Assiduous Dust — Season One
Check Out Joshua's Very Own Poetry Podcast!
Below you can navigate and listen to the Season One episodes of Assiduous Dust. During each episode of this poetry podcast, Joshua interviews award-winning authors and poets, asking them to read some of their work, and engages with them in a novel type of poem that is completely off-the-cuff.
Season One Episodes
Author of "I Ate the Cosmos for Breakfast"
Award-winning synesthesia artist
Author of "I Ate the Cosmos for Breakfast"
#16: Melissa Studdard + Mysti S. Milwee
December 11, 2020
MELISSA STUDDARD is the author of the poetry collection I Ate the Cosmos for Breakfast and the poetry chapbook Like a Bird with a Thousand Wings. Her work has been featured by PBS, NPR, The New York Times, The Guardian, and the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day series, and has also appeared in periodicals such as POETRY, Kenyon Review, Psychology Today, New Ohio Review, Harvard Review, Missouri Review, and New England Review. Her Awards include The Penn Review Poetry Prize, the Tom Howard Prize from Winning Writers, the Lucille Medwick Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America, and more.
MYSTI S. MILWEE is an International award-winning and published synesthesia artist (paints to music), poetess, writer, screenwriter, book cover art designer, and illustrator from Southside, Alabama. She has Native American/Cherokee Indian background and is a Sequoyah-Cherokee translator. She is the editor and publisher of Sequoyah Cherokee River Journal. Her poetry, writings, and visual art has been published in over 1,500 publications worldwide and in over 8 countries. She is the “Poet Laureate” of Fire Eagle Ministries. Her poetry, writings, and art has been used for academic and ministry studies across the US and abroad. She is the recipient of the 2020 International Artist of the Year Award, the 2020 Global Arts & Humanities Award, 2020 Global Arts & Literary Culture Award, and was awarded the 2020 Best Screenplay for 'The Loner'.
She serves as an International Art Ambassador. She is listed in the Directory of Poets & Writers Magazine, and is a member of the International Association of Professional Writers & Editors.
Poet, novelist, translator, editor, and writing coach.
Pushcart Prize and Best American Poetry recipient.
Poet, novelist, translator, editor, and writing coach.
#15: Larissa Shmailo + Elena Karina Byrne
December 11, 2020
A Pushcart Prize and Best American Poetry recipient, Elena Karina Byrne is the author of five books including the forthcoming If This Makes You Nervous (Omnidawn, 2021) and No, Don’t (What Books Press, 2020). Recent work can be found in Poetry, The Paris Review, The Academy of American Poets Poem-A-Day, Verse Daily, BOMB, Volt, Narrative, Plume, Kyoto Journal, Poetry International, Adroit Journal, LARB, and New American Writing. While attending AUSB’s Writing and Contemporary Media program, Elena is writing in new genres and completing a book of essays called Voyeur Hour: Poetry, Art, Film, & Desire.
Elena is a freelance lecturer, private editor, Poetry Consultant & Moderator for The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, and the Literary Programs Director for The Ruskin Art Club. In 2018 she completed her three years as one of the final judges for the Kate & Kingsley Tufts Awards in Poetry, and in 2019, her term for the Georgia Poetry Circuit. She is currently teaching online classes for Poetry Barn, Poetry School UK, and Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center.
LARISSA SHMAILO is a poet, novelist, translator, editor, and writing coach. Shmailo's new novel is Sly Bang (Spuyten Duyvil); her first novel is Patient Women (BlazeVOX). Her poetry collections are Medusa’s Country (MadHat), #specialcharacters (Unlikely Books), In Paran (BlazeVOX), the chapbook A Cure for Suicide (Červená Barva Press), and the e-book Fib Sequence (Argotist EBooks). A new poetry collection, Dora/Lora, is forthcoming from Salmon Poetry. Shmailo’s poetry albums are The No-Net World and Exorcism, for which she won the New Century Best Spoken Word Album award; tracks are available from iTunes, Amazon, Spotify, and most digital distributors. Shmailo’s work has appeared in the anthologies Measure for Measure: An Anthology of Poetic Meters (Penguin Random House), Words for the Wedding (Penguin), Contemporary Russian Poetry (Dalkey), Resist Much/Obey Little: Poems for the Inaugural (Spuyten Duyvil), Choice Words: Writers on Abortion (Haymarket) and over 30 others. Shmailo is the original English-language translator of the first Futurist opera Victory over the Sun performed at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Garage Museum of Moscow, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and theaters and universities worldwide. Shmailo also edited the anthology Twenty-first Century Russian Poetry (Big Bridge Press) and has been a translator on the Russian Bible for the Eugene A. Nida Institute for Biblical Scholarship of the American Bible Society. Shmailo’s mission in life is to help mentally ill people through writing.
