Terence Winch is the author of five poetry collections: Falling Out of Bed in a Room with No Floor, Boy Drinkers, The Drift of Things, The Great Indoors, and Irish Musicians/American Friends, which won an American Book Award. He has also written two story collections, Contenders and That Special Place: New World Irish Stories, which draws on his experiences as a founding member of the original Celtic Thunder, the acclaimed Irish band. His work is included in numerous anthologies, among them the Oxford Book of American Poetry and four Best American Poetry collections, and has been featured on "The Writers Almanac" and NPR's "All Things Considered." Winch is the recipient of an NEA Fellowship in poetry, among other awards.  As a musician, he is a songwriter and button-accordion player.  In 2007, he released a compilation of his best-known compositions called "When New York Was Irish: Songs & Tunes by Terence Winch." In 1992, Irish America magazine named him one of the “Top 100 Irish Americans.” See www.terencewinch.com

Janice D. Soderling's writing appears in more than 100 international print and online publications such as Rattle, J Journal, Antiphon, The Nervous Breakdown, Magma Poetry, Mason's Road, Pedestal, Studio, Ear Hustler, and Short, Fast and Deadly. She received the Harold Witt Memorial Award from Blue Unicorn for 2010 Best of Volume, and has been nominated for Dzanc Best of the Web, Pushcart Prize, and twice for Sundress Best of the Net. Her fiction collection was a semifinalist in the 2011 Leapfrog Press competition.

Hilary Sideris' work has appeared or is forthcoming in journals such as Arts & Letters, Cimarron Review, Confrontation, Connecticut Review, The Evansville Review, Green Mountains Review, Grey Sparrow, Gulf Coast, Mid-American Review, The Normal School Magazine, PMS, Poet Lore, Quiddity, Tar River Poetry, and Women's Studies Quarterly, among others. Her first and third chapbooks, The Orange Juice is Over and Gold & Other Fish, have been published by Finishing Line Press, and a second chapbook, Baby, was published by Pudding House Press.

Jenn Blair's poetry has been published in Copper Nickel, Tulane Review, Cold Mountain Review, New South, Kestrel, Superstition Review, Rattle, and Blood Orange Review among others. Her chapbook All Things are Ordered is out from Finishing Line Press.

Oliver Rice's poems appear widely in journals and anthologies in the United States and abroad.  Creekwalker released an interview with him in January 2010. His book of poems, On Consenting to Be a Man, is published by Cyberwit and is available on Amazon. His online chapbook, Afterthought, Siestas, and his recording of his Institute for Higher Study appeared in Mudlark in December 2010.

Maryanne Hannan has published poetry in a variety of print and online journals including Adanna Literary Journal, Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review, Gargoyle, Magma, Pirene's Fountain, Poet Lore, Xavier Review, Umbrella, and upstreet.  She has contributed reviews in previous issues of Innisfree. She taught Latin for years, most recently at Siena College, Loudonville, N.Y. Her website is www.mhannan.com

Lyn Lifshin has published more than 120 books of poetry, including, most recently, Ballroom (March Street Press), Katrina (Poetic Matrix Press), Barbaro: Beyond Brokenness (Texas Review Press), Desire (World Parade Books), Persephone (Red Hen Press), Another Woman Who Looks Like Me, Following Cold Comfort and Before It's Light  (Black Sparrow Press at David Godine), The Licorice Daughter: My Year with Ruffian (Texas Review Press), and All the Poets (Mostly) Who Have Touched Me, Living and Dead.  All True, Especially the Lies (World Parade Books). 

Jacqueline Jules is an author, poet, teacher, and librarian. Her books for young readers include Zapato Power, Unite or Die, No English, and Sarah Laughs.  She won the Arlington Arts Moving Words Contest in 1999 and 2007, Best Original Poetry from the Catholic Press Association in 2008, and the SCBWI Magazine Merit Poetry Award in 2009. Her poetry has appeared in numerous publications including The Innisfree Poetry Journal, Inkwell, Christian Science Monitor, America, Chiron Review, Sow's Ear Poetry Review, Sunstone, Imitation Fruit, Potomac Review, and The Broome Review. Visit her online at www.jacquelinejules.com.

