Quintessential Poetry: Online Radio, YouTube and Zoom

Author, performer, facilitator and entrepreneur, Dinahsta Thomas, also known as Miss Kiane, loves all things artsy. A native of Queens, NY Miss Kiane was born to an African American mother and a West African father.  Consequently, Miss Kiane enjoys the benefits of a diverse and rich cultural background.  Much of which shows up in her creative writing, performances and presentations.  As a performer, Miss Kiane has shared her poetry in several venues including Busboys and Poets, Alice’s Jazz and Cultural Center, Storytellers, The Synergy Center and several faith-based settings. She is the author/producer of two chapbooks; Think on These Things and Syncopated Hearts, one CD project, Permanent Impression: Poetries & Melodies and several individually published poems. Currently, Miss Kiane enjoys hosting open mic night on the third Tuesday at the Anacostia Busboys and Poets.Miss Kiane’s love for creative expression expands to her teaching and training sessions.  Miss Kiane has taught elementary, high school and adult students during which her presentations are always dynamic, engaging and thought-provoking.

Miss Kiane is the owner of Kiane Ink Healing in the Pen, LLC, a creative arts company that uses poetry and creative expression as a platform for hope, healing, and social change. In addition to spoken word performances, writing workshops and charitable community events, Miss Kiane has started a non-profit called The Inkwell which offer therapeutic writing programs to youth and adults dealing with loss, trauma and emotional issues.  In her own words, “Poetry is my friend, my catharsis...my gift to the world.”

James Morgan-Jones was born and brought up on the Essex/London borders. His mother was Welsh and his father from the East End. He trained as a professional actor at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London and worked for several years in the theatre. After a serious accident he retrained as a feline behaviourist and now lives in West Wales. He began writing seriously after gaining an MA with Distinction from Trinity Saint David University inCarmarthen. He then embarked on The Glasswater Quintet, a series of supernatural/psychological novels, linked by character and place but set in different decades, from the 1940s onwards. The first book in the series, On the Edge of Wild Water, was published by Wordcatcher in the summer of 2017. This was followed by the second in the quintet, The Glass Citadel, later that year, as well as a short story collection, The Wheel and Other Stories. The third novel, The Stone Forest, was published in November 2018. The fourth in the series, Eye of the Rushes, is due for release in the spring of 2020. In November of this year James’s first collection of poetry, Living Places, Passing Lives, was published by Wordcatcher. http://jamesmorganjones.co.uk

World Poetry Day was adopted as 21 March by UNESCO in 1999. It is an invitation to reflect on the power of language and the full development of each person’s creative abilities. It also supports linguistic diversity through poetic expression and offers endangered languages the opportunity to be heard within their communities (https://globaldimension.org.uk/). Over the years, it has become the largest literary celebration in the world with schools, publishers, libraries, booksellers, and poets celebrating poetry’s vital place in our culture. This year's onbservance will feature the following celebrated poets: Indran Amirnayathagam, Christine de Luca, Jaime Manrique, Sophia Naz and Mervyn Taylor. (see biographical sketches (World Poetry Day 2020.docx). 

The mission of Quintessential Liste ning: Poetry Online Radio is to provide a live format for emerging, mid-career and established poets to showcase their work. Whether traditional poetry or spoken word, the show offers an online vehicle for artists to engage in critical dialogue and discussion about poetry. If you would like to be a guest on QL: P, please contact me at [email protected].

Born and raised in the DC area, Gabrielle Oliver is a first year MFA Creative Writing Poetry student at the University of Kentucky. She holds bachelor’s degrees from Howard University and Kansai Gaidai University in Osaka, Japan. A self-proclaimed linguist, Oliver is most proficient in Japanese – with her experience translating for the State Department, the Embassy of Japan, the National Cherry Blossom Festival, the Japan-America Society of Washington, DC, and for multiple DC-based newspapers – but has also studied American Sign Language (ASL), German, Dutch, Italian, and French. She was the Japan-America Society of Washington, DC’s 2018 Tanaka Green Scholarship recipient for her studies at Kansai Gaidai University, as well as for her diachronic research on the aboriginal Ainu language of Japan. This past summer of 2019, Gabrielle was awarded a writing fellowship with 7x NAACP Image Award-winning poet, Nikki Giovanni. She is currently published in the Spring 2019 issue of A Gathering Together Literary Journal.

Sharon Y. Ingram (Sistah Fire) is a native Washingtonian that has been writing poetry for 30+ years. She's a poet, playwright, event facilitator as well as a member of the Anointed Poets Empowered to Nurture Souls (P.E.N.S.) Poetry Ministry of Ebenezer A.M.E. Church. Also a 2019 World Food Day Poetry Competition Second Place Award Winner (an annual competition sponsored by the North American Liaison Office of the United Nations’Food and Agriculture Organization and Poetry X Hunger) (Dr.Hiram Larew, Founder, Poetry X Hunger). 

The mission of Quintessential Listening: Poetry Online Radio is to provide a live format for emerging, mid-career and established poets to showcase their work. Whether traditional poetry or spoken word, the show offers an online vehicle for artists to engage in critical dialogue and discussion about poetry. If you would like to be a guest on QL: P, please contact me at [email protected].