Author of "Start With a Small Guitar"
Author of "Start With a Small Guitar"
#14.5: Lynne Thompson
December 11, 2020
LYNNE THOMPSON is the author of Start With a Small Guitar (What Books Press) and Beg No Pardon, winner of the Perugia Book Award and the Great Lakes Colleges New Writers Award. In 2018, Jane Hirshfield selected her manuscript Fretwork as the winner of the Marsh Hawk Poetry Prize. A “recovering attorney”, Thompson is the recipient of multiple awards among them an Individual Art Fellowship from the City of Los Angeles and a Tucson Literary Award and special mention from the Pushcart Prize. Her most recent work appears or is forthcoming in Ninth Letter, Black Warrior Review, New England Review, Pleiades, and 2020’s Best American Poetry, among others. Thompson serves on the Boards of Cave Canem and the Los Angeles Review of Books and is Chair of the Board of Trustees of her alma mater, Scripps College.
A Black queer poet, storyteller, and first-generation United Statsian
Assistant Professor of English at Lehman College
A Black queer poet, storyteller, and first-generation United Statsian
#14: Jubi Arriola-Headley + Melissa Castillo Planas
December 4, 2020
JUBI ARRIOLA-HEADLEY (he/him) is a Black queer poet, storyteller, & first-generation United Statesian who lives with his husband in South Florida & whose work explores themes of manhood, vulnerability, rage, tenderness & joy. He’s a 2018 PEN America Emerging Voices Fellow, holds an MFA from the University of Miami, & his poems have been published with Ambit, Beloit Poetry Journal, Nimrod, Southeastern Humanities Review, The Nervous Breakdown, & elsewhere. Jubi’s debut collection of poems, original kink, is available now from Sibling Rivalry Press.
DR. MELISSA CASTILLO PLANAS is an Assistant Professor of English at Lehman College in the Bronx, NY specializing in Latinx Literature and Culture. She is the author of the poetry collection Coatlicue Eats the Apple, editor of the anthology, ¡Manteca!: An Anthology of Afro-Latin@ Poets, co-editor of La Verdad: An International Dialogue on Hip Hop Latinidades and co-author of the novel, Pure Bronx. Her most recent book project, with Rutgers University Press’ new Global Race and Media series (March 2020), A Mexican State of Mind: New York City and the New Borderlands of Culture, examines the creative worlds and cultural productions of Mexican migrants in New York City. Her second poetry collection Chingona Rules is forthcoming with Finishing Line Press.
Editor and founder of Oddball Magazine
Co-founder of Ibbetson Street Press
Editor and founder of Oddball Magazine
#13.5: Jason Wright + Doug Holder
November 27, 2020
JASON WRIGHT is the editor and founder of Oddball Magazine, a Boston based online lit/art magazine. His column Jagged Thoughts appears every Tuesday. He is a mental health advocate, and trauma survivor. He is the author of two books, his recent is Train of Thought: Poems from the RedLine.
DOUG HOLDER founded the Ibbetson Street Press in Somerville, MA. with Dianne Robitaille, and Richard Wilhelm. Holder has had numerous collections of poetry published, his most recent: "The Essential Doug Holder: New and Selected Poems" (Big Table Publishing.) Holder teaches Creative Writing at Endicott College in Beverly, Ma. Holder has received a citation from the Massachusetts State House of Representatives for his work as a professor, publisher, editor, and poet in 2015. Holder also received the Allen Ginsberg Award from the Newton Writing and Publishing Center. The "Doug Holder Papers Collection" is housed at the University at Buffalo. Holder has been a longtime arts editor of The Somerville Times, as well as the curator at the Newton Free Library Poetry Series. Holder audio visual interviews with poets and writers are housed at the Harvard University Libraries and in the Cid Corman Collection at University of Massachusetts/ Boston. His work has been published widely in such journals as Rattle, Cafe Review, Toronto Quarterly, South Florida Poetry Journal, Constellations, Worcester Review, and elsewhere. He holds an M.A in English and American literature and Language from Harvard University.