A former teacher and advertising manager, Dan Pettee currently operates his own freelance writing business in Grand Rapids, MI. He has had poems published in a wide range of publications including Chicago Review, Texas Review, Pinyon, Descant, Puerto del Sol, and Evansville Review.

Adam Hanover is a 27-year old poet originally from Buffalo, New York.  He is currently enrolled in the MFA program at Emerson College in Boston.  Adam is a previously unpublished poet.

Laura Manuelidis is a physician and author of scientific papers as well as poetry. Her book of poems Out of Order was introduced by Yevgeny Yevtushenko, and she has published in literary journals including: The Nation, Oxford Poetry, Innisfree, Evergreen Review, and Pirene's Fountain. She was nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize and has given invited readings in the USA and Europe. Additional information can be found at: 

http://medicine.yale.edu/labs/manuelidis/www/manuelidis_poetry.html

Beth Paulson lives in Ouray County, Colorado, where she teaches writing classes and leads Poetica, a bi-monthly workshop for area poets.  Her poems have appeared nationally in over a hundred literary magazines and anthologies. Her third book, Wild Raspberries, was published by Plain View Press in 2009.   Beth has had poems nominated for 2007, 2009, and 2011 Pushcart Prizes, and she received a Best of the Net nomination for 2012. Her website is www.wordcatcher.org.

Andrew Oerke was a Peace Corps Director in Africa and the Caribbean, and for many years president of a private and voluntary organization, working in and visiting more than 160 countries.  Mr. Oerke was the recipient of a Fulbright scholarship at the Freie Universität in Berlin.  His work has appeared frequently in The New Yorker, The New Republic, Poetry, and many other publications in the U.S., England, France, Germany, Lebanon, Malawi, Kenya, the Philippines, Jamaica, and Mexico.  In 2003, he was given the award for literature by the UN Society of Writers and Artists. 

Monique earned a B.S. in English Lit. from Northeastern University and a M.A. in English from Northern Arizona University. She has lived all over the U.S. and worked as a Technical Writer and Tech. Pubs. Manager for a decade before taking time off to start a family. She is a Copy Editor for Ragazine. Her poetry has appeared in the anthology, "e, the Emily Dickinson Award Anthology Best Poems of 2001," and journals such as Ellipsis, California Quarterly, Kalliope, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, Calyx, The Ledge, and Rosebud. Her poetry appears in current issues of Assisi, The Sierra Nevada Review, and Xenith. Upcoming, her poems will appear in Atticus Review, Canary, and Tampa Review.

Diane Lockward is the author of three poetry books, most recently, Temptation by Water (Wind Publications, 2010). Her poems have been published in such journals as Harvard Review, Spoon River Poetry Review, and Prairie Schooner. Her work has also been featured on Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, and The Writer's Almanac.

George Moore has held artist residencies in Canada, Greece, Portugal, Spain and Iceland, and collaborated on works with artists from Austria, Iceland, and Canada. His poetry has appeared in The Atlantic, Poetry, Queen's Quarterly, Antigonish Review, Dublin Quarterly, North American Review, Colorado Review, Orion, and Blast.  In 2009, he was nominated for two Pushcart Prizes and two "Best of the Web" awards, and in 2010 for The Rhysling Poetry Award.  His recent collections include Headhunting (Mellen, 2002) and the e-Book, All Night Card Game in the Back Room of Time (Pulpbit.com, 2007).  Moore teaches writing and literature at the University of Colorado, Boulder.  

