A Collection of Jazz Poetry — Summer, 2023 Edition

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The Artist

 

Everett Spruill has been active as an artist for over four decades, and is known for his unique style that combines elements of surrealism, cubism, and abstract expressionism.  His work often features vibrant colors, bold shapes, and intricate patterns, creating visually striking and emotionally charged pieces. He works in a variety of mediums, including painting, collage, and mixed media, and his art frequently incorporates themes of African heritage, jazz, spirituality, and social issues. Spruill’s artwork has been commissioned by Disney and The Media Institute, and has been exhibited in numerous galleries and museums.

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Poet biographies are listed in alphabetical order

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Geer Austin’s poetry has appeared in Poet Lore, Fjords Review, Main Street Rag, BlazeVOX, Neuro Logical Magazine and others, and his fiction has appeared in A/U Magazine, the podcast A Story Most Queer and elsewhere. He is the author of Cloverleaf, a poetry chapbook (Poets Wear Prada Press). He lives in New York City.

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Jerrice J. Baptiste is the author of eight books. Her poetry is forthcoming and published in Artemis Journal, The Yale Review, Mantis,
The Banyan Review, Kosmos Journal, The Dewdrop, Wax Poetry & Art, Impspired Literary Magazine, Black Fox Literary Magazine, MER and numerous others. Jerrice is a jazz enthusiast and is the host of Women of Note on WKZE, 98.1FM in Red Hook, NY.

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Carmen Barefield (she/her) is a poet and writer living in Salem, Massachusetts. She is also a Watering Hole Poetry Fellow and Associate Editor for Zoetic Press Magazine. Some of her work can be found in Popshot Magazine, Poetry Quarterly, Kissing Dynamite, and littledeathlit. You can find out more about her at  carmenbarefield.com.

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Amy Barone’s poetry collection, Defying Extinction, was published by Broadstone Books in 2022. New York Quarterly Books published her book, We Became Summer. She wrote chapbooks Kamikaze Dance (Finishing Line Press) and Views from the Driveway (Foothills Publishing). Barone belongs to the Poetry Society of America. She lives in NYC.

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Byron Beynon coordinated Wales’s contribution to the anthology Fifty Strong (Heinemann). His work has been featured in several publications including Agenda, Black Fox Literary Magazine, Wasafiri, Cyphers, The London Magazine, Poetry Wales, English: Journal of the English Association, and the human rights anthology In Protest (University of London and Keats House Poets). Several collections, including The Echoing Coastline (Agenda) and Where Shadows Stir (The Seventh Quarry Press) were launched at the birthplace of Dylan Thomas, Swansea, in February 2023.

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R. Bremner has been writing of incense, peppermints, and the color of time since the 1960s. He appeared in the legendary first issue of Passaic Review in 1979, which also featured Allen Ginsberg, and in International Poetry Review, Paterson Literary Review, Sigmund Freud in Poetry, Anthem: a Leonard Cohen Tribute Anthology, and more. Ron has published eight books of poetry, including Absurd (Absurdist poetry from Cajun Mutt Press) and Hungry Words (Alien Buddha Press).

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Daniel Brown has loved jazz (and music in general) ever since he delved into his parents’ 78 collection as a child. He is a retired special education teacher who began writing as a senior. He always appreciates being published in a journal or anthology. His first poetry collection, Family Portraits in Verse and Other Illustrated Poems, was recently published by Epigraph Books.

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Patricia Carragon is curator/editor-in-chief (Brownstone Poets, Brooklyn, NY), and author of Angel Fire (Alien Buddha Press), Meowku (Poets Wear Prada), The Cupcake Chronicles (Poets Wear Prada), and Innocence (Finishing Line Press). Available on Amazon.com.

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Malaysian artist Christina Chin is a widely published haiku poet. She is a four-time recipient of top 100 in the mDAC Summit Art Contests, exhibited at the Palo Alto Art Center. She is the sole haiku contributor for MusArt book of Randall Vemer’s paintings. 1st prize winner of the 34th Annual Cherry Blossom Sakura Festival 2020 Haiku Contest. 1st prize winner in the 8th Setouchi Matsuyama 2019 Photo-haiku Contest.

