2024 Poets
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Grant Clauser’s sixth poetry book, Temporary Shelters, is forthcoming from Cornerstone Press. His poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, Greensboro Review, Kenyon Review, Painted Bride Quarterly and other journals. His poem “Blessings of a Dog” won the 2023 Verse Daily Poem Prize. In 2014 he was a guest poet of the Sharjah International Book Fair in the United Arab Emirates. He’s also a founding member of the poetry improv group No River Twice. He teaches in Rosemont College’s MFA program and is also a senior editor at the New York Times/Wirecutter.
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I received my MFA from Fairleigh Dickinson University. My work has been featured on the podcast The Slowdown, and has appeared or is forthcoming in The Sun, Painted Bride Quarterly, Faultline, Bacopa Literary Review, A Smartish Pace, Sugar House Review, Cider Press Review, Gyroscope Review, and Main Street Rag, among others. I am a Pushcart Prize nominee and recipient of the Editor's Prize from Apple Valley Review.
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Ophelia's pronouns: they/she. Associate professor of medieval literature at Rutgers-Camden & (near-)Collingswood resident since 2012. From Colorado originally. My poetry is spun from my research into Old English literature, translation, and Queer theory. I mostly write, perform, & publish "re-translations" of shorter OE poems, bringing high camp, sudden shifts of register, & hip hop poetics into conversation with this body of verse, orally performed & one thousand years old.
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Sean Lynch is a writer and editor who lives in Philadelphia. His new poetry collection, Halo Nest: Poems on Grief is now available for purchase on Amazon. Previous books are, the city of your mind (Whirlwind Press, 2013), Broad Street Line (Moonstone Press, 2016), 100 Haiku (Moonstone Press, 2017), and On Violence (Radical Paper Press, 2019). He has been the editor of various magazines, journals, anthologies, and books, including Rocky Wilson's The Last Bus to Camden, Chidi Ezeobi's Remind the World: Poems from Prison, and Beyond the White Stone Lions by Lamont Steptoe. He's worked for non-profit organizations such as Moonstone Arts Center and the Nick Virgilio Haiku Association, and is now working as the archivist at the Nick Virgilio Writers House.
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BJ Ward received the Governor’s Award in Arts Education from the State of New Jersey and has been designated Distinguished Teaching Artist by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. He was also named Teaching Artist of the Year by Playwrights’ Theatre of New Jersey for his work in the New Jersey Writers Project. For three years he served as the Poetry Instructor at the New Jersey Governor’s School for the Arts. He has also taught at The Controlled Burn Seminar in Higgins Lake, Michigan, and at the Frost Place in Franconia, New Hampshire. A Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation poet, he is also the recipient of the NISOD Excellence Award at Warren County Community College, where he works throughout the year as a Professor of English & Creative Writing. His poems have appeared in Poetry, American Poetry Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, TriQuarterly, The New York Times, and The Sun, among others, and have been featured on NPR’s “The Writer’s Almanac,” NJTV’s “State of the Arts,” and the website Poetry Daily. He is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize and two Distinguished Artist Fellowships from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. His most recent book is Jackleg Opera (North Atlantic Books), which received the Paterson Award for Literary Excellence. He lives in rural northwest Jersey with his wife, son, and two cats.
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Heather Lanier is a poet, essayist, and speaker. Her memoir, Raising a Rare Girl (Penguin Press, July 2020), was named a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice. She's also the author of two award-winning poetry chapbooks along with the full-length poetry collection, Psalms of Unknowing (Monkfish 2023), which Kirkus Reviews called “a powerful poetic reckoning with motherhood and religion." A recipient of a 2024 New Jersey Artist's Fellowship, she works as an assistant professor of creative writing at Rowan University.
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Marcia LeBeau is a multidisciplinary artist. Her poems, essays and reviews have been published in O, The Oprah Magazine, New Ohio Review, Rattle, Painted Bride Quarterly, Moon City Review, and elsewhere. She was a third-place co-winner of the 2023 Allen Ginsberg Award, was longlisted for the 2022 Ralph Angel Prize, and received an honorable mention for the Rattle Poetry Prize. Her work has also received several Pushcart Prize nominations. She has an MFA in poetry from Vermont College of Fine Arts and is the founder of The Write Space, a co-working and event space for creative writers in The Valley Arts District of Orange, New Jersey. She lives with her husband and two sons in South Orange, New Jersey.
