Dr. Michael Anthony Ingram is the host and producer of the popular podcast Quintessential Listening: Poetry Online Radio (https://www.blogtalkradio.com/ql_p).
He is a retired university professor who has a deep love for poetry and uses it to raise awareness of power, privilege, and oppression in society. In addition to being nominated for the Pushcart Prize, he has also gained global acclaim for his magnetic and impactful spoken word performances. When Cherry Blossoms Fall on Black Skin, his forthcoming poetry collection will be published in 2024. To learn more about the podcast, visit (https://www.qlpor.com).
Nina Yavel's poetry has appeared in several collected works Beyond Words, Bitterroot, an international publication, the Nassau County Poet Laureate competition, the Paumanok Transition sponsored by The Walt Whitman Center. Her short story The Pinocle Game and poem Eve were included in Risk Courage and Woman, a prize-winning anthology, which featured Maya Angelou and other woman writers. She won first prize for poetry competitions sponsored by Barnes and Noble, The Owl in Garden City, The Park Slope Press, and The Mac Street Journal She was a member of the Poets of Well Being, three women who are poets and psychotherapists who conducted writing workshops at Recovery Centers throughout Long Island. Nina received a doctorate in clinical psychology at 72 and still practices. She resides in Greenport New York with her sweet loving ‘boys’, Chance and Finn.
Sarah Borruto is the author of the chapbook “Damsel in Dystopia” (Alien Buddha Press, 2022) and has been published in The Luna Collective, Train River Poetry, Suffolk County Poetry Review, Brave Voices Magazine, Long Island Quarterly, and COLORS: The Magazine. She has work forthcoming in Moral Crema academic journal. She has featured across the Long Island and NYC area, most notably The Parkside Lounge, Neir’s Tavern, and Jack Jack’s Coffee House. She was also the judge of the Huntington Youth Writes 2023 competition.
Linda Bullock is a retired but still active healthcare worker and Riverhead native. Linda wrote and read a fabulous poem for her brother, Bubbie Brown, at Poetry Street and has been writing ever since. She has embraced both poetry and the stage, having narrated BREAK OUT! a play in poetry and prose, written and performed by Susan Dingle and Maggie Bloomfield, most recently in September at The Jamesport Meeting House.
Gayl Teller is an award-winning poet, was Nassau County Poet Laureate for 2009-11 and the Walt Whitman Birthplace 2016 Poet of the Year, Gayl is the author of seven poetry collections, most recently, Flashlight: New and Selected Poems (Cherry Grove), and the editor of two poetry anthologies— Toward Forgiveness and Corona. She serves as Director of the Mid-Island Y Poetry Series and is a professor at Hofstra University.
Over the years, Russ Green has been co-editor at Great Weather for Media, put on poetry and arts events around Long Island and NYC, and has raised funds through some of these events for humanitarian and social justice organizations such as Tahirih Justice Center, The Trevor Project, and an the earthquake victims of Nepal. Additionally, Russ hosted and curated poetry stages at various festivals and has read his work from New York to New Orleans, Cleveland, Santa Fe, and cities in between. His book, Gimme Back My Radio, is out with Night Ballet Press. Currently, he runs a monthly workshop with poet Christina M. Rau called South Bay Sundays and also hosts and curates poetry and music events in Port Jeff called Saturdays on the Sound. You can usually find him communing with the mountains in Vermont with interesting artist friends or roaming the docks of Port Jefferson Harbor at night looking for signs of life in the starry night sky.
Bernard Hicks, also known as Bsolid the Poet, is a returning feature at Poetry Street after way too long an absence.
Bernard is a Bronx-born citizen and proudly Harlem-reared from the age of two. He has been featured in many Long Island poetry venues.
“I will say my poetic nature comes from a form of nurture as I was an avid reader of books from my household shelves, a church gospel song singer, and a rap aficionado. Art from me in my household was appreciated and encouraged and I looked for ways to be creative. For that, I thank my parents for allowing me to think and write in tune with the colors of a fluorescent rainbow.”
Bernard likes to think of poetry as a gift of humanity, the soul of our nature, and the language of the arts. He hopes that as you listen to his writings, you digest them, and let the words nourish your thoughts.
Kathaleen Donnelly is a 1976 graduate of St.Vincent’s Hospital, School of Nursing which WAS in Greenwich Village, New York City and currently works at Stony Brook Medical Center as a Nurse Practitioner in Cardiology.
With a little help from her friends, she compiled Paumanok, Poems and Pictures of Long Island, then later, Paumanok, Interwovenand Paumanok, Transition. Her poems are published in many anthologies and she sits on her first collection for a chapbook. She loves the written word, strives to write something you’d enjoy reading. Web Site: www.poetographyLongIsland.com.
Jen Mara is a writing instructor, editor, and Adjunct Assistant Professor of English, Humanities, and Women’s and Gender Studies at Suffolk County Community College. She has written newspaper columns and articles, and the only story she published was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. After a nine-year hiatus, she has begun to write for an audience again.
Our Poets Page 5
J. Joy “Sistah Joy” Matthews Alford is Prince George’s County, Maryland Poet Laureate Emerita (2018-2023). As Poet Laureate, she serves as a literary ambassador and community activist, presenting poetry, conducting workshops and accepting public speaking engagements representing the County at official and community events while advocating for the voice of county residents to be heard through poetry. Sistah Joy has authored three collections of poems: Lord I’m Dancin’ As Fast As I Can, From Pain To Empowerment – The Fabric of My Being, and This Garden Called Life. Her work, which has been included in numerous regional and international poetry anthologies, most often addresses social injustices, empowerment, and spirituality. She edited the inaugural Prince George’s Arts and Humanities Council (PGAHC) poetry anthology, Poets That Dance with Words, which is expected to be released in 2024.
Sistah Joy has hosted and produced the nationally recognized poetry cable television program, Sojourn with Words, since its inception in 2005. She has served as president of the Poetry Ministry of Ebenezer A.M.E. Church in Fort Washington, Maryland for 20 years (since 2003), and was appointed as Poet Laureate of Ebenezer AME Church on April 15, 2016. Sistah Joy is the founder of Collective Voices, an ensemble of Washington area poets known for their poems of social consciousness, empowerment, and spirituality. The group had their international performance debut at the International Women’s History Celebration in 1998 in London, England (UK), and continues to perform throughout the U.S., primarily along the East Coast.
She is a Founding Charter Board Member of CAAPA, (Coalition of African Americans in the Performing Arts, Inc.); a lifetime member of The Prince George’s African American Museum and Cultural Center; and a member of the Prince George’s Truth Chapter of ASALH (Association for the Study of African American Life and History). She is an alum of the Poets in Progress reading series at the Folger Shakespeare Library established by former Washington, DC Poet Laureate, Dolores Kendrick; and is also an alum of the Mariposa Poetry Retreat. Visit her website at www.sistahjoy.com. Contact Sistah Joy at Sistahjoy@pgahc.org, Poetsistahjoy@aol.com or 202.246.0111.