The Poetry Box LIVE – May Edition

May 8, 2021@ 4:00 PM (Pacific) / 7:00 PM (Eastern)

Enjoy the video from the show:

May Featured Poets:

• Julia Paul (Connecticut) – author of STARING DOWN THE TRACKS
• Zeina Azzam (Virginia) – author of BAYNA BAYNA: IN-BETWEEN
• Dianalee Velie (New Hampshire) – author of ITALIAN LESSON

ABOUT THE POETS 

Julia Paul’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in literary journals, both national and international, including Comstock Review, New Mexico Review, Connecticut Review, Minerva Rising, Mom Egg Review and Radar Poetry, as well as several anthologies, including From Under the Bridges of America and Forgotten Women. Her collections include a chapbook, Staring Down the Tracks, (The Poetry Box, 2020)) and a book, Shook, (Grayson Books, 2018). Two of Julia’s poems were nominated in 2020 for Pushcart Prizes. She is president of Riverwood Poetry Series, a long-standing reading series in Hartford and an elder law attorney in Manchester, Connecticut.

Order Julia’s book HERE

Zeina Azzam is a Palestinian American poet, writer, editor, and community activist.  She volunteers for organizations that promote Palestinian human rights and the civil rights of vulnerable communities in Alexandria, Virginia, where she lives.

Zeina currently works as publications editor for the think tank, Arab Center Washington DC. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Passager Journal, Pleiades Magazine, Cordite Poetry Review, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Mizna, Sukoon Magazine, Split This Rock, Heartwood Literary Magazine, Lunch Ticket, Barzakh: A Literary Magazine, The Fourth River, Infinite Rust, and the edited volumes Tales from Six Feet Apart, Bettering American Poetry, Making Mirrors: Writing/Righting by and for Refugees, Write Like You’re Alive, The Poeming Pigeon: Love Poems, The Poeming Pigeon: Pop Culture, Gaza Unsilenced, and Yellow as Turmeric, Fragrant as Cloves. With the poet Sharif Elmusa, Zeina co-translated 14 poems by Arab poets for the Fall 2019 issue of Loch Raven Review. She holds an M.A. in Arabic literature from Georgetown University and an M.A. in sociology from George Mason University.

Order Zeina’s book HERE

Dianalee Velie is the Poet Laureate of Newbury, New Hampshire where she lives and writes.  She is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College, and has a Master of Arts in Writing from Manhattanville College, where she has served as faculty advisor of Inkwell: A Literary Magazine. She has taught poetry, memoir, and short story at universities and colleges in New York, Connecticut and New Hampshire and in private workshops throughout the United States, Canada and Europe. Her award-winning poetry and short stories have been published in hundreds of literary journals and many have been translated into Italian.

In the past, she enjoyed traveling to rural school systems in Vermont and New Hampshire teaching poetry for the Children’s Literacy Foundation. Her play, Mama Says, was directed by Daniel Quinn in a staged reading in New York City. She is the author of five books of poetry, Glass House, First Edition, The Many Roads to Paradise, The Alchemy of Desire, Ever After and a collection of short stories, Soul Proprietorship: Women in Search of Their Souls. She is a member of the National League of American Pen Women, the New England Poetry Club, the International Woman Writers Guild, the New Hampshire Poetry Society and founder of the John Hay Poetry Society.

Order Dianalee’s book HERE

The post The Poetry Box LIVE (May 8, 2021) appeared first on The Poetry Box.

“Black Dot” by Julia Paul, a poem from her chapbook, Staring Down the Tracks, released in March, 2020 by The Poetry Box, has  been nominated for The Pushcart Prize.

Please enjoy the poem, and feel free to leave a comment.

“Black Dot”

This is what loneliness looks like,
defined by what surrounds it.
A single black balloon
slipping through white sky.

This is the period sitting stone-still
at the end of a sentence,
any sentence, including this one.

This is what God looks like
from behind closed eyes,
faceless and distant.

This is the soul
according to some.
The soul, blackened by sin,
the light of grace snuffed out.

No.

This is the needle mark.
This is the black hole
into which the self disappears.
This is the exit wound.

The post “Black Dot” by Julia Paul appeared first on The Poetry Box.