Creativists in Dialogue Interview

Recently, I had the honor of being interviewed for Elizabeth Bruce's and Michael Oliver's Creativists in Dialogue. Creativists in Dialogue delves into the creative processes of poets and writers. Here is a link to that interview Thank you Elizabeth and Michael.

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Forthcoming from Bordighera Press: Al di là del mare /Across the Sea

In Fall 2026, Al di là del mare /Across the Sea: Contemporary Italian and Italian-American Poetry will be published by Bordighera Press. The book, for which I served as editor, is a bilingual poetry collection featuring eight Italian poets and eight Italian-American poets, each presented in both Italian and English. On May 19, I had the opportunity to appear with two of the American poets, Rose Solari and Chloe Yelena Miller, on Grace Cavalieri's Poet and the Poem at the Library of Congress. Here is the link to the podcast. Stay tuned for publication information and for future events.

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America’s Slide Towards Authoritarianism Finalist in Indie Book Awards of 2026

America’s Slide Towards Authoritarianism, which includes my visual poem, “The T$n Kam&m$ants," is a is a finalist in the Indie Book Awards 2026. Congratulations to editors Tom Block, Lisa Zammit and Emily Mercer. America's Slide Toward Authoritarianism can be purchased at Amazon or our favorite online store.

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Announcing the Winner of This Year’s 30 for 30

'Michael Palma, this year's 30 for 30 judge, has chosen Ann Ritter's "After" as this years best 30 for 30 poem. Congratulations to Ann for a fine poem! Here are Michael Palma's comments on "After": The writing is clean, the imagery is vivid, the presentation is unified, the theme is clear without being blatantly stated, and the effect is serious and powerful.

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Marianne Szlyk

Flowers in Falling SnowI remember my mother’s plastic flowers.In winter, yellow forsythia stoodbeside spider plants, pale green ghoststhat sprawled to touch weak sunbefore the sky turned and flakes fellonto toy-strewn lawns.In spring, forsythia outdoorsbrought color to the leaden world,quickened my morning shuffle.Mother offered me sprigs of yellow,star-shaped plastic from the attic,

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Carl Stilwell

WYOMING SPRINGSuddenly, a flower in a snowfield rises from Mother Earth.After long winter sleep, cub follows brother and mother out of den womb.They walk forever.Will they ever eat again?But Mama’s steady gait assures her change is going to come.Finally they reach a mountain stream.Other grizzlies are already in the river.Mama slaps swimming salmon out of…

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Jay McClendon

To preserve formatting, this poem has been saved as a PDF. Please click on the link below to access it: Bio: Jay is a queer Southern, Quaker writer in Charlottesville, VA, by way of DC and Atlanta, and Birmingham, Alabama, where he was born and raised in a blue-collar family. He is the first in his family to graduate college and has been published here and there. He and his wife of four months, Sarah, live in Charlottesville. He recommends the lime-cilantro bagel.  30 for 30 is sponsored by Potomac Review

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Katherine Mercurio Gotthardt

Meditation on an Erratic AprilShe is gold among a chaos of white. The soft cheek pressed against an unkind season. The bobbing head of laughter, when just days ago, she was buried bythe callous hands of winter. See how she’s shattered its platelets, flaunts an audacious stole of snow? She pokes her tongue out at the world. Extends…

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A Review of The Appointment

Here is a new review by John Nicolay of my novella The Appointment as both a document: and a video: In fact, Nicolay's review is more than summary or evaluation of the novella. It is an analysis that delves deep into its Kafkaesque and absurdist roots. Copies of The Appointment can be purchased directly from Vine Leaves Press or signed copies directly from me

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Emily Ferrara

RevelationsI didn't know what I didn't know...until I did No one ever told me that in a cluttered room scattered with poems half-hatched, barely breathing, I would be soothed by the wind rattling the windows. No one told me I would get high on Anna Akhmatova and Andrew Marvell, or that seeing Adrienne Rich in her later years reading at MIT would bring me such devastating joy.

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Kathy Cable Smaltz

July at GlacierRoad to the Sun, Glacier National Park, 2019The road snaked its way up Glacier, our carhugging hairpin curves, mountain’s snow-packed wallstowering over us, danger's thrill outweighedby fear, imagining its melting collapse.At summit, we studied the trailhead map,wind gusts whipping our backs, clad in T-shirts and shorts, summer sun at the bottom played…

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Brenardo

S.A.F.E. Suddenly A Flower Evidenced The power of the meteorite shower burst bright upon the nightAgainst the backdrop of the aurora borealis Even the palace I was in began to dim in retrospectThe light show effects connected with respect to era eerieClearly clarifying comets coming from the pummeling of historyMired deep in mysteries in the shadows of our souls…

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Cathy Hailey

As Snowcrete ThawsBefore dawn, I go out to see the worm moon,the reddened blood moon eclipsed by the sun.The landscape is snowy, the sky cloudy, no moon in sight, but a startled deer rewards me with her stare across the snow.At first light, I step out again. Still no moon, but the green shoots of tulips and hyacinths…

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Pamela Murray Winters

They Say Winter Is Deadlybut spring scares me more,late March and early April, when the earth shrugs, deflecting its next move. As if we didn’t know.The older I get, the more beauty hurts.Admittedly, I wasn’t good at being a child.Everything alive brought a load of metaphor.(Winter means death, but I was born then.)Early color—redbud, forsythia—

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Sylvia Beverly 

Winter 2026We wake to large thick snow flakes at hand Snow covering everything, a Winter Wonderland.Precipitation continues to fall Snow turns to rain as temperatures rise and fall.Thick ice covers fluffy snowBoulders and Sheets of thick ice don’t you know?Within days, inches of snow covers thick iceFolks near and far stay inside or have someone shovel out for an extraordinary price.

