Quintessential Poetry

Richard Harries is a performance poet, raconteur and storyteller from Yorkshire in the UK. He has been performing at festivals, charity events and community events for around 12 years. He has headlined at events both in person and on Zoom. He has two books published by Stairwell Books of York. AWAKENING (2021 their best seller of the year) and ICONIC TATTOO (2022). He was part of a team that put t...

Nayma Chamchoun is a British Moroccan, a self taught writer and poet. Her writing is influenced by her cultural duality. She is interested in female voices in the diaspora community, the challenges they face within both communities and the taboos around mental health within their ancestral communities. She is an active member of british & international poetry community. Her published poetry collec...

Poetry plays a vital role in mental health awareness by providing a creative outlet for individuals to express their emotions and experiences related to mental health. It offers a means of self-expression and catharsis, allowing individuals to process their feelings and promote their overall well-being. Through personal poems, poetry helps break the stigma surrounding mental health, humanizing the...

Megan Wildhood is a writer, editor, and writing coach who helps her readers feel seen in her monthly newsletter, poetry chapbook Long Division (Finishing Line Press, 2017), her forthcoming poetry collection Bowed As If Laden With Snow (Cornerstone Press, May 2023) as well as Mad in America, The Sun and elsewhere. You can learn more about her writing, working with her and her mental-health and rese...

Martin Graff is an artist, author, musician, and extreme-chin-beard enthusiast in Arlington, VA who crafts poetic vignettes with matching art on every topic from the stigma of liking scrapple to the meaning of life in a series called The Face Zone: Surreal Daydreams to Trip Your Imagination... Marty’s live spoken-word show adds original piano compositions from his album Trips for Piano to heighten...

A little about my book My book, Survived By, chronicles my experience coping with my father's terminal cancer diagnosis, his death, and my subsequent grief journey. The poems vary visually, utilizing the ribcage form invented by Athena Liu, concrete poetry,  and white space. A little about me I am a faculty member for the Community Literature Initiative through the Sims Library of Poetry and Strat...

I was born Wavyne Diana Benskin in Trinidad and Tobago to Barbadian parents.  I am a graduate of Curepe Junior Secondary and St Augustine Girls High School. A graduate of Mercy College.  A recipient of Martha's Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing Fellowship. A Scholarship of Community Literature Initiative California. Best Spoken Word Artiste, CHub Magazine London. Global Ambassador Divas of Co...

Ellen Thea is an award winning performance poet, drummer, dancer, and holistic counselor, utilizing tarot, astrology, crystals and energy work. Her life’s journey has taken her from New York City to South Florida to rural Alaska. She has been writing and performing almost her entire life, learning to write and starting dance at age 4 with her first audition (on Broadway) at age 5, writing, directi...

Freddy Niagara Fonseca, Renaissance man, poet, dramatic reader, originally from South America, has authored two poetry books. The first one, a poetry anthology, This Enduring Gift - A Flowering of Fairfield Poetry was published in 2010. His second book, a mystical and humorous poetry collection, The Bomb That Blew Up God And Other Serious Poems featuring his own poems, saw the light ten years late...

Meghan Zipin is an author and mama who shares her time writing with discovering half eaten snacks around the house and ensuring her children stay little for as long as possible. Meghan’s debut poetry collection, First Light (2023, Nymeria Publishing), follows her path from the Boston Marathon bombing to the birth of her third son nine years later. Meghan writes with an intention to make her reader...

Founder of Poetry X Hunger: Bringing a World of Poetry to the Anti-Hunger Cause, Larew has also published poetry in places including Contemporary American Voices and Best Poetry Online. His most recent collection, Patchy Ways, was published in 2023 by CyberWit Press.  He lives in Maryland, USA. https://www.amazon.com/Books-Hiram-Larew/s?rh=n%3A283155%2Cp_27%3AHiram+Larew https://www.facebook.com/p...

A non-binary poet, Karen Poppy’s debut full-length poetry collection, Diving at the Lip of the Water, is forthcoming in 2023 with Beltway Editions. Her chapbooks Crack Open / Emergency (2020) and Our Own Beautiful Brutality (2021) are both published by Finishing Line Press. Her chapbook, Every Possible Thing, is published by Homestead Lighthouse Press (2020). An attorney licensed in California and...

