Poet of the Week

Richard Siken is a poet and painter. His book Crush won the 2004 Yale Series of Younger Poets prize, selected by Louise Glück, a Lambda Literary Award, a Thom Gunn Award, and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. His other books are War of the Foxes (Copper Canyon Press, 2015) and I Do Know Some Things (Copper Canyon Press, 2025). Siken is a recipient of fellowships from Lannan Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. He lives in Tucson, Arizona.

Regina Avendaño is a Mexican writer, artist, and activist, based in South East London. Working through collaborative practices, Regina explores themes of intimacy, capital realities, and the absurd. She is also the co-founder of the political-artstic collective The Elegists. Regina would like you to read her poems and join your local trade union.

Nur Turkmani is a writer from Beirut. Her work has appeared in Poetry, New England Review, Copper Nickel, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. Her debut poetry collection is forthcoming from Hajar Press in spring 2026. She is at work on a short story collection and was awarded the Anthony Veasna So Scholarship for fiction by The Adroit Journal. Nur studied creative writing at the University of Oxford, and politics at the London School of Economics and the American University of Beirut.

Kim Addonizio has authored a dozen books of poetry and prose, most recently the poetry collection Exit Opera (W.W. Norton). Her collection Tell Me was a National Book Award finalist. Her honors include NEA and Guggenheim Fellowships, and her work has been widely translated and anthologized.

Michael Robins is the author of five collections of poetry, most recently The Bright Invisible (Saturnalia Books, 2022). He lives in Lake Charles, Louisiana, where he teaches in the MFA program at McNeese State University and serves as Editor of The McNeese Review.

Kelly Grace Thomas, poet, writer, and coach, is the author of Future Tense (forthcoming from Alice James Books, 2026) and Boat Burned (YesYes Books, 2020). She is the winner of the Jane Underwood Poetry Prize and the Neil Postman Award for Metaphor. Kelly’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in: The Sun, The Adroit Journal, 32 Poems, Los Angeles Review, Sixth Finch, and elsewhere. Kelly helps poets create intentional habits, rapidly improve craft, and finally write the poems only they can write through her Substack, The Poetry Coach. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Randolph College.

Aidan Chafe is the author of the poetry collections Gospel Drunk (University of Alberta Press) and Short Histories of Light (McGill-Queen's University Press), that was longlisted for the 2019 Gerald Lampert Memorial Award. He has also published two chapbooks Right Hand Hymns (Frog Hollow Press) and Sharpest Tooth (Anstruther Press). His work has appeared in journals and literary magazines in Canada, United States, England and Australia. He lives and works on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples (Vancouver, BC).

Natasha Oladokun is a Black, queer poet and essayist from Virginia. They hold fellowships from Cave Canem, The National Endowment for the Arts, The Elizabeth George Foundation, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where they were the inaugural First Wave Poetry fellow. She is writing her first poetry collection.