SoCal author of "Loose Lips"
One of 100 international artists for 100 Offerings of Peace
SoCal author of "Loose Lips"
November 20, 2020
LAUREN CAMP is the author of five books, most recently Took House (Tupelo Press, 2020), which Publishers Weekly calls a “stirring, original collection.” Her poems have appeared in The Los Angeles Review, Pleiades, the Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day series, Poet Lore, Slice, DIAGRAM and other journals. Honors include the Dorset Prize, fellowships from Black Earth Institute and the Taft-Nicholson Center, and finalist citations for the Arab American Book Award and the New Mexico-Arizona Book Award. Her work has been translated into Mandarin, Turkish, Spanish, and Arabic. In 2020, she was selected to be one of 100 international artists for 100 Offerings of Peace and one of 101 women storytellers for The Scheherezade Project. Lauren lives in New Mexico, where she teaches creative writing to people of all ages.
BRIANA MUÑOZ is a writer from Southern California. She is the author of Loose Lips, a poetry collection published by Prickly Pear Publishing (2019) and the author of forthcoming collection Everything is Returned to the Soil. Her work has been published in the the Dryland Literary Journal, in Boundless: The Anthology of the Rio Grande Valley International Poetry Festival, and in the Oakland Arts Review, among others. When she isn't typing stanzas, she enjoys cats, thrift stores, and live music.
2020 winner of the Poetry Superhighway Poetry Contest
2020 winner of the Poetry Superhighway Poetry Contest
November 12, 2020
TAYLOR BYAS is a Black poet and essayist. Originally from Chicago, she moved to Alabama for six years, where she received both her Bachelor’s degree in English and her Master’s degree in English (Creative Writing concentration) from the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
Taylor currently lives in Cincinnati, where she is a second year PhD student and Albert C. Yates Scholar at the University of Cincinnati studying poetry. She is a reader for both The Rumpus and The Cincinnati Review, and the Poetry Editor for FlyPaper Lit.
Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in New Ohio Review, Glass Poetry, Borderlands Texas Poetry Review, Hobart, Pidgeonholes, SWWIM, The Rumpus and others. Her prose appears or is forthcoming in Empty Mirror, Jellyfish Review, JMWW, Mixed Mag and others. She has been nominated for two Pushcart Prizes, Best New Poets 2020, and has received six Best of the Net nominations. She is also the 2020 Winner of the Poetry Super Highway Poetry Contest.
SoCal based poet, United States Artist nominee 2012
Award-winning poet, novelist, and multimedia artist.
SoCal based poet, United States Artist nominee 2012
November 7, 2020
ELLYN MAYBE, Southern California based poet, United States Artist nominee 2012, is the author of numerous books and widely anthologized. She has a critically acclaimed album, Rodeo for the Sheepish (Hen House Studios). Her latest poetry/music project is called ellyn & robbie. Their album, Skywriting with Glitter, has also received high praise. She also has forthcoming collaborative poetry projects with Joshua Corwin including Ghosts Sing into the World's Ear (Ghost Accordion series 1st Wave, Mystic Boxing Commission).
DAVID DEPHY -- The trilingual Georgian/American award-winning poet, novelist, multimedia artist. The winner of the 2019 Spillwords Press Poetry Award and the finalist of the Adelaide Literary Award Anthology 2019 for the category of Best Poem.
An active participant in the American and international poetry and artistic scenes, such as PEN World Voices, 92Y Poetry Center, Voices of Poetry, Brownstone Poets, Lit Balm, Spectrum Reading Series, Long Island Poetry Listings, New York Public Library, Starr Bar Poetry Series, Poets in Nassau, Poets in Massachusetts, Columbia University – School of the Arts in the City of New York, Great Weather for Media in New York City, New York City Voices, Bowery Poetry Club which named him a Literature Luminary as well as the Statorec Magazine named him the Incomparable Poet.