Regina YC Garcia is a Poet, Language Artist, and English Professor from Greenville, NC. A graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill (BA) and East Carolina University (MAEd) with a Graduate Certificate in Multicultural and Transnational Literature, her work has appeared in a variety of journals,reviews,and anthologies, to include The AutoEthnographer, the South Florida Poetry Journal, Up the Staircase Quarterly,...

Skaja Evens is a writer and artist living in Southeast Virginia. She edits It Takes All Kinds, a litzine published by Mōtus Audāx Press. She’s been published in Spillwords Press, The Dope Fiend Daily, The Rye Whiskey Review, Medusa's Kitchen, Synchronized Chaos, Blue Pepper, Ink Pantry, Off The Coast, Black Shamrock, and The Crossroads Lit Magazine. She often listens to music, considers the imposs...

Nayma Chamchoun is a British Moroccan, a self taught writer and poet. Her writing is influenced by her cultural duality. She is interested in female voices in the diaspora community, the challenges they face within both communities and the taboos around mental health within their ancestral communities. She is an active member of british & international poetry community. Her published poetry collec...

Wyatt Welch grew up on the Interstates after being kidnapped by their father, a troubled veteran of the Vietnam War. A Floridian and long-time Tucsonan, questioning the boundaries of Self and the State has been the work of their recent poetry, alongside other poetic concerns such as living gay/transgender in the United States. Welch earned their MA in Linguistics from the University of Florida and...

Bill Cushing lived in various states, the Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico before moving to California where he resides with his wife and their son. Returning to college after serving in the Navy and working on ships, he was called the “blue collar poet” by his peers at the University of Central Florida. He later earned an MFA from Goddard College. Published in journals and anthologies, online and...

Desiree Batiste is a newly emerging published poet and author. She has been writing poetry since she was 9 years old, when she was first published in a small locally distributed newspaper for children. She had one of her poems published in Poetry.com's "Best Poems and Poets of 2003" compilation. Her goal is to become a full-time author, focusing on the genres of poetry, psychological thriller fict...

Catherine Vaughan is a British Poet based in England and the author of the poetry book Bohemian Love. She has performed poetry at The Times and Sunday Times Cheltenham Literary Festival and Brooklyn Poets. Catherine has also read for online poetry events such as Cobalt Poets in LA, New York Public Library, and Lime Square Poets in Ireland. Lovers in Paris, her next poetry book, will be released la...

Fareh Malik is a BIPOC artist from Hamilton, Ontario, as well as a seasoned spoken word poet and established author. Fareh was named the 2022 RBC PEN Canada New Voices Award winner. He was also the winner of Hamilton Art’s Shirley Elford Prize, The 2022 October Project Poetry Award, and MH Canada's 2020 Poetry Contest. Fareh's debut book Streams That Lead Somewhere was published in 2022 with Mawen...

David Leo Sirois is a Canadian-American poet published 142 times, in 24 countries. His work has been translated into 12 languages (Hindi, Bengali, Nepali, French, German, Czech, Spanish, Greek, Romanian, Chinese, Turkish, & Doric). He hosts Spoken World Online, the Zoom continuation of SpokenWord Paris. His first collection is called Humbledoves (poems to pigeons & plants). He won Third Prize in W...

Words from Chayyim Eliezer Ben Israel: Born in Austin Tx. Raised in Los Angeles California, I had the taste to entertain at a very young age. Obtained writing and theatrical passion following my mother Elsie Katie Spruill. Began writing poetry in my early teens. Found a perfect match with poetry and music. https://amazon.com/hebruise https://instagram.com/clearmental https://facebook.com/clearment...

ANASTASIA LINDSEY is a timeless soul and author who participates in inter-dimensional traveling and building beautiful poems to capture the hearts of souls around the world in the most loving and supportive ways possible. Sensitive in nature and sweet in soul – she brings a powerful sense of calmness to her work, and most importantly to her words. She has spent most of her life traveling the endle...

From Whence We Came: Women in Poetry is presented by Quintessential Listening: Poetry Online Radio (www.qlpor.com) in honor of National Women's History Month. This event will feature readings by Valeri Beers, Linda Imbler, Gerry Leonard LaGuardia, and Linda Ohlson Graham and a discussion of the role of women in poetry. The From Whence We Came phrase is from remarks made by John F. Kennedy at the D...

March 8 is International Women's Day, a day to celebrate the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women. The day also brings attention to the women's rights movement, gender equality, reproductive rights, and violence and abuse against women. In honor of the occasion, Quntessential Listening: Poetry Online Radio presents four renowned Canadian women poets sharing their poetry....