Quintessential Poetry

Debbie Monteggia lives in Mesa, AZ with her husband and two dogs. She works in the design industry as an interior designer. She enjoys bicycling, walking and playing pickleball. Debbie is very dedicated to giving back and will allocate a percentage of her book sales to a basic needs charity. Debbie also sells individual poems from the book that can be overlaid over a favorite framed picture of a f...

Martin Graff is an artist, author, musician, and extreme-chin-beard enthusiast living in Arlington, VA. He imagines and illustrates faces―human, animal, alien, abstract―and writes poetic prose to associate with each. His live spoken-word show adds original piano compositions to heighten the experience. “It started in childhood. To amuse the five-year-old me, my father drew a face on the inside bot...

Born in Virginia, Bill Cushing grew up in New York, attended school in Pennsylvania, began college in Missouri but quickly found himself back in Virginia and New York as well as Florida, Maryland, Texas, the Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico before moving to California in 1996. When he began his studies at the age of 37, he edited GO magazine, an alternative arts publication in Jacksonville, Florida...

Prachi Kothari is a 10-yr-old author and has published many books in her series, "The lightning bulbs of my heart". She was born on 10th December 2009 in Mumbai, India. Along with that, she is an excellent blogger at her site: exemplaryprachi.blogspot.com where she wrote 50 blogs in 10 days. She also works as a young writer freelancer at Fiverr. She is one of the youngest podcasters and runs her s...

Maureen Mays is a published author of The Color of Life in the House of Mei, Love Still Smiles on Dark Days, Because She Had Something to Say and Married: It’s Complicated. Writing has been a therapeutic pastime that was discovered in her teenage years. Her love for writing was rekindled after many years of being a closet writer. She now Blogs, speaks, writes, and encourages others to not only emb...

Nicole Verrone wrote Nest of Stars over six months, after a twenty-year hiatus to raise four daughters. Born in North Carolina, she spent summers on her grandparents’ dairy farm where the poetry of an uncle lost in a tragic car accident was on display. This formative event instilled the beauty and brevity of life through verse. A writer since adolescence, her first poem was published in the local...

Francis DiClemente Biography: Francis DiClemente lives in Syracuse, New York, where he works as a video producer. He is the author of six poetry collections, most recently Outward Arrangements: Poems (2021) and Dreaming of Lemon Trees: Selected Poems (Finishing Line Press, 2019). He is the co-director of the documentary short film The Real Bedford Falls: It’s a Wonderful Life, which explores the c...

Scott Simmons is the editor in chief of The Dope Fiend Daily and his poetry has appeared at the Anti-heroin chic, Medusa's kitchen, Duane's Poetry, Horror Sleaze Trash, Under The Bleachers, The Black Shamrock Magazine, and The Abyss. His first book The Editor's Manifesto (2021) showcases a mixture of his poetry, humor, and artwork and it is available on Amazon.

Jake St. John spends his nights in a cabin on the edge of the woods. He is the author of several collections of poetry including Night Full of Diamonds (Whiskey City Press, 2021), Snow Moon (Holy & Intoxicated Publications, 2019) and Lost City Highway (A Jabber Publication, 2019). He is the former co-editor of Flying Fish and the former editor of Elephant. He is considered an original member of th...

Serena Agusto-Cox, a Suffolk University alum and volunteer with the Gaithersburg Book Festival, was one of the first featured readers of the DiVerse Gaithersburg reading series. Poems can be read in The Magnolia Review, MacQueen's Quinterly, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Dime Show Review, Dissonance Magazine, Mothers Always Write, Bourgeon, and elsewhere. Work appears in the This Is What America Looks...

James Coats is a poet, performer, and educator born in Los Angeles and raised in Southern California. With a passion for all things creative, he strives to capture authentic self-expression through his work whether photography, painting or writing. He believes that poetry has the ability to bring diverse groups together, offering a way to connect through shared challenges, achievements and experie...

I began writing as a way to express intense emotions. I tend to write more when I have negative emotions. At first, the only people I shared my poetry with were my therapist and my mom. I actually did not even know I was writing poetry. I was just putting down on paper how I felt. I took a creative writing poetry class in the fall of 2020 to learn how to improve my abilities. Through that class, I...