His works have been published and anthologized in USA and all over the world by the many literary magazines, journals and publishing houses.
He is an author of fifteen books of poetry, eight novels and three audio albums of poetry. His first book-length works in English, a poetry Eastern Star is published in USA on October 28, 2020 from Adelaide Books New York, also his book-length works in English, a poetry Lilac Shadow of a Tree and a novel A Mystiere, are forthcoming in USA in Spring/Fall 2021 from Mad Hat Press. He lives and works in New York.
Assistant Poetry Editor for MookyChick
Poet, professor at Woodbury University, journalist, historian, and tour-guide.
Assistant Poetry Editor for MookyChick
October 23, 2020
MIKE SONKSEN, a.k.a. Mike “the PoeT,” is a 3rd-generation Los Angeles native. Poet, professor, journalist, historian and tour-guide, his latest book Letters to My City is published with Writ Large Press. Sonksen’s poetry’s been featured on Public Radio Stations KCRW, KPCC and KPFK in addition to TV programs such as Spectrum News. Sonksen has lectured at & had his book I AM ALIVE IN LOS ANGELES! added to the curriculum of over 60 universities & high schools. He holds a B.A. from UCLA and an Interdisciplinary M.A. in English & History from Cal State LA. After teaching high school for five years, Sonksen teaches at Woodbury University.
MEGHA SOOD lives in Jersey City, New Jersey, USA. She is an Assistant Poetry Editor for the UK based Arts and Literary Journal MookyChick and a Literary Partner in the “Life in Quarantine” Project by Stanford University, California, USA. She is a contributing member at Free Verse Revolution, Heretics, Lovers and Madmen, Sudden Denouement, Whisper, and the Roar, GoDogGoCafe. Over 450+ works in journals including Better than Starbucks, Gothamist. Poetry Society of New York, WNYC Studios, Kissing Dynamite, American Writers Review, Setu Magazine.FIVE:2: ONE, KOAN, Quail Bell, Dime show review, and many more. Works featured/upcoming in 48+ other print anthologies by the US, UK, Australian, and Canadian Press. Three-time State-level winner NAMI Dara Axelrod NJ Poetry Contest 2018/2019/2020.National Winner Spring Robinson Lit Prize 2020, Honorable Mention Pangolin Poetry Prize 2019, Finalist in the Adelaide Literary Award 2019, Shortlisted for the Erbacce Prize 2020, Nominated for the iWomanGlobalAwards 2020, Finalist in TWIBB Beyond Black Sakhi Awards 2020. Works selected numerous times by Jersey City Writers group and Department of Cultural Affairs for the Arts House Festival. Chosen twice as the panelist for the Jersey City Theater Center Online Series “Voices Around the World”. She is currently co-editing the anthologies (“The Medusa Project”, Mookychick) and (“The Kali Project”, Capital Tree Press). She blogs at https://meghasworldsite.wordpress.com/ and tweets at @meghasood16.
Brian Sonia-Wallace headshot
James Paul Wagner headshot
Brian Sonia-Wallace headshot
October 9, 2020
BRIAN SONIA-WALLACE’s books include The Poetry of Strangers (Harper Collins, 2020) and I sold these poems, now I want them back (Yak Press, 2016). His writing has been published in The Guardian and Rolling Stone, and he teaches creative writing through the UCLA Extension Writers' Program and Get Lit - Words Ignite. He is the founder of RENT Poet, bringing poets on typewriters to events, as featured on NPR's How I Built This.
Brian has been the Writer in Residence for Amtrak, Mall of America, the National Parks, and more. His work has been profiled by The New York Times, The Guardian, NPR, ABC7, and Telemundo.