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Molly Larson Cook is an award-winning Oregon writer, writing coach, and artist. In 2016, she received the first Steve Kowit Poetry Prize in a national competition. Molly was a Fellow at the Fishtrap Writers Conference in Oregon where she worked with poet Naomi Shihab Nye. Molly’s jazz novel, Listen, was published in a limited edition in 2003. Her “Colors of Jazz” paintings are at mollylarsoncookpaintings.wordpress.com.

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Brooklyn-born Arlene Corwin, now in her late 80’s, is a harpist, pianist and singer – a jazz musician forever. She earned her BA at Hofstra Univ. She has published 19 poetry books. In the 1950s her mother owned a jazz club in Hempstead, Long Island with Slim Gaillard. She currently lives in Sweden.

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Jaydn Dewald (he/they) is the author of Sheets of Sound and The Rosebud Variations, both from Broken Sleep Books. They are Assistant Professor of English and Director of Creative Writing at Piedmont University in Demorest, Georgia, and serve as managing editor for COMP: an interdisciplinary journal.

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A prolific fiction writer and poet, Joe DiBuduo completed two volumes of his signature “flash-fiction poetry,” as well as several collections of quirky short stories, including the appropriately titled Twisted Stories, Twisted Mind. His short fiction and poetry also appear in print anthologies and in online journals, including Jerry Jazz Musician, where he won two New Short Fiction Awards (2012 and 2013), Weekend Reads (2014), and Manifest West Anthology Series, No. 4 – “Western Weird” (2015).

Mr. DiBuduo passed away on August 15, 2023 at the age of 83.

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Russell duPont is an artist and an author whose artwork is included in a number of public and private collections. He has published three novels, King & Train, Waiting for the Turk and Movin’ On, the sequel to King & Train; two books of poetry; and two non-fiction chapbooks. His essay, “The Corner,” is included in the anthology Streets of Echoes. His work has been published in various newspapers and literary magazines. He was the founder & publisher of the literary magazine, the albatross.

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Mari Fitz-Wynn is an award-winning author and poet. She is working on her third poetry collection; a fifth book will be published in the fall. She enjoys all forms of jazz.

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Bryan Franco is a gay, Jewish poet from Brunswick, Maine who competed in the 2014 National Poetry Slam in Oakland, California. He has been published in the US, Australia, England, Germany, India, Ireland, and Scotland. He has facilitated poetry workshops for Brunswick High School, Tumblewords Project, and Phynnecabulary. He hosts Café Generalissimo Open Mic, is a member of the Beardo Bards Of The Bardo poetry troupe, painter, sculptor, gardener, and culinary genius. His book Everything I Think Is All in My Mind was published in 2021.

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Gerard Furey was raised in Pittsburgh. He had a standard ‘50s childhood and was introduced to jazz by his father who had a fantastic collection and one of the first component systems in the South Hills. Gerard taught high school Literature classes for 40 years. He is not a musician, but tried drum lessons from Tom Sedota, went to school with Robbie Klein and engaged in long philosophical discussions with Kenny Blake.

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Dayna Genevieve  writes prose poetry in the Beat tradition. Her work has been included in various journals and anthologies. When not writing she curates readings with improvisational jazz accompaniment and hosts concerts of all musical styles on her ranch in Northern California.

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Susie Gharib is a graduate of the University of Strathclyde with a Ph.D. in English on the work of D.H. Lawrence. Her poetry and fiction have appeared in Adelaide Literary Magazine, the Pennsylvania Literary Journal, Mad Swirl, Down in the Dirt, The Ink Pantry, Impspired Magazine, A New Ulster, Westward Quarterly, Miller’s Pond Poetry Magazine, The Opiate, Penwood review, Crossways, Amethyst Review, Synchronized Chaos, Pinyon Review, Leaves of Ink, Peacock Journal, The Blotter, and many others.

