Quintessential Poetry: Online Radio, YouTube and Zoom

Joseph Ross is the author of four books of poetry: Raising King (2020), Ache (2017), Gospel of Dust (2013) and Meeting Bone Man (2012). His poems appear in many places including, The Los Angeles Times, Poet Lore, Southern Quarterly, Xavier Review,, Beltway Poetry Quarterly and Drumvoices Revue. He has received multiple Pushcart Prize nominations and won the 2012 Pratt Library/Little Patuxent Review Poetry Prize. He recently served as the 23rd Poet-in-Residence for the Howard County Poetry and Literature Society in Howard County, Maryland. He teaches English and Creative Writing at Gonzaga College High School in Washington, D.C. and writes regularly at www.JosephRoss.net.

Derrick Weston Brown holds an MFA in creative writing, from American University. He has studied poetry under Dr. Tony Medina at Howard University and Cornelius Eady at American University. He is a graduate of the Cave Canem and VONA Voices summer workshops. His work has appeared in such literary journals as The Little Patuxent Review, Colorlines, The This Mag, and Vinyl online. He was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2012.    He worked as a bookseller andbook buyer for a bookstore which is operated by the nonprofit Teaching for Change. He was thefounder of The Nine on the Ninth, a critically acclaimed monthly poetry series that ran from 2005-2015 at the 14th & V street location of Busboys and Poets. He was the 2012-2013 Writer-In-Residence of the Howard County Poetry Literary Society, of Maryland. He is also a participating DC area author for the PEN/Faulkner Foundation’s Writers-in-Schools program. He’s performed at such esteemed venues as The Nuyorican Poets’ Cafe and the Bowery. He has lead workshops and performed at Georgetown University, George Washington University, Sweet Briar College and Chicago State. He has appeared on Al-Jazeera and NPR as well. In May of 2014 he was also the recipient of a Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Grant. He is a native of Charlotte, North Carolina, and resides in Mount Rainier, Maryland. His debut collection of poetry entitled, Wisdom Teeth, was released in April 2011 on Busboys and Poets Press/PM Press. His second collection of poetry, a chapbook entitled On All Fronts , was released along with two other poetry chapbooks in a bound series from Upper Rubber Boot Press entitled Floodgates Vol.5 , this March of 2019. You can follow him on social media on Facebook and on Instagram @theoriginalDerrickWestonBrown as well as his author website DerrickWestonBrown.com

Bill Cushing has lived in Virginia, New York, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Florida, Maryland, the Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico before moving to California. As an undergrad, he was called the “blue collar” poet by classmates at the University of Central Florida because of his years serving in the Navy and later working as an electrician on oil tankers, naval vessels, and fishing boats before he returned to college at the age of 37. He earned an MFA in writing from Goddard College in Vermont and teaches at East Los Angeles and Mt. San Antonio colleges, residing in Glendale with his wife and their son. As a writer, Bill has been published in various literary journals, magazines, and newspapers, including Birders World and The San Juan Star. His short stories have appeared in Borfski Press, Newtown Literary Journal, and Sediments. He had poems in both volumes of the award-winning Stories of Music. His poetry has appeared in numerous journals, both in print and online, including Avocet, Brownstone Review, Mayo Review, Penumbra, Spectrum, The Song Is..., and West Trade Review. When not teaching or writing, Bill facilitates a writing workshop in Eagle Rock, California (9 Bridges). He also performs with a musician in a project called “Notes and Letters.” He invites anyone interested to visit and “like” their Facebook page or check their youtube page by searching “Chuck Corbisiero Bill Cushing Notes and Letters.”A nominee for both a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net, Bill was named as one of the Top Ten Poets of L.A. in 2017, and in 2018, he was honored as on the ten poets to watch in L. A. His recent book, A Former Life, was released in June 2019 by Finishing Line Press, and he won the 2019 San Gabriel Valley Chapbook Competition with Music Speaks, a volume currently being prepared for wider release.

J. P. Dancing Bear is editor for the Verse Daily and Dream Horse Press. He is the author of fourteen collections of poetry, most recently, Cephalopodic (Glass Lyre Press, 2015. His most recent book, Fishing Singing Foxes came out in March of 2019 by Salmon Poetry. His next collection, Of Oracles and Monsters, which will be released by Glass Lyre Press in the fall of 2019. His work has appeared in hundreds of magazines and anthologies including American Literary Review, Crazyhorse, Plume, Quarterly West, and others.