JAMES P. WAGNER (Ishwa) is an editor, publisher, award-winning fiction writer, essayist, historian performance poet, and alum twice over (BA & MALS) of Dowling College. He is the publisher for Local Gems Poetry Press and the Senior Founder and President of the Bards Initiative. He is also the founder and Grand Laureate of Bards Against Hunger, a series of poetry readings and anthologies dedicated to gathering food for local pantries that operates in over a dozen states. His most recent individual collection of poetry is Everyday Alchemy. He was the Long Island, NY National Beat Poet Laureate from 2017-2019. He was the Walt Whitman Bicentennial Convention Chairman and teaches poetry workshops at the Walt Whitman Birthplace State Historic Site. James has edited over 60 poetry anthologies and hosted book launch events up and down the East Coast. He was recently named the National Beat Poet Laureate of the US for 2020-2021. You can find James on Twitter @IshwaJPW.
Brodber-Pollard winner for creative writing and Truman Capote fellow
Editor of WinningWriters.com
Brodber-Pollard winner for creative writing and Truman Capote fellow
September 18, 2020
Host Joshua Corwin interviews award-winning poets Amanda Choo Quan and Jendi Reiter. Quan opens a dialogue about social and radical inequalities and illuminates her experience in LA as a Caribbean writer; Reiter shares about Winning Writers, religion...and handlebar-mustache motorcycles in Speedos. Listen to them share their latest work and create on-the-spot poems with your host.
Amanda Choo Quan is a writer and artist from Trinidad and Tobago. She works at the UN Refugee Agency when she is not writing. She is a graduate of the University of the West Indies where she was a Valedictorian nominee, and won the Brodber-Pollard prize for creative writing. She's also a graduate of CalArts where she was a Truman Capote fellow. She has attended Callaloo (both Fiction and Poetry), the Cropper Foundation, and Juniper workshops, and is the 2020 winner of the Johnson and Amoy Achong Caribbean Writers Prize.
Jendi Reiter is the editor of WinningWriters.com, an online resource site with contests and markets for creative writers. They are the author of the novel Two Natures (Saddle Road Press, 2016), the short story collection An Incomplete List of My Wishes (Sunshot Press, 2018), and four poetry books and chapbooks, most recently Bullies in Love (Little Red Tree, 2015). Their awards include a Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellowship for Poetry, the New Letters Prize for Fiction, the Wag's Revue Poetry Prize, the Bayou Magazine Editor's Prize in Fiction, and two awards from the Poetry Society of America. Two Natures won the Rainbow Award for Best Gay Contemporary Fiction and was a finalist for the Book Excellence Awards and the Lascaux Prize for Fiction.
Author of upcoming book "Pharmacy Psalms and Half-Life Hymns—for Nothing"
Executive Director of Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center, 2010-2019
Author of upcoming book "Pharmacy Psalms and Half-Life Hymns—for Nothing"
August 7, 2020
Host Joshua Corwin interviews award-winning poets Nelson Gary and Richard Modiano. Nelson Gary shares about Kabbalah, recovery, addiction and his upcoming book Pharmacy Psalms and Half-Life Hymns--for Nothing (Rose of Sharon Press; April 23, 2021). Richard Modiano illuminates a brief history of poetry, delves into poetics and politics, The Poetry Project and his friendship with Gregory Corso. Listen to them share their latest work and create on-the-spot poems with your host.
Nelson Gary's new book Pharmacy Psalms and Half-Life Hymns—for Nothing (Rose of Sharon Press) is scheduled to be published on April 23, 2021. His other works include XXX (Dance of the Iguana Press), Cinema (Sacred Beverage Press), A Wonderful Life in Our Lives: Sketches of a Honeymoon in Mexico (Low Profile Press), and Twin Volumes (Ethelrod Press). His poems and prose have been published in numerous journals, magazines, anthologies, and newspapers, including The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry (Thunder's Mouth Press), the Los Angeles Times, Desert Sun, and Santa Monica Mirror. He read at Lollapalooza in 1994, had a residency with Ivan Neville's All-Star Band at The Mint, recorded his poetry with Elliott Smith ("Coast to Coast") on the latter's album From a Basement on the Hill. At Heroin Times, his journalism helped thousands, if not millions, of people addicted to opioids and their loved ones find recovery. Gary is a Beyond Baroque Fellow and has facilitated two writing workshops there. He worked as a counselor for many years at the Telesis Foundation and was the Program Director and Head Counselor at Malibu Coast Treatment Center. Nelson Gary has a bachelor's degree in English from California State University of Northridge and a master's degree in Forensic Psychology from The Chicago School of Professional Psychology.