David McAleavey's fifth and most recent book is HUGE HAIKU (Chax Press, 2005), and he has had poems in many journals over the years, including Poetry, Ploughshares, and Georgia Review. Recently he's had poems in several dozen journals, both online and in print, including Poetry Northwest, Denver Quarterly, diode poetry journal, The Innisfree Poetry Journal, and Epoch, among other places, and received the Editors' Prize for the best poem in the British online journal Pirene's Fountain in 2011. He teaches literature and creative writing at George Washington University in Washington, DC.

Catherine Chandler is an American poet and translator. She is the author of Lines of Flight (Able Muse Press, 2011), This Sweet Order: A Book of Sonnets (White Violet Press, 2012), and two chapbooks, All or Nothing (2010) and For No Good Reason (2008). She is co-editor of Passages: A Collection of Poems by the Greenwood Poets (Greenwood Centre for Living History, 2010). She has been a winner of The Lyric Quarterly Prize, the Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award (2010, as well as finalist in 2008 and 2009), and finalist for the Muriel Craft Bailey Memorial Award, the Able Muse Write Prize, and the Best of the Net anthology. Her poems, essays, podcasts and translations have appeared in many journals in print and online, including Measure, Orbis, Candelabrum, Iambs and Trochees, Alabama Literary Review, The Raintown Review, The Flea, Mezzo Cammin, String Poet, Angle, and in anthologies, including The Book of Forms: A Handbook of Poetics, The Cento: A Collection of Collage Poems, The Book of Hopes and Dreams, Best of The Barefoot Muse, Cradle Songs, and The Able Muse Anthology. Catherine Chandler currently lives in Canada and is now retired after lecturing in Spanish at McGill University’s Department of Languages and Translation for many years.

Anthony Opal has recent work in Softblow, Country Music, and Pank, and new work forthcoming in Taiga, and InDigest. He lives in Chicago, where he is poetry editor for The Economy and an MFA candidate at Northwestern University. To read more, visit www.anthonyopal.com.

Jen Coleman dropped out of high school. She holds a MFA from Hollins University, where she was awarded a full fellowship. Her work has recently appeared in Mêlée Live, Four and Twenty, The Jackson Hole Review, Right Hand Pointing, and Buddhist Poetry Review. She currently teaches English at Lynchburg College and lives in Roanoke, Virginia, with her two Manx cats.

Kim Bridgford is the director of the West Chester University Poetry Center and the West Chester University Poetry Conference.  As editor of Mezzo Cammin, she was the founder of The Mezzo Cammin Women Poets Timeline Project, launched at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in 2010.  She is the author of five books of poetry, most recently Hitchcock's Coffin: Sonnets about Classic Films.

John Perrault is the author of Jefferson's Dream, The Ballad of the Declaration of Independence (Hobblebush Books, 2009); The Ballad of Louis Wagner and other New England Stories in Verse (Peter Randall Publisher, 2003); and Here Comes the Old Man Now (Oyster River Press, 2005).  He was a co-recipient of the Rosalie Boyle/Norma Farber Award, 2008, from the New England Poetry Club; a finalist in the 2007 Comstock Review Poetry Contest; and a past recipient of the Virginia Prize from The Lyric Magazine.  His poetry has appeared in the Salmon Poetry anthology, Dogs Singing, The Christian Science Monitor, Commonweal, Poet Lore and elsewhere.  A New Hampshire attorney, John was poet laureate of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, 2003-2005.   Sample his poems and songs at www.johnperrault.com.

Amanda Jane McConnon comes from a place that's unsure if it's a beach town or a backwoods town. She has a hard time standing still. She is pursuing her MFA in poetry at NYU.