Robert Garnham has been performing comedy poetry around the UK for ten years at various fringes and festivals, and has had two collections published by Burning Eye. He has made a few short TV adverts for a certain bank, and a joke from one of his shows was listed as one of the funniest of the Edinburgh Fringe. He was recently an answer on the TV quiz show Pointless. Lately he has been writing shor...

Celia Drill is a native Californian currently living in Wisconsin. She has published two volumes of poetry, Body of Crimson Leaves, with Backwater’s Press, and Awake Through Dreams with Little Red Tree Press. She has just completed her third manuscript entitled Mystic Traveler. Celia has her MFA from San Francisco State University, has taught creative writing at several universities, and currently...

Bio: A native of Los Angeles, California and Warren, Arkansas Proudly representing Laredo, Texas.  PROUD DAD (DEFENDER (OF) ALL DISCIPLES), Certified Anti Human Trafficking Ambassador, Traveler, Spell-Casting Poet, Holistic Healer.  Your light, have as much reason to shine as the next soul. Why should I condemn you to eternal darkness? In a world where we resonate light?  Primary Motive: To utilze...

Juneteenth or Emancipation Day is a holiday commemorating the release of those held in bondage during slavery. It started in Galveston, Texas, and is now celebrated every year on June 19 across the United States. Noted poets Brian Donnell James and Jackie Oldham will co-host the event.  A found poem by Dr. Michael Anthony Ingram, (2021) In 1941, Laura Smalley, a former slave in Texas, told a WPA w...

BYPO PHOENIX is a DC native dedicated to destigmatizing the manic depressive spectrum. He advances politics of collective liberation through his poetry and street art. He is the creator of two zines of poetry and has an online presence at byporevolution.com.

He goes by the name "Propaganda." He's an activist, poet, educator and the son of a Black Panther. In his debut collection of essays and poetry - "TERRAFORM: Building a Better World" - this trailblazing rapper and poet puts his teachings into his prose - conjuring verses and visions for creating a new and more equitable world. In this thoughtful book, Propaganda looks at the ways in which our worl...

Chuka Susan Chesney is an artist and a poet. Her poems, art, and/or flash fiction have been published in Peacock Journal, Inklette, New England Review, Compose, Picaroon, and Lummox. Chesney’s paintings and collages have been in exhibitions and galleries across the United States. The mission of Quintessential Listening: Poetry Online Radio is to provide a live format for emerging, mid-career, and...

Robert Garnham has been performing comedy poetry around the UK for ten years at various fringes and festivals, and has had two collections published by Burning Eye. He has made a few short TV adverts for a certain bank, and a joke from one of his shows was listed as one of the funniest of the Edinburgh Fringe. He was recently an answer on the TV quiz show Pointless. Lately he has been writing shor...

The program is sponsored by Quintessential Listening: Poetry Online Radio and the National Alliance on Mental Illness, Washington, DC Chapter.  Quintessential Listening: Poetry Online Radio is a popular BlogtalkRadio podcast. It is also available on ITunes and Sound Cloud. Please visit www.blogtalkradio.com/ql_p for more details. NAMI DC is the local chapter for the National Alliance on Mental Ill...

Lynne Viti, a lecturer emerita in the Writing Program at Wellesley College, was born and raised in Baltimore and now lives in Massachusetts. She is the author of Dancing at Lake Montebello: Poems (Apprentice House Press), and two chapbooks from Finishing Line: Baltimore Girls  and The Glamorganshire Bible, as well as a short story collection, Going Too Fast (Finishing Line 2020) Her work has appea...

Arthur Cole joined the South Wales Police at the age of nineteen. As a career detective he has dealt with all manner of major crime, including murder, robbery, and serious sexual offences. Arthur retired from the service in 1997Arthur is married to Caroline, and they have two grown up children. Christopherr, and Karen. Arthur was born in a small mining village situated at the top of the Llynfi Val...

Erin Carlyle is a poet whose roots are in the American South. Her poetry often explores the connections between poverty, place, and girlhood, and can be found in journals such as New South, Tupelo Quarterly, Bateau Press, and Prairie Schooner. Her Chapbook You Spit Hills and My Body was published on Dancing Girl Press in 2015, and Her debut full-length collection, Magnolia Canopy Otherworld, won t...

To read the bios of Ken Allan Dronsfield and Michael Lee Johnson, please visit QLPOR - Dronsfield and Johnson.docx 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...