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Tanya Ko-Hong (고현혜) 

snowdropsnowdropIn a city of storms,a blizzard not seen in two hundred yearsstoppedthe shops, the trains,the pulse of the worldI, from Los Angeles,without snowshoes,in sneakers,walked through the white city as if under a spellEven in the middle of the roadnot a single yellow taxi passed—only a snowplow,haunting the distance like a ghost…

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Don Campbell

Six and SevenI have breathed in most of my daysin the arms of the brilliant sun I surfed my bicycle over asphalt hillsfor sixties suburban Monterey Park fun Later I inhaled succulent perfumesthat come from feminine flowers I saw imperfection in every oneand became the same withered hours Now with a white beard I have felt…

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Graham Pilato

These Jeans, Especially They're needlessly grey and frayingBig old comfort pants. Like an iconAnd I didn't pick them and I don't think…I think they just found meCause they fitEspecially cause they fit today too perfectlyAnd swampy as a toilet in friggin' FloridaWith no air conditioningSplishy-splashy patchy easy cushy butt pants All covered in dead ants and my own best coffee stains and…

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Suzann Heron

UntitledShe called him by his name, his true nameno one else knew.But he knew.And she knew.And time was lost or forgotten.The constant, steady snowwas all they had now.They carried on like thisfor some time,sitting at the window,watching the sun slip away—her final crimson before the plunge.A stream of icy air leaking…

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Joy Martin

IrisYour fruity-wine fragrance scented each breath asPersian indigo buds emerged from slender stem—late autumn’s nod to springtime.Papery coverings nudged aside byupright petals fanned sparkling purpleswarmed beneath the sun.Though I thought to coveror move youto prolong your stay,I didn’t provide protectionnor welcome you inside.Cold was not in the forecast.

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Jacqueline Davey

Last StandIn the garden, the wind sends a chill. Hesitant blossoms brace againstone more frost, while snowdrops boldly peek out like melting flakesin moonlight.Spring should have come by now,but winter will not close the door.This lingering guest, once so fresh,has now overstayed their welcome.The new season falterswith a hesitant grasp of the thin warmth…

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Grace Cavalieri

Our Hat What if there were ice and snow on the street,and what if we could coax green through the shock of cold,then we could breathe new life into flowers and make a hat,and if we pretend that flowers never die, we’d have a hat to go into the world as if there were no snow at all.

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Heather Banks

ON THE WAY TO THE COUNTY LANDFILLIt’s close enough, I take my own recycle stuff and trash a few times a month, and over time I’ve noticed, then learned, the tricky places—the two sharp turnswhere you’d rather not meet a Waste Management truckswinging wide, the steep bank where (in summer)a few trustees from the jail in orange jumpsuits…

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Bordighera Press on Instagram: "On April 18 at George Mason University, catch Mike Maggio (editor of the forthcoming "Di là dal mare / Across the Sea," due out this fall from Bordighera Press) at Voic...

4 likes, 0 comments - bordigherapress on March 13, 2026: "On April 18 at George Mason University, catch Mike Maggio (editor of the forthcoming "Di là dal mare / Across the Sea," due out this fall from...

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Voice as a Bridge: Multicultural Poems and Songs

Sunday, April 19, 2026 2:00 PM EDTThe Hub, Room 1 & 2 Voice as a Bridge: Multicultural Poems and Songs will feature poems read by poets and writers representing different cultures, including Andrew Wong, Jona Colson, Diane Wilbon Parks, William Gilcher, Mike Maggio, Chong McDermott, Zeina Azzam, Karren Alenier, and Majda Gama. The program will also include a vocal recital in multiple languages by Rosaline Pi of The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, a Q&A with Dr.

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Sally Zakariya

Snowy MorningYou never see the end of thingswhen you’re caught up in them, powerless against the constant strifeThe news assails you as you try to sleep – war, famine, disunion – a nightof dark dreams and sudden wakeningBut morning comes with a silent mantle of snow embracing a single crocusAs the old saint said, everywhere peace…

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Susan Notar

Suddenly SpringAll winter the news went from grey to black:cities invaded, children in bunny hats used as “bait”snow then sleet then “snowcrete”warnings of the Earth’s disgust with mankind manifesting itself in fires, wind, floods.With silver threading my hair nowknowing of before timesI became fearful of falling, slippinginto an abyss from which I might not arise.

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Paula Schulz

So SoonOn a sharp bright morning: snow-crystals.You toddle through the cold to your fatherwho shows you how to love the brief life of ice.From the second story window I watch you hold each tiny star that falls on your mulberry-colored mittens. Your small face in profile intent on the flakes melting from your breath.You see them; they are gone.

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Ann Ritter

After Early spring 1946: a climbing vine emergesfrom the now-snowy rubble near St. Paul’s Cathedral, a plant not seen before by anyone living, fierce blooms—brighter than deepest pink, almost red, just a hint of royal purple.No one knows if bombs unearthed long-buriedseeds or if their chemicals altered molecules of some other plant.It is the startled women, still blinking…

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Carolyn Kreiter-Foronda

To Feel AliveIn late winter, treading through snow while the brooding sky pounds the peninsular,I search for solemnity, the clouds’ jubilant dance ethereal. The world’s chaosdiminishes as a blanket of sunlight emerges amid the chirping of finches. White-throated sparrows flit about like magic, foraging in thickets for seeds, flapping their wings with joy.I return to our Backyard Wildlife Retreat…

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