Grace Cavalieri's newest publication is a chapbook, Gotta Go Now (Casa Menendez, 2012).  She's the author of 16 books and chapbooks of poetry, as well as 28 produced plays, short-form and full-length. Her recent books—Millie's Tiki Villas, Sounds Like Something I Would Say and Anna Nicole: Poems—are on Kindle's free lending library.  For 35 years, Grace has produced and hosted "The Poet and the Poem" on public radio, recorded at the Library of Congress and transmitted nationally via NPR and Pacifica. She is the poetry columnist for The Washington Independent Review of Books. Her play "Anna Nicole: Blonde Glory" opened in NYC in 2011. Her play "Quilting the Sun" opened in S.C. in 2011.

John Harn has been involved in international education for 25 years. He currently works in international admissions at Pacific University in Oregon. He has an MFA in Poetry from the University of Oregon and has published poems in the following magazines: Carolina Quarterly, Prairie Schooner, Red Rock Review, Northwest Review, Cutbank, Kansas Quarterly, Silverfish Review, Wisconsin Review, Poet and Critic, California Quarterly, Red Cedar Review.

Lara Candland's first book, Alburnum of the Green and Living Tree came out in 2010 from BlazeVox.  Her work has appeared in many journals, most recently Unsaid, American Poetry Journal, and Phoebe.  She recently received a Special Mention in the Larry Levis Poetry Prize, 2012.  She is also a co-founder and librettist for Seattle Experimental Opera, an award-winning playwright and screenwriter, and a member of Lalage, a duo featuring live electronic voice manipulations, whose first CD, Lalage: Live on Sonarchy, was released last year.

Elisavietta Ritchie's books include Tiger Upstairs on Connecticut Avenue (due 2013); From the Artist's Deathbed (2012); Cormorant Beyond the Compost; Real Toads; Awaiting Permission to Land; Spirit of the Walrus; Arc of the Storm; Elegy for the Other Woman; Tightening The Circle Over Eel Country (Great Lakes Colleges Association's "New Writer's Award"); Flying Time: Stories & Half-Stories. Raking The Snow and In Haste I Write You This Note: Stories & Half-Stories Washington Writers' Publishing House winners. WWPH president poetry 1980s, fiction, 2000-2011. Created anthology The Dolphin's Arc: Endangered Creatures of the Sea; others. In this issue, she also shares a remembrance of the poet Ann B. Knox on Ann's page.

Gayle Reed Carroll has taught Art in public schools, and calligraphy at Carnegie Mellon University and in the Mt. Lebanon, PA Adult Education program. She earned an AB in Art at Hood College and an MFA in Graphic Design at CMU. In the early nineties she began writing poetry, studying with Stephen Dunn, Kenneth Rosen, Jan Beatty, and Ellen McGrath Smith. Her work has appeared in several small magazines and anthologies, including Poet Lore, The Comstock Review, Black River Review, Voices from the Attic, and The Innisfree Poetry Journal. Her first chapbook manuscript, Irretrievable Music, was selected as finalist in the Keystone Chapbook Prize 2009 from Seven Kitchens Press. An earlier version of her current book manuscript, A Marked World Deeply, was named a finalist at Marick Press under a different title. She lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Maham Khan was born in Pakistan but spent most of her life in Saudi Arabia. She has just graduated from high school in Islamabad and intends to study English Literature at university.

Jean Nordhaus was the subject of our Closer Look in Innisfree 13:

http://tinyurl.com/JeanNordhaus

Her fourth volume of poetry, Innocence, won the Charles B. Wheeler Prize and was published by The Ohio State University Press in 2006.  Her other books include The Porcelain Apes of Moses Mendelssohn (Milkweed Editions, 2002), My Life in Hiding (Quarterly Review of Literature, 1991), A Bracelet of Lies (Washington Writers' Publishing House, 1987) and two chapbooks, A Purchase of Porcelain and A Language of Hands.

Kirsten Hampton is a poet and filmmaker from Alexandria, Virginia.  She was selected as the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation Creative Fellow at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts for 2012, and has published or has poems forthcoming in Beltway, Blueline, Innisfree Poetry Journal, Potomac Review, and Subtropics, among other journals.  With her husband as director, she has produced documentaries that have won a CINE Golden Eagle award and been screened at the Library of Congress along with national film festivals.  A former university Associate Dean and Vice President, she now partners in a management and media company.