Richard Modiano became active in the literary community connected to the Poetry Project in New York City where he came to know Gregory Corso, Allen Ginsberg, Anne Waldman, William S. Burroughs and Ted Berrigan. From 2010 to 2019, he served as Executive Director of Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center. Modiano is a rank and file member of the Industrial Workers of the World.
Recipient of the San Francisco Acker Award for Poetry in 2014
Author of 15 books, the latest titled "Spreading Like Wild Flowers"
Recipient of the San Francisco Acker Award for Poetry in 2014
July 10, 2020
Host Joshua Corwin interviews award-winning poets Marc Olmsted and Timothy Gager. Olmsted shares about sex with Allen Ginsberg & meditation with Rinpoche Chögyam Trungpa; Gager gives us a sneak peek at his new autism novel. Listen to them share their latest work and create on-the-spot poems with your host.
Allen Ginsberg said "MARC OLMSTED inherited Burroughs' scientific nerve & Kerouac's movie-minded line nailed down with gold eyebeam in San Francisco." (New Directions in Prose & Poetry #37). Olmsted appeared in that same volume, as well as in City Lights Journal, Outlaw Bible of American Poetry and a large variety of small presses. He has four books of poetry, Milky Desire (Subterranean Press, 1991), Resume (Inevitable Press, 1998), What Use Am I A Hungry Ghost? which has an introduction by Allen Ginsberg (Valley Contemporary Press, 2001), and Fresh Lotus Rehab (Virgogray Press, 2009). Twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Olmsted received the San Francisco Acker Award for Poetry in 2014 along with David Meltzer and Ishmael Reed.
TIMOTHY GAGER is the author of fifteen books of fiction and poetry. His latest, Spreading Like Wild Flowers, is his eighth of poetry. He has had over 600 works of fiction and poetry published, of which seventeen have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. His work has been read on National Public Radio, has also been nominated for a Massachusetts Book Award, The Best of the Web, and The Best Small Fictions Anthology. Timothy is the Fiction Editor of The Wilderness House Literary Review, and the founding co-editor of The Heat City Literary Review. A graduate of the University of Delaware, Timothy lives in Dedham, Massachusetts with some fish and two rabbits, and he is employed as a social worker. He is currently seeking representation for his third novel, Joe the Salamander, a semi-finalist for The Holland Prize.
Shane is a Creative Coach, Poetry Mentor, TEDx speaker and founder of the nonprofit Guerilla Poets
Creator of the Kamstra Sparring Archive (AKA “Sparchive”) -- part interactive museum, part art gallery and entirely a sanctuary for poetry
Shane is a Creative Coach, Poetry Mentor, TEDx speaker and founder of the nonprofit Guerilla Poets
June 5, 2020
Host Joshua Corwin interviews award-winning poets Shane Manier and Daniel Yaryan. Listen to them share their latest work, talk about the process, memories, and create on-the-spot poems with your host.
SHANE MANIER is a Creative Coach, Poetry Mentor, Artist, Live Painter, TEDx speaker and National Spoken Word Poet based in NC. She is the founder of the nonprofit Guerilla Poets with branches in the US and UK. As a poet and artist, she has been featured at many venues across the US while completing outreach programs as an activist.
She is currently the Spoken Word and Arts Teaching Instructor for Behailu Arts Academy, Harvey B. Gantt Center, Henderson High School and Playing for Others. In 2011 she was the youngest poet to ever be inducted in the Poetry Council of North Carolina and has been recognized as a National Poet performing with Respect Da Mic Slam Team 2017-2019.
In 2015 she released her first poetry album, “Bootstraps” and her first chapbook, “Fallen Heroes of the Awful Waffle” was published through Main Street Rag in 2017. She recently released her second album, “Carrier Pigeons” in 2019. Known as a prolific poet, she is in the process of publishing a whopping total of 13 more books and a third album.
Her poetry is widely known for its passion, centered around themes ranging from personal topics, social justice and powerful inspirational pieces that expose and bond the core of humanity.