Editor, Verse Daily 

editor/owner, Dream Horse Press

twitter.com/jpdancingbear

Todd Cirillo is a writer, poet, publisher and pirate. He is one of the originators of After-Hour Poetry and co-founder and editor of Six Ft. Swells Press. His books include: Burning the Evidence (Epic Rites Press, 2017), Sucker’s Paradise, Sexy Devils, Still a Party, This Troubled Heart and ROXY and Three For the Road (which he co-authored) among others. Todd is widely known for his poetry performances. He has been published in numerous national and international publications and on cocktail napkins everywhere. Todd lives in New Orleans, Louisiana and can be found soaking his pirate heart in second lines and smiling under the neons searching for shiny moments. You can find books, videos, poems at toddcirillo.com

Tzynya Pinchback is the author of the chapbook, How to Make Pink Confetti (Dancing Girl Press, 2012). Poems and essays from her current manuscript, Tulle, have appeared or are forthcoming in The American Poetry Journal, the Aurorean, Mom Egg Review, Midnight & Indigo, and Up the Staircase Quarterly. She writes about things at www.tzynyapinchback.com.

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.

Cynthia Manick is the author of Blue Hallelujahs (Black Lawrence Press, 2016). She has received fellowships from Cave Canem, Hedgebrook, and the MacDowell Colony among others. Winner of the Lascaux Prize in Collected Poetry, Manick was also awarded Honorable Mention for the 2019 Furious Flower Poetry Prize. She is Founder and Curator of the reading series Soul Sister Revue; and her poem "Things I Carry Into the World" was made into a film by Motionpoems, an organization dedicated to video poetry, and has debuted on Tidal for National Poetry Month. A performer at literary festivals, libraries, universities, and most recently the Brooklyn Museum, Manick’s work has appeared in the Academy of American Poets Poem-A-Day Series, Callaloo, Kweli Journal, Los Angeles Review of Books, The Wall Street Journal, and elsewhere. She currently resides in Brooklyn, New York. Photo by Robin Martin.

Jessica Lyew-Ayee Flynn started her life journey in Kingston, Jamaica, moving to the United States at the age of eight and has since lived in various cities across the country. Her poetry explores topics on mixed-race heritage, culture shock, and the challenges within interracial marriage and cross-cultural love.

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.

Adam Shames is a poet, singer-songwriter, musician, storyteller and workshop leader whose collection of poems, Dreaming of Corners (http://kreativity.net/creative-vault), is available from Lulu Press (http://www.lulu.com/shop/adam-shames/dreaming-in-corners/paperback/product-23316909.html). He founded the Kreativity Network (http://kreativity.net) in San Francisco, where he first brought groups of people together for salons, jams and workshops to explore creativity, later expanding it into his consulting practice in Chicago, through which he has designed and led leadership retreats, innovation sessions and collaboration experiences for thousands of adults and youth. Now living in DC, Adam has also been executive director of a non-profit interfaith creativity program, and is a former “Teacher of the Year” with a master’s degree from Stanford University.

Valeri Beers is from Bangor, Maine. Her first book of poems titled ...details... published by Thomas Hill Publishing. This is her second poetry book titled "Scratching The Surface", published by Underground Writer's Association.  She has been writing all her life and is inspired to write by listening to music and needing to remember things. Valeri has been published in a number of literary magazines including anthologies by Literature Today, Lit House, The Wicked, Poets of Maine, Qutub Minar Review, Clockwise Rain, Literature Today (Vol. 1-7), Our Day of Passing, Dandelion in a Vase of Roses and Poetry Pasta  She has links to her poems on her own poetry site: wordsoftheval2000.wordpress.com. You can also connect with her on Facebook (Valeri Beers) and Twitter (@theval2000). She has been a guest poet on Quintessential Listening: Poetry before talking all things poetic and reading her own poems. Valeri also helps take poetic care of Poetry Pasta (www.poetrypasta.wordpress.com), an online poetry page that shows off new poets and their words and is also the curator of the Poetry Pasta Facebook page.

Music: https://www.bensound.com

Music from https://filmmusic.io

"Reaching Out" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)

License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)