Kathi Wolfe is a poet and writer.  Her poetry has appeared in Innisfree Poetry Journal, Gargoyle, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, and other publications.  She was a finalist in the 2007 Pudding House Chapbook competition, and her chapbook Helen Takes the Stage: The Helen Keller Poems was published by Pudding House in 2008.  Wolfe is a contributor to the anthology Beauty Is a Verb: The New Poetry of Disability and a senior writer and columnist for the arts magazine Scene4.  She has read at many venues including the Library of Congress Poetry at Noon Series and appeared on the radio program "The Poet and the Poem."

Born in New Orleans, W.M. Rivera's recent poems have appeared in the California Quarterly, Gargoyle, The Ghazal Page (online), The Curator Magazine (online), Lit Undressed, The Broome Review, Third Wednesday, Innisfree.  His most recent book Buried in the Mind's Backyard, was published by Brickhouse Books in 2011 with a cover print by Miguel Condé one of Spain’s prominent artists.  A new chapbook is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press.  Rivera's academic and professional activities in international agricultural development have taken him to more than 30 countries in Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America.  Retired from the University of Maryland, he is currently working on a new poetry collection.

editor@innisfreepoetry.org

Laura Orem is a poet, essayist, and artist living in Red Lion PA. She holds an MFA from Bennington and teaches writing at Goucher College. She is a featured writer for The Best American Poetry Blog and is a senior editor for Toad Hall Press. Her poetry can be found in many journals, including recently in The Dos Passos Review and OCHO.

Katherine E. Young's poetry has appeared in Prairie Schooner, The Iowa Review, Shenandoah, and many others. She has published two chapbooks and was a finalist for the 2012 T.S. Eliot Prize (U.S.).  Her translation of Russian poet Inna Kabysh won a share of the 2011 Joseph Brodsky-Stephen Spender Prize.

Rosemary Winslow teaches writing and literature at The Catholic University of America.  Her poems and essays on poetry have appeared widely in journals and books, most recently in Beltway, Poet Lore, 32 Poems, The Schuykill Valley Journal, Voices from Frost Place, and Don't Call It That and is forthcoming in two anthologies:  Pinstripe Fedora and Valparaiso Poetry Review.  She has published numerous essays on sound structure in poetry in Poetics Today, Language and Style, Composition Studies, The Encyclopedia of Twentieth Century American Poetry, and other places.  Most recently, her essays on meter, prosody, versification, and stylistics appear in the Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, Fourth Edition.  Her awards include the 2006 Larry Neal Award for Poetry, as well as awards and grants from The District of Columbia Commission on the Arts, NEH, the Vermont Studio Center, and other foundations.  She lives with her husband John, a visual artist, in downtown Washington, D.C.

A four-time champion on Jeopardy, Len Krisak is the author of six books of poems and translations:  Virgil’s Eclogues (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010), The Odes of Horace (Carcanet Press, 2006), Even as We Speak (University of Evansville Press, 2000)(winner of the Richard Wilbur Prize for 2000), Ovid’s Ars Amatoria (complete in PN Review, 2004), and If Anything (WordTech Editions, 2004).  Even as We Speak was awarded the Richard Wilbur Prize.  His other awards include the Robert Frost Prize (2000), the Robert Penn Warren Prize (1998), The Pinch Prize (2007), and The New England Poetry Club Motton Book Award.  He has poems in, or forthcoming in, The Antioch Review, The Sewanee Review, The Hudson Review, Agni, PN Review, The London Magazine, The Dark Horse, Agenda, The New Criterion, The Hopkins Review, Commonweal, Standpoint, Pleiades, The Oxonian Review, Literary Imagination, The Formalist, Measure, and The Oxford Book of Poems on Classical Mythology.