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Sunday, November 15th
4 PM PST / 7 PM EST
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About the Poem After Poem
Round Robin Reading Series:
“Every poem different but / Telling the same story.” —Gregory Orr
3 randomly selected poets. Each poet reads poems from their new collection that feel connected to poems from the other 2 poets' collections and talks about those connections that exist.
Duration: 90 minutes.
Poetry is a universal expression of what was,
what is, and what can be.
Join us!
Hosted by Lana Hechtman Ayers
MIGUEL
Tell me, Miguel:
you, more human
and yet, more animal than I—
did you feel the need for solitude
so keenly that it became an ache?
In your nightly dreams
of the deep blue-green,
with your ear pressed against
the lips of the world,
did you hear what drove
those bitter waves,
that one long sigh
from the lungs of God?
A few missed breaths
and we pass from this world—
the night is falling
and falling fast.
Do you know, Miguelito,
how sharp the moon can be?
It can slice you
the way a knife slices an orange,
the way it carves me to pieces now
before your eyes—
eyes still open
long after you’ve abandoned this earth.
—C.W. Emerson, Luminous Body, Glittering Ash
Addiction
Who is this husk with smoke still rising, this old scarecrow with ankles tapered like a whittled twig? Wasn’t he once a storyteller, a soft singer, a father? He tells us to clean out the trailer, but there is nothing we want. The ridges of his toothless gums flash like red flags, his tongue hefty and bright as a slap. A mouth of coal. My sister and I want the old days, when his whiskey was a soothing amber and his smoke was misty visions. When he taught us to swear and sat us in the cab of a CAT and showed us how to push the earth out of our way. What he wants, besides the gun that has been hidden, is to eat. Though he can barely swallow, he says he’ll drink antifreeze if he has to. A red line of a scar blazes across his neck, ear to ear. Smoke would curl from his grave, but he wants to burn, flare like the wild and wither to ash. He’ll dust our feet and we’ll try to remember the man who sat us on his lap and taught us to steer down Chena Pump Road, the long straight road fast ahead of us, the wanting faster and faster.
—Mistee St. Clair, Reconcilations
To my brother who left an “I love you, when can we talk?” message one day, then jumped from a bridge the next
tell me, would you,
about the inscrutable darkness
and the glimmer
of us that couldn’t lure you
to hold the living
about how you could go
headlong into the negative
space that must have welcomed
you in ways we did not
how you reconciled to that
moment on a Saturday, pre-dawn,
stood on a railing above a river
and said,
now
how your yes outpaced
your no on the way down,
doubt spilling from your pockets
like loose change,
so much that you felt buoyant—
even for that instant
—Pamela Wax, Every Single Beast of My Heart
C.W. Emerson’s work has garnered numerous international accolades, including from
Poetry International: the C.P. Cavafy Poetry Prize (2018). Emerson’s poetry and literary criticism have
been featured in esteemed publications such as Harvard Review, Oxford University Press, Tupelo Quarterly,
and more. His previous books include Danger Face (Wayfarer Books, 2025),
winner of the 2024 Homebound Publications Poetry Prize; a chapbook, Off Coldwater Canyon
(The Poetry Box, 2021); and the prize-winning portfolio The Thoracic Diaries. His work has
been anthologized in several poetry compilations containing themes relevant to the LGBTQIA+
communities. Dr. Emerson is a retired clinical psychologist. He divides his time between
Southern California and San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.
Learn more about C.W. here: https://theolderamericanpoet.com/
Luminous Body, Glittering Ash is available here: Bookshop.org
In addition to Reconciliations from Empty Bowl Press (2026), Mistee St. Clair is the author of
the chapbook This Morning is Different and has received an Individual Artist Award from the
Rasmuson Foundation, an Alaska Literary Award, and was a featured writer for the art and
literary journal Tidal Echoes. She has poems in
The Alaska Quarterly Review, The Common, Northwest Review, SWWIM Every Day, and others.
Of European and Lower Tanana
Dene descent, she is an enrolled member of the Native Village of Minto. Born and raised in
Alaska, she is deeply connected to this land. Currently, she lives with her family and border
collie in Lingít Aaní (Juneau, Alaska), where she hikes, writes, and wanders the mossy
rainforest. She is an assistant editor for the Alaska State Legislature.
Learn more about Mistee here: https://misteestclair.com/
Reconciliations is available here: https://asterismbooks.com/product/reconciliations
Pamela Wax is an ordained rabbi who has worked as a congregational rabbi, a pastoral counselor,
and an adult educator. Her articles and essays on topics of feminism and Jewish spirituality have been published
in numerous books and periodicals. She is author of two previous poetry collections, Walking the Labyrinth (Main Street Rag, 2022)
and Starter Mothers (Finishing Line Press, 2023). Her poems, published in over 60 literary journals,
have received three Best of the Net nominations and awards from Crosswinds, Paterson Literary Review, Poets’ Billow, Oberon,
the Ruben Rose Memorial Poetry Competition, and the Robinson Jeffers Tor House. Pam lives in the Northern Berkshires of Massachusetts.
Learn more about Pamela here: https://yetzirahpoets.org/bios/pamela-wax/
Every Single Beast of My Heart is available from Sheila-Na-Gig.