of Substack’s bestselling literature publications. The poetry reviews editor at Publishers Weekly, she teaches at NYU and runs Conscious Writers Collective, a year-round online literary platform and community for dedicated writers.

sterling-elizabeth arcadia (she/they) is a Best of the Net winning trans writer and lover of birds, cats, her friends, and going to the movies, living in Philadelphia. Her work has also been nominated for Best Small Fictions and the Pushcart Prize, and has appeared in venues including HAD, poetry.onl, New Delta Review, and the lickety~split. Their chapbook, Heaven, Ekphrasis, is available now from Kith Books.

Kinsale Drake (Diné) is a winner of the 2023 National Poetry Series for her debut poetry collection THE SKY WAS ONCE A DARK BLANKET (University of Georgia Press, 2024). Her work has appeared in Poetry, Poets.org, Best New Poets, Black Warrior Review, Nylon, Teen Vogue, and elsewhere. She is the director of NDN Girls Book Club, a literary nonprofit for Indigenous peoples.

Amorak Huey is author of four books of poems including Dad Jokes from Late in the Patriarchy (Sundress, 2021). Co-founder with Han VanderHart of River River Books, Huey teaches at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. He also is co-author with W. Todd Kaneko of the textbook Poetry: A Writer’s Guide and Anthology (Bloomsbury, 2024).

Aimee Wai is an Austin-based writer who once forgot she liked to write and then remembered. She grew up in the Rocky Mountains and studied Geological Engineering at the Colorado School of Mines. She works in consulting by day, and at night likes to watercolor, read Frank O'Hara, and eat Chinese broccoli. She is busy at work on her first collection of poetry.

Mikko Harvey is the author of Let the World Have You (House of Anansi, 2022) and Unstable Neighbourhood Rabbit (House of Anansi, 2018). He lives in Northampton, Massachusetts.

Kelli Russell Agodon is a bi/queer poet and editor from the Pacific Northwest. Her latest book, Dialogues with Rising Tides (Copper Canyon Press), was a Finalist in the Washington State Book Awards and shortlisted for the Eric Hoffer Book Award Grand Prize in Poetry. She cofounded Two Sylvias Press and teaches at Pacific Lutheran University's low-res MFA program. She also co-hosts the poetry series "Poems You Need" with Melissa Studdard.