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George Held’s work has appeared in, among other periodicals, Blue Unicorn, Spring, Transference, and Two Cities Review and has received eleven Pushcart Prize nominations. Among his 22 books is the poetry chapbook Second Sight (2019); his forthcoming book, The Lucky Boy, collects nine of his short stories.

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James Higgins was born in Texas, and currently lives in Oregon. He has had poems that placed or won in Oregon Poetry Assn. contests, and while he has not submitted poetry in many years, he is now seriously pursuing publication. He is a graduate of the University of Oregon, where he studied poetry with Ralph Salisbury, and earned a BA in English literature. His work has appeared in Terra Incognita, Beyond Words, and Jerry Jazz Musician.

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Colin James has had a couple of chapbooks of poetry published. Dreams Of The Really Annoying from Writing Knights Press and A Thoroughness Not Deprived of Absurdity from Piski’s Porch Press, and a book of poems, Resisting Probability, from Sagging Meniscus Press.

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D. R. James, a year+ into retirement from nearly 40 years of teaching college writing, literature, and peace studies, lives, writes, bird-watches, and cycles with his psychotherapist wife in the woods near Saugatuck, Michigan. His latest of ten collections are Mobius Trip and Flip Requiem (Dos Madres Press, 2021, 2020), and his prose and poems have appeared internationally in a wide variety of print and online anthologies and journals.

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Arya F. Jenkins is a Colombian-American poet and writer whose poems have appeared in many journals and zines, most recently Hawaii Pacific Review, Jerry Jazz Musician, and OyeDrum Magazine. Her poetry has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and has been widely anthologized. She has also published poetry reviews in Cleaver Magazine, Cider Press Review, Rhino Poetry, The Poetry Cafe and Vol. 1 Brooklyn. In 2021, her poem “Ruin” was selected as a finalist for the Derick Burleson Poetry Prize by Choeofpleirn Press. She is the author of three poetry chapbooks, a short story collection, Blue Songs in an Open Key (Fomite Press, 2018), and a novel, Punk Disco Bohemian (NineStar Press, 2021).

[Editors Note: Several of Arya’s short stories were written for publication on Jerry Jazz Musician, and can be accessed by clicking here]

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DH Jenkins’ poetry has appeared in Jerry Jazz Musician, The Tiger Moth Revue, and The Global South, as well as in the art films “Call From a Distant Shore,” “Our Autumn,” and “A New Mask.”  For many years he was a writing and speech professor for UMUC-Asia, working in Japan and Korea.

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Connie Johnson is a Los Angeles, California-based writer whose poetry has appeared or will be forthcoming in Iconoclast, Haight-Ashbury Literary Journal, Jerry Jazz Musician, San Pedro River Review, Shot Glass Journal, Voicemail Poems, Misfit Magazine, Mudfish 23, Cholla Needles, Exit 13, Glint Literary Journal, Rye Whiskey Review and Door Is a Jar.

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Patricia Joslin is a retired educator who was raised in the Midwest and now lives in Charlotte, NC. Poems have been published in  Kakalak,  Tipton Poetry Journal, and by the  NC Poetry Society. Her chapbook,  I’ll Buy Flowers Again Tomorrow, a collection of poems about loss and healing, was published in 2023 by Charlotte Lit Press. She loves live jazz, solo travel, and the serenity of woodland hikes.

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A 2016 Pushcart nominee, Mike Jurkovic’s poetry and musical criticism have appeared in over 500 magazines and periodicals worldwide with little reportable income. Full lengths include: American Mental, (Lu-chador Press 2020), Blue Fan Whirring (Nirala Press, 2018),  President (Calling All Poets, New Paltz, NY). CD reviews appear online at All About Jazz, and Lightwood. He was and hopes to be again the Tuesday night host of Jazz Sanctuary, WOOC 105.3 FM, Troy, NY. He loves Emily most of all.

www.mikejurkovic.com
www.callingallpoets.net

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Erren Kelly is a three-time Pushcart nominated poet from Boston whose work has appeared in 300 publications (print and online), including Hiram Poetry Review, Mudfish, Jerry Jazz Musician, Poetry Magazine, Ceremony, Cacti Fur, Bitterzoet, Cactus Heart, Similar Peaks, Gloom Cupboard, and Poetry Salzburg.