DANIEL YARYAN grew up in a movie theatre. Cinematic images, sci-fi books and comics have all influenced his poetry from an early age. Some of his heroes include poet William Everson, Beat novelist Jerry Kamstra and his grandfather Big Ray Yaryan who started the Ghost Riders Motorcycle Club of San Fernando in 1938. Yaryan is a former print journalist, editor and advertising executive. Throughout his life, Yaryan has organized artistic projects such as the Santa Cruz independent newspaper The Real World Press, Los Angeles poetic cabaret Bionic Beats, multimedia poetry super-show Sparring with Beatnik Ghosts and Poetry Festival Santa Cruz. The late Los Angeles poet Wanda Coleman referred to Yaryan as “one of the new generation of poetry mavens.” Yaryan has created the Kamstra Sparring Archive (AKA “Sparchive”) -- part interactive museum, part art gallery and entirely a sanctuary for poetry, performance and visual art. His aim is artistic preservation, documentation and promotion of all things creative. The archive honors Jerry Kamstra, author of The Frisco Kid and Weed: Adventures of a Dope Smuggler – books released in special editions by Yaryan’s Peer Amid Press imprint. His Mystic Boxing Commission will publish a major collection of poems by Michael C Ford this summer as well as the Sparring Omnibus Anthology.
Author of "At the Table of the Unknown"
Author of "At the Table of the Unknown"
May 2, 2020
Host Joshua Corwin interviews award-winning poets Alexandra Umlas and Charles Claymore. Listen to them share their latest work, engage in grooviness, and create on-the-spot poems with your host.
ALEXANDRA UMLAS is the author of At the Table of the Unknown, published by Moon Tide Press. She holds an MFA in Poetry from CSU Long Beach and a MA in Cross-cultural teaching. Her work and reviews can be found in Rattle, Cultural Weekly, and New Limestone Review, among others. She lives in Huntington Beach, CA with her husband and two daughters.
Poet. Artist. Publisher.
Currently Beat Poet Laureate for Ohio, and founding editor of "Crisis Chronicles Press"
Poet. Artist. Publisher.
April 4, 2020
Host Joshua Corwin interviews Ohio Beat Poet Laureate John Burroughs & American poet/actor/publisher S.A. Griffin. Listen to them share their latest work, take a trip down meditation lane, and create on-the-spot poems with your host.
S.A. GRIFFIN lives, loves and works in Los Angeles.
JOHN BURROUGHS currently serves as the Beat Poet Laureate for the State of Ohio and the founding editor of Crisis Chronicles Press. His latest book is Rattle and Numb: Selected and New Poems, 1992-2019 [Venetian Spider Press].
Trish Hopkinson headshot
Rick Lupert headshot
Trish Hopkinson headshot
March 20, 2020
Host Joshua Corwin interviews award-winning authors Trish Hopkinson and Rick Lupert. Listen to them share their latest work, discuss poetry, feminism, atheism, Judaism, jokes, and create on-the-spot poems with your host.
TRISH HOPKINSON is a poet, blogger, and advocate for the literary arts. You can find her online at SelfishPoet.com and provisionally in Utah, where she runs the regional poetry group Rock Canyon Poets and folds poems to fill Poemball machines for Provo Poetry. Her poetry has been published in several lit mags and journals, including Tinderbox, Glass Poetry Press, and The Penn Review; her third chapbook Footnote was published by Lithic Press in 2017, and her most recent e-chapbook Almost Famous was published by Yavanika Press in 2019. Hopkinson will happily answer to labels such as atheist, feminist, and empty nester; and enjoys traveling, live music, and craft beer.
RICK LUPERT has been involved with poetry in Los Angeles since 1990. He is the recipient of the 2017 Ted Slade Award, and the 2014 Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center Distinguished Service Award, a 3 time Pushcart Prize Nominee, and a Best of the Net nominee. He served as a co-director of the Valley Contemporary Poets for 2 years, and created Poetry Super Highway. Rick hosted the weekly Cobalt Cafe reading for almost 21 years. His spoken word album "Rick Lupert Live and Dead" featured 25 studio and live tracks. He’s authored 23 collections of poetry, including “Hunka Hunka Howdee!” and “God Wrestler” (Rothco Press) and edited the anthologies “A Poet’s Siddur”, “Ekphrastia Gone Wild”, “A Poet’s Haggadah” and the noir anthology “The Night Goes on All Night. He also writes and draws (with Brendan Constantine) the daily web comic “Cat and Banana” and writes the poetry column “From the Lupertverse” for JewishJournal.com. He has been lucky enough to read his poetry all over the world.
