Antoinette Brim-Bell, Connecticut’s 8th State Poet Laureate, is the author of three full-length poetry collections: These Women You Gave Me; Icarus in Love; and Psalm of the Sunflower. She is a Cave Canem Foundation Fellow and an alumna of Voices of Our Nations Arts Foundation (VONA). Her poetry has appeared in various journals, magazines, textbooks, and anthologies, including Villanelles, 44 on 44: Forty-Four African American Writers on the 44th President of the United States, and has appeared in Poetry Magazine and Poem-a-Day.  Additionally, Brim-Bell has published critical work, most notably, essays: “Living Behind the Numbers: A Statistic Muses about her Life” (National Association of African American Studies Monograph Series); “The Myopic Eye in Alice Walker’s ‘Flowers’” (Critical Insights: Alice Walker, Salem Press) and “Juxtaposed Dichotomies: the idealized white suburban pastoral, the surrealist tableau of black poverty & the women in between” (The Whiskey of Our Discontent: Gwendolyn Brooks as Conscience and Change Agent, Haymarket Books). https://www.antoinettebrimbell.com/

Chard deNiord is the author of six books of poetry including: In My Unknowing (University of Pittsburgh Press 2020), Interstate (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2019), and The Double Truth (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2011). He is also the author of two books of interviews with eminent American poets: Sad Friends, Drowned Lovers, Stapled Songs, Conversations and Reflections on 20th Century Poetry (Marick Press, 2011) and I Would Lie To You If I Could  (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2018). He has co-founded a number of writing programs, including: The Spirit and the Letter Workshop in Patzcuaro, Mexico; and The New England College MFA program in Poetry. He retired from teaching at Providence College in 2020, where he is now Professor Emeritus of English and Creative Writing. He serves as board member of the Sundog Poetry Center in Vermont and is the essay editor at Plume Poetry Journal. https://www.charddeniord.com/

Cornelius Eady is a renowned poet, musician, and co-founder of Cave Canem. He is the author of several collections of poetry, including Hardheaded Weather; Brutal Imagination, which was a finalist for the 2001 National Book Award in Poetry; The Gathering of My Name, which was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize; and Victims of the Latest Dance Craze, which received the 1985 Lamont Poetry Selection of The Academy of American Poets. Eady’s honors include a Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Award, and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Rockefeller Foundation. He has taught at institutions including Notre Dame University, Sarah Lawrence College, New York University, the City College of New York, the 92nd Street Y, the College of William and Mary, and Sweet Briar College. He has been director of the Poetry Center at the State University of New York at Stony Brook and Miller Family Endowed Chair in Literature and Writing and Professor in English and Theater at the University of Missouri-Columbia. Eady is the John C. Hodges Chair at the University of Tennessee/Knoxville.

Molly Peacock is the author of seven books of poetry, including The Analyst; The Second Blush; and Cornucopia: New & Selected Poems. She is also the author of several books of prose and a memoir, Paradise, Piece by Piece. Peacock has also written two biographies, The Paper Garden: Mrs. Delany Begins Her Life’s Work at 72, and Flower Diary: Mary Hiester Reid Paints, Travels, Marries & Opens a Door. Her poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The Nation, The New Republic, The Paris Review, and other leading literary journals. Among her honors are fellowships from the Danforth, Ingram Merrill, and Woodrow Wilson Foundations, as well as the National Endowment for the Arts. In Canada, she is the series editor for The Best Canadian Poetry in English, and the Poetry Editor of the Literary Review of Canada. https://www.mollypeacock.org/