Click here to read “Under Quarantine” — COVID-era poetry of Erren Kelly, published by Jerry Jazz Musician

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Host of radio’s Good Vibes for 14 years, Gloria Krolak features the vibraphone as well as a segment following, like Mary’s little lamb, genres Where Jazz Goes. Her book, Jazz Lines, is composed of poems built with jazz tune titles. She has also used jazz albums as her building blocks. Close-up photography is one of her passions. The author’s favorite spots are the beach and The Jazz Corner, annually voted one of Downbeat’s best clubs.

Visit her website by clicking here

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Catherine Lee, a widely published neo-Beat, explores poetry’s percussive jazz voice. Lee’s Mentor Wonders poetic drama about mentoring “at risk” public elementary students is available at Amazon and as a Dramatic Reading video at VIMEO. Lee is currently writing a new play, Subconsciously Seeking a Maverick, about how children watching mid-20th-century TV Westerns were programmed with stereotypes about minorities and women, and led to accept open carry of firearms for intimidation. Lee’s extensive artistic biography is found here.

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Aurora M. Lewis, a retiree, worked in finance for 40 years. In her fifties, she received a Certificate in Creative Writing-General Studies, with Honors from UCLA. Aurora’s recent poems, short stories, and nonfiction were accepted by The Literary Hatchet, Jerry Jazz Musician, and The Copperfield Review, to name a few. She self-published her first book, Jazz Poems, Reflections on a Broken Heart, in 2021.  Her book  Jigsaw Puzzle in a Vortex,  published in April 2023, received an award from The Literary Titians in July, 2023.

 

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Elliott Martin is a bass guitarist, historian, and poet in Richmond, Virginia. He loves jazz, blues, and all things rock, and has played guitar and bass in several bands on stages large and small. His poetry has appeared on Jerry Jazz Musician and in The Copperfield Review; Artemis Journal; Amendment Literary and Art Journal, and elsewhere, and his short fiction is forthcoming in Cirsova and The Copperfield Review.

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Marilyn Mohr is the author of two chapbooks, Satchel  and  Running The Track, has recent work in the anthologies Brownstone Poets, Fractured Hearts, Poets On The Verge and Jerry Jazz Musician. She lives and writes in West Orange , New Jersey.

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John Murphy is a retired lecturer living in the UK. He has taught English and American literature and creative writing and is the editor of The Lake, an online poetry journal.

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Michael L. Newell lives in Florida. He has had approximately 1200 poems published hither and yon.

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Robert Nisbet is a Welsh poet living just a few miles down the coast from Dylan Thomas’s Boathouse. He has been published widely and in roughly equal measures in Britain and the USA. He is a four-time Pushcart Prize nominee.

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Mary K O’Melveny, retired labor rights lawyer, lives with her wife near Woodstock, NY. Mary became a fan of jazz as a very young girl listening to Louis Armstrong and Lester Young on her grandparents’ Victrola record player. Mary’s award-nominated poetry appears in many print and on-line literary journals, anthologies and national blog sites. Mary has authored three poetry collections. Her just-released fourth book, Flight Patterns, is available by clicking here.

Click here to visit her web site.

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Uchechukwu Onyedikam is a Nigerian creative artist based in Lagos, Nigeria.  His poems have appeared in Amsterdam Quarterly, Brittle Paper, Poetic Africa, Hood Communists, The Hooghly Review, and in print anthologies.  Christina Chin and he have co-published Pouring Light on the Hills (2022)

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Born in Norman, Oklahoma, Carrie Magness Radna (she/her) is an archival audiovisual cataloger at the New York Public Library, a singer, a lyricist-songwriter and a poet who loves to travel (when it’s safe). She won the Third Place Prize for “Pink (a Ghazal)” in the 91th annual Writer’s Digest Writer’s Competition (Rhyming Poetry). She’s currently an Associate Editor of Brownstone Poets Anthology (2022-) and was nominated for the 2