Karla Linn Merrifield, a nine-time Pushcart-Prize nominee and National Park Artist-in-Residence, has had 800+ poems appear in dozens of journals and anthologies. She has 14 books to her credit. Following her 2018 Psyche’s Scroll (Poetry Box Select) is the newly released full-length book Athabaskan Fractal: Poems of the Far North from Cirque Press. She is currently at work on a poetry collection, My Body the Guitar, inspired by famous guitarists and their guitars; the book is slated to be published in December 2021 by Before Your Quiet Eyes Publications Holograph Series (Rochester, NY). Her Godwit: Poems of Canada (FootHills Publishing) received the Eiseman Award for Poetry. She is a frequent contributor to The Songs of Eretz Poetry Review, and assistant editor and poetry book reviewer emerita for The Centrifugal Eye. She is a member of Just Poets (Rochester, NY), the Florida State Poetry Society, the New Mexico Poetry Society, and The Author's Guild. Visit her blog, Vagabond Poet Redux, at http://karlalinn.blogspot.com. Google her name to learn more; Tweet @LinnMerrifiel; https://www.facebook.com/karlalinn.merrifield.

Philip John is a Welsh poet from the Rhondda Valleys, Wales. Upon graduating from the University of South Wales in 2014, he moved across the border to Bristol, England to work within government procurement alongside serving and ex-military personnel. He secured a publishing deal with Wordcatcher Publishing and had his first book of poetry 'Home Truths' published in November 2018 which explores the human condition, human history, nature, and more specifically our treatment of the planet. Within the book, there are underlying environmental themes and a cry for change.

Philip is now launching his second poetry book 'Searching for Seahorses' posing further questions about the future we are handing over to the next generation, along with some heart-warming poems about love, happiness, redemption, and the journey of life. Philip examines our relationship with nature and each other, and draws from both his upbringing in the post-mining valleys of South Wales, his move to the city and further travels. Many of the poems grapple with the existential questions about searching for purpose, feeling lost in time, and finding a place in this modern world.

As well as publishing his second poetry book, Philip has featured several times on BBC Radio performing readings of his poetry. He also conducted a book signing at Cardiff Central Library in the Welsh capital where he performed a variety of his work.You can find Philip's books on Amazon, Wordcatcher Publishing, and all other good booksellers in both paperback and e-book format.

Philip is currently working on a third collection of poetry in which he intends to explore the essence of youth and loss of innocence from range of perspectives. He is also writing a memoir-style novella and to find out more you can connect with him on his Facebook and Instragram pages by searching for @philipjohnpoetry.

James Steck grew up in Albany, NY and now lives in Washington, DC. He studied art for a brief period, at Virginia Tech, before pursuing a degree in English. He currently teaches high school and coaches track and field in Fairfax, Virginia. He sketches frequently, enjoys sitting on fire escapes, and shares his poetry around the city at open mics and elsewhere—most recently with Makars Open Mic Series and The Inner Loop Literary Reading Series in DC. His most recent work is forthcoming with Wordpeace. His other poetry and artwork have appeared with small press print and online journals such as Tiny Spoon Literary Magazine Issue 3, Goat’s Milk Magazine Issue 4, The Wild Word, The Odd Magazine, Unlikely Stories Mark V, and others. He hopes to publish a chapbook within the year. You can find him on Instagram@jamodsteck or on Facebook as James David.

Heather Corbally Bryant is a Lecturer in the Writing Program at Wellesley College; previously she taught at Penn State University and Harvard College where she won awards for her teaching. She received her AB from Harvard and her PhD from the University of Michigan. Her first book, How Will the Heart Endure: Elizabeth Bowen and the Landscape of War (University of Michigan Press) won the Donald Murphy prize from the ACIS. She has published poems in The Christian Science Monitor, Sixteen, The Paddock Review, Old Frog Pond Chapbooks and in the anthologies: In Another Voice, Open-Eyed, Full-Throated: An Anthology of American/Irish Poets (Dublin: Arlen House, 2019) Cheap Grace, her first chapbook was published by the Finishing Line Press. Her second collection of poems, Lottery Ticket, was published in 2013 by the Parallel Press Series of the University of Wisconsin Libraries-Madison. Her third chapbook, Compass Rose, appeared in 2015 from The Finishing Line Press. My Wedding Dress, her first long collection of poems, was published by The Finishing Line Press in 2016. Thunderstorm, her second full-length volume of poetry, was published by The Finishing Line Press in the fall of 2017. It was nominated for a Mass Book Award in 2018. Her sixth collection of poetry, Eve’s Lament, was published by The Finishing Line Press in the winter of 2018. Her seventh collection of poetry, James Joyce’s Water Closet, (2018) won honorable mention in the Open Chapbook Competition of the Finishing Line Press. Two of her poems were nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2018. Her eighth collection of poetry, “Leaving Santorini,” appeared in 2018. Practicing Yoga in a Former Shoe Factory, her ninth collection of poems (and her fourth full-length one) will be published in the spring of 2020. She has given readings across the United States, and in Ireland. In September 2019, she gave the Bowen Memorial Lecture at the Farahy Church, County Cork.

Brian Rihlmann was born in New Jersey and currently resides in Reno, Nevada. He writes free verse poetry, and has been published in The Blue Nib, The American Journal of Poetry, Cajun Mutt Press, The Rye Whiskey Review, and others. His first poetry collection, “Ordinary Trauma,” (2019) was published by Alien Buddha Press.

The primary mission of Quintessential Listening: Poetry is to provide a live format for emerging, mid-career and established poets to showcase their work. Whether traditional poetry or spoken word, the show offers an online vehicle for artists to engage in critical dialogue and discussion about poetry.