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Robin Palley is a haiku poet and is Board President of the Nick Virgilio Haiku Association and Writers House in Camden. Robin has had her work published in several poetry anthologies. She is working with the organization to expand services in Camden public, charter and parochial schools using short form poetry in support of healing and building literacy. The organization is also building its roster of poetry events for area participants, from beginners to longtime poets.
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Elinor Mattern teaches poetry writing workshops, with a specialty in Poetry & Spirituality. She earned her MFA in Creative Writing from Fairleigh Dickinson University, and was the recipient of the Director's Award in Poetry.
Her poems and non-fiction have appeared in The Boston Globe, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Tiferet, and The Journal of New Jersey Poets, among others, and she is also a visual artist.
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Karen "Magic Fingaz" Smith, Brooklyn Native, Philly Resident, is a Professional Percussionist, Playwright, Poet, Director, Teaching Artist, Curator and now a member of the Philadelphia Musician’s Union Local 77 !!! Karen is a recipient of several grants including Leeway Foundation's Art and Change and Illuminate the Arts Grants . Ms. Smith is the Founder, Artistic Director and Lead Percussionist of The Karen Smith Experience (formerly called Weez the Peeples) and Sistahs Laying Down Hands Collectives. Called "Sounds of Freedom" by Philadelphia Inquirer, Ms. Smith has worked with many individual artists, groups, theatrical production companies, studio recordings and this past October of 2023, a week long of artistic events, Breast Cancer Awareness festival featuring Breast Cancer Surgeon, Dr. Monique Gary. As of August 1, 2023, I’m delighted to share that I’ve received a Pew Fellowship from The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage!! "Collaborations are the essence of my creative Journey and I am sure so many to come. It definitely feels like a highlight sharing omazing energies with various communities, organizations and individual artists! Truly One Nation Under a Drumbeat!! Possible is Possible is my daily mantra!”
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Phillip B. Williams is an award-winning poet. His debut novel, Ours, is an epic about the spiritual costs of a freedom that demands fierce protection. Set over the course of four decades and steeped in a rich tradition of American literature informed by Black surrealism, mythology, and spirituality, Ours is a stunning exploration of the possibilities and limitations of love and freedom, and is the 2024 Collingswood Town Book.
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Peter E. Murphy was born in Wales and grew up in New York City where he operated heavy equipment, managed a nightclub and drove a cab. He is the author of twelve books and chapbooks of prose and poetry including A Tipsy Fairy Tale: A Coming of Age Memoir of Alcohol and Redemption forthcoming from Toplight Books. Peter is the founder of Murphy Writing of Stockton University in Atlantic City where he runs workshops for writers and teachers.
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"Interstellar Storyteller"Reet Starwind is a lover of playful language, from poetry to screenplays. His pick for the personal highlight of an award-winning poetry career? Using poetry as a safe space for others to gather and open up. 'The midnight notes' his late-night poetry workshop has become a staple of the Camden poetry community in recent years, with four upcoming dates at Rutgers Camden coming in 2025. Outside of poetry, Reet orchestrates another world with his animated series in the making, 'Dreamers Playlist.' Dreamers' is an original urban fantasy adventure tale that calls upon feelings of passion and childhood nostalgia. It is a story proudly telling readers of all ages to chase out what they seek in life.
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Cassie is a poet living and writing, as of a year ago, in Philadelphia. She is still gratefully connected to the poetry tent and to poets in South Jersey and is pleased to facilitate a memorial session at this year's tent: "We Remember"
In this presentation, we will take time to feature just a few of the poets--both widely known and locally beloved--who died in the past year. A space in the tradition of the Mexican ofrenda will also be on site if you would like bring something (poem and/or photo) to honor a poet friend who passed on at any time and left their words engraved on your heart.