Thelma T Reyna headshot
Karen Greenbaum-Maya headshot
Thelma T Reyna headshot
March 2, 2020
Host Joshua Corwin interviews award-winning authors Thelma T. Reyna and Karen Greenbaum-Maya. Listen to them share their latest work, discuss poetry, politics, vulnerability, and create on-the-spot poems with your host.
THELMA T. REYNA’s books have collectively won 18 national literary awards. She has written 6 books: a short story collection, The Heavens Weep for Us and Other Stories; two poetry chapbooks—Breath & Bone and Hearts in Common; and three full-length poetry collections—Rising, Falling, All of Us; Reading Tea Leaves After Trump, which won 7 national book honors; and Dearest Papa: A Memoir in Poems, winner of 2 international awards (Golden Foothills Press, 2020). As Poet Laureate in Altadena, 2014-2016, she edited the Altadena Poetry Review Anthology in 2015 and 2016. She also edited When the Virus Came Calling: COVID-19 Strikes America, a national collection of poetry and prose, released in 2020. Thelma’s fiction, poetry, and nonfiction have appeared in literary journals, anthologies, textbooks, blogs, and regional media, print and online, for over 30 years. She was a Pushcart Prize Nominee in Poetry in 2017. She received her Ph.D. from UCLA.
KAREN GREENBAUM-MAYA, retired psychologist, German major, two-time Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee, and, occasional photographer, no longer lives for Art but still thinks about it a lot. Her work has appeared in B O D Y, Sow’s Ear Poetry Review, Comstock Poetry Review, Heron Tree, Spillway, and, Rappahannock Poetry Review. Kattywompus Press publishes her three chapbooks, Burrowing Song, Eggs Satori, and, Kafka’s Cat. Kelsay Books publishes The Book of Knots and their Untying. She co-curates Fourth Sundays, a poetry series in Claremont, California.
Rich Ferguson headshot
Don Kingfisher Campbell headshot
Rich Ferguson headshot
January 16, 2020
Rich Ferguson and Don Kingfisher Campbell read poems, talk poetry and create poems on the spot with your host Joshua Corwin.
Pushcart-nominated poet RICH FERGUSON has shared the stage with Patti Smith, Wanda Coleman, Moby, and other esteemed poets and musicians. He is a featured performer in the film, “What About Me?” featuring Michael Stipe, Michael Franti, k.d. lang, and others. His poetry and award-winning spoken-word music videos have been widely anthologized, and he was a winner in Opium Magazine’s Literary Death Match, LA. His poetry collection, 8th & Agony, is out on Punk Hostage Press, and his debut novel, New Jersey Me, has been released by Rare Bird Books.
He is also the newly appointed 2020-2022 Beat Poet Laureate of California, and has a new book Everything is Radiant between the Hates coming out in January 2021 with Moon Tide Press.
DON KINGFISHER CAMPBELL, MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University Los Angeles, has taught Writers Seminar at Occidental College Upward Bound for 36 years, been a coach and judge for Poetry Out Loud, a performing poet/teacher for Red Hen Press Youth Writing Workshops, Los Angeles Area Coordinator and Board Member of California Poets In The Schools, poetry editor of the Angel City Review, publisher of Spectrum and the San Gabriel Valley Poetry Quarterly, leader of the Emerging Urban Poets writing workshops, organizer of the San Gabriel Valley Poetry Festival, and host of the Saturday Afternoon Poetry reading series in Pasadena, California.
January 5, 2020
Poets Coco, Dana St Mary, Joshua Corwin and musical guest Ira Norton-Westbrook. Poems on the spot, book found-poetry, Laughter, jokes, curse words, poetry, music + harmonicas, a meditation for madness, info about Spectrum Publishing, info about Blue Nib and Rattle Poetry contests mentioned. Listen groovily!