The Poets Weave

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. Kourtney 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 reads "Let Me Enter with Advice" and "Come On, Girl."

William Landau is an MFA student at Indiana University, Bloomington. Their work has appeared in publications including Hanging Loose Press, Diabolical Plots, and Sinister Wisdom and will appear in an upcoming issue of Painted Bride Quarterly. When not reading or writing they're usually busy worshipping their cat, overanalyzing gay TV shows or perfecting their shortbread recipe.

William reads "Lawn Shaming," "My father rides the light rail to the end of the line for fun and finds himself in another Los Angeles," "The girl who taught me to eat bacon...," and "Sweater."

Zilia Balkansky-Sellés reads “Under a Greek Moon,” "Greek Light," "Athena," and "Penelope." 

Zilia is a writer and actor based in Bloomington, Indiana. Her poems have been published in the online journal Comparative Woman, and in the books Trigger Warnings, edited by Joan Hawkins and Kalynn Brower, and Stormwash: Environmental Poems, edited by Hiromi Yoshida. Her work appeared in the 2023 Ryder Magazine, Poetry Edition and has been presented at spoken-word events hosted by the Writers Guild at Bloomington.

With Wild Swan Theater, she co-wrote the play 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 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.

Nina Boals reads "Suspension and Release," "Harm Amplification," "Skeleton Dance," and "Birding."

Nina is a writer from Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. She received an MFA in poetry at Indiana University, where she serves as Editor in Chief and Nonfiction Editor of Indiana Review. Her work can be found or is forthcoming from Southeast Review, Puerto del Sol, Ninth Letter, and elsewhere.

Allie Rigby reads "Nominare," "Signal," "Moonscape for a Child," "Mouse Fear," and "Gretel."

Allie has roots in the chaparral and deserts of California. She is the author of Moonscape for a Child, published by Bored Wolves in 2024, and she’s a recipient of a Fulbright grant to Romania. Her writing explores health, climate change, ecology, and community, and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2020.

Deirdre Fagan reads "To the person in charge of discontinuation," "The Month of the Dead," "Going Hungry," and "Love Begets Love."

Dr. 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. Fagan is professor of literature and creative writing at Ferris State University.

Daniel Lassell 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.

Daniel reads “All It Takes,” “How to Skip a Stone,” “Seven Frames,” “Interior Infinite,” and “Seven Frames Inside a Frame.”

Janine Harrison reads an excerpt from "Seven Gen."

Born and raised in Chicago, Janine  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.

Kim Dower reads "Visiting Baudelaire," "Ink," "Fish's Lament," and "Get an Afterlife."

Kim is the author of six collections of poetry, including What She Wants: Poems on Obsession, Desire, Despair, Euphoria published by Red Hen Press in January 2025. Her poems have been featured in many anthologies and journals, including Ploughshares, James Dickey Review, Plume, and Barrow Street. She teaches poetry workshops for Antioch University, UCLA Extension, and the West Hollywood Library.

On this edition of the Poets Weave, Gili reads "Into," "The Promised Wasteland," "Diasporic Nostalgia," "Somewhere, Some-wheres," and "Holding Water."

Gili is a bilingual poet in Hebrew and English, the author of 11 poetry books, including Promised Lands (US, 2020, FLP) and the multilingual book of her poem Note. Her poetry won prizes and grants in Israel, Italy, Hong Kong and elsewhere, translated into 34 languages and published extensively worldwide.