Marlanda Dekine is a poet, a voice, and a presence. Their collection of poems, Thresh & Hold, won the 2021 New Southern Voices Poetry Prize at Hub City Press. Dekine is the creator of SOUL: An Ancestor Workshop, i am from a punch & a kiss, and the founder of Speaking Down Barriers. They are the 2023 Spoken Word/Poetry Slam Fellow for South Carolina, a Dodge Poetry Festival Poet, a Castle of Our Skins’ Creative-in-Residence, a Palm Beach Poetry Fellow, Tin House Scholar, SC Humanities Fresh Voice, Emrys Scholar, and a Watering Hole Fellow. Their work has been published in Root Work Journal, Oxford American, POETRY, Emergence Magazine, Southern Humanities Review, and elsewhere. Their ideas have been shared by USA Today, Sojourners’, Walter Edgar’s Journal, TEDx Greenville, the Brighter Futures’ Conference, the Children’s Trust Prevention Conference, Together SC Summit, as well as at open mics, poetry slams, & podcasts across the world. Currently, Dekine serves as Healing Justice Fellow with Gender Benders and as a guest poet with the composer/chamber ensemble, counter) induction. They earned their B.A. in Psychology from Furman University and their M.S.W. from the University of South Carolina. They attended low-residency M.F.A. programs in Poetry with New York University in Paris and with Converse College.

 

unnamed LLC

804 Palm Street

Georgetown, SC 29440

Rick Henry has lived across the United States but always returns to the sensibilities, landscapes, and histories of upstate New York. His recent publications are the novella, Colleen's Count (Finishing Line Press) and the epistolary novel Letters (1855) (Ra Press). His other books include Snow Fleas (a Reverie) and Then (54 text blocks), both from ANC. Recently completed are "The Other Daughters" (an audio production of a performance poem featuring 120 contributing voices) and Paper Dolls: a hand-made book/textual assemblage in eight parts with twenty-eight movements. A fairy tale. Paper, fabric, mirrors. Find him at

 

5662 County Route 27

Canton, NY 13617

Tom Lombardo is Poetry Series Editor for Press 53. Check out his series at

www.press53.com. He also is editor of the 2008 anthology: "After Shocks: The

Poetry of Recovery for Life-Shattering Events," now reprinted by Press 53. Tom

has published two collections of poetry, "What Bends Us Blue" (WordTech 2013) and "The Name of This Game" (Kattywompus Press 2014), and he holds an MFA/Creative Writing from Queens University of Charlotte. Tom is currently a Ph.D. candidate in English at Georgia State University.

 

Tom Lombardo

Poetry Series Editor

Press 53

142 17th St. N.E.

Atlanta, GA 30309

Lisa Hase-Jackson’s debut collection of poetry, Flint and Fire, was selected by Pulitzer prize-winning poet Jericho Brown for the 2019 Hilary Tham Capital Collection Series. She holds an MFA in poetry from Converse College, an MA in English from Kansas State University, and received her BA in English with an emphasis in writing from Washburn University.  She has received residency fellowships from the Vermont Studio Center and the Kimmel Harding-Nelson Center for the Arts. Her poem, “Preservation,” was nominated for a 2021 Pushcart by the editors of Tipton Poetry Journal. A freelance writer and creative writing instructor, Lisa is Editor in Chief of South 85 Journal. Her work has most recently appeared in The Cimarron Review, and anthologized in The Crafty Poet and Ice on a Hot Stove.

 

Lisa Hase-Jackson

923 King Richard Drive

Chalreston, SC, 29407.

Glenis Redmond travels nationally and internationally reading and teaching poetry so much that she has earned the title, Road Warrior Poet. She has recently been awarded the highest award for the Arts in the state of South Carolina, The Elizabeth O’Neill Verner Award.  Also, she will receive the “Charlie Award,” given in memory of Charles Price granted by the Carolina Mountains Literary Festival in the Fall of  2020

 

In 2014-19, Glenis has served as the Mentor Poet for the National Student Poet's Program to prepare students to read at the Library of Congress, the Department of Education, and for First Lady Michelle Obama at The White House. The students now read at the Library of Congress. Author and T&W Board member selected Glenis Redmond’s essay, “Poetry as a Mirror,” as the runner-up for the 2018 Bechtel Prize. Teachers & Writers Collaborative awards the annual Bechtel Prize to the author of an essay that explores themes related to creative writing, arts education, and/or the imagination. 

 

Glenis is a Cave Canem Fellow, a North Carolina Literary Fellowship Recipient, and a Kennedy Center Teaching Artist. She also helped create the first Writer-in-Residence at the Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site in Flat Rock, North Carolina.  Redmond’s “Dreams Speak: My Father’s Words” was chosen for third place for the North Carolina Literary Review’s James Applewhite Prize and “Sketch,” “Every One of My Names,” and “House: Another Kind of Field will be published in NCLR in 2019. These poems are about —Harriet Tubman, the most famous conductor of the underground railroad; Harriet Jacobs, who escaped from slavery and became an abolitionist, and the author of Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl; and Harriet E. Wilson, who was held as an indentured servant in the North and went on to become an important novelist, businesswoman, and religious speaker.

 

Glenis believes that poetry is a healer, and she can be found in the trenches across the world applying pressure to those in need, one poem at a time.

 

Glenis Redmond

51 Endeavor Circle

Mauldin, SC 29662