The Poets Weave

Novelist, memoirist, and poet, Joseph Di Prisco published his fourth book of poetry, My Last Resume: New & Collected Poems in 2023. His work has appeared in numerous journals and periodicals, and his poetry has been awarded prizes from Poetry Northwest, Bear Star Press, and Bread Loaf. 

Joe champions writers, artists, educators, and students through his decades of teaching and his involvement with organizations dedicated to the arts, theater, and children’s mental health.

“As a child, I unexpectedly became aware of lying in a bed located in a city located on the Earth located in the World.” - Clarice Lispector

Kourtney Jones is a poet, teacher, and interdisciplinary artist from Fort Wayne, Indiana. She can be found typing in public spaces from a typewriter with her performance poetry project known as The Poem Market. 

She is the author of the poetry chapbook The Mug Drops. Her current work explores the intersections of languages and dreams, the transmission between the dead and the living, environmental illness, and poetry as a practice for collective liberation.

 Kourtney "Day Zero" and "The Other Side of It." 

Bloomington-based poet Eric Rensberger reads “Reading,” “A Diety,” and “Historical Imagination.”

Eric is originally from Elkhart County in northern Indiana, but he has lived in southern Indiana, mainly in Bloomington, since 1974.  His work has been published in numerous journals and anthologies.  His chapbooks include, amongst other titles, Letters, Standing Where Something Did, and Blank of Blanks, and he has indulged in more fugitive forms of publication such as posting poems anonymously on public kiosks, street lamp poles, and bulletin boards in restaurants.  He is a convinced and persistent self-publisher. His collected works can be found at the website www.ericrensbergerpoetry.net, which is home to his major work, the ongoing chronological series Account of My Days, at present consisting of more than 1,000 poems. 

“The poem is a form of negotiation with what haunts us or to put it another way is the interior dialogue we have with our other selves and so far as what haunts us is in part who we are.” -- Carl Phillips

Joseph Kerschbaum’s most recent publications include Mirror Box published in 2020 by Main St Rag Press and Distant Shores of a Split Second published in 2018 by Louisiana Literature Press. His work has appeared in Reunion: The Dallas Review, Hamilton Stone Review, The Inflectionist Review, Main Street Rag, In Parentheses, and Umbrella Factory. 

Joe lives in Bloomington, Indiana with his family.

Zilia Balkansky-Sellés is a Bloomington, Indiana-based writer and actor. She was published in Comparative Woman (Louisiana State University). She has a poem included in Trigger Warnings, edited by Joan Hawkins and Kalynn Brower, two poems included in Stormwash: Environmental Poems, edited by Hiromi Yoshida, and in the 2023 Ryder Magazine Poetry Edition. 

The play she co-wrote with Wild Swan Theater, Myths, Masks, and Magic: World Stories of First Times, was performed in Michigan schools and libraries and at the University of Michigan Museum of Art. 

She has given readings at the Writers Guild at Bloomington spoken word events. She has a Master's in Information Science from the University of Michigan and a Ph.D. in Folklore Studies from Indiana University. She works for the Hutton Honors College at Indiana University as an Academic Advisor. 

In Summer 2022, she hiked and summitted Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania.

Poet Daniel Lassell reads “Frame [in the underworld],” “The Glassmaker’s Bench,” “Edge Markers,” “Frame [in the underworld],” and “Frame Inside a Frame.”

Daniel is the author of two poetry books: Spit, published by Wheelbarrow Books in 2021, after winning the 2020 Wheelbarrow Books Poetry Prize; and Frame Inside a Frame published by Texas Review Press in 2025. Daniel grew up in Kentucky and lives in Bloomington, Indiana.

Poet Michael M. Feinstein reads sections I, VII, X, and XVL from his poem "Brother."

Michael is a poet, essayist, and literary scholar. He is the author of Saint Consequence (Alice James Books, 2025) as well as articles and poems that have appeared in venues like The New Yorker, The Kenyon Review, Boston Review, The Los Angeles Review of Books, and elsewhere. Michael holds a Ph.D. from Harvard and an M.F.A. from the University of Michigan. A proud member of the trans and disability communities, he now teaches at New York University. 

Poet Tony Brewer reads pieces from various Poetry on Demand events between 2023-2025: "Life Lines," "Electric Dreams of Acoustic Souls," "Ode to My Immune System," "Fear and Loathing at the Circus;" "Rust Can't Sleep;" and the haiku "His Crooked Smile."

Tony is a poet and audio artist from Bloomington, Indiana. He has published 13 books and chapbooks, most recently Water Witch from Pure Sleeze Press in 2025. Tony has been offering Poetry On Demand for over fifteen years and was named Indiana’s 2024 Literary Champion by the Eugene and Marilyn Glick Indiana Authors Awards.

Dr. Deirdre Fagan is a widow, wife, and mother of two who writes about love, loss, grief, and survival. She is the award-winning multi-genre author of five books, including Phantom Limbs, a poetry collection from Finishing Line Press; as well as her memoir, Find a Place for Me; a short story collection, The Grief Eater; a chapbook of poetry, Have Love; and a reference book, Critical Companion to Robert Frost. Her work has appeared widely in literary journals and anthologies, and she's the poetry editor at Orange Blossom Review. Fagan is professor of literature and creative writing at Ferris State University.

She reads "Doorbell Advised” and "Outside In."

Born and raised in Chicago, Janine Harrison is the author of Turning 50 on El Camino de Santiago, Weight of Silence, and If We Were Birds. Her work has appeared in Veils, Halos, Not Like the Rest of Us, Gyroscope Review, and "Shackles: International Poetry on the Oppression and Empowerment of Women." 

Janine lives in Highland, Indiana, and is a former Highland Poet Laureate. She joined us from her home via Zoom.

She reads excerpts from her poem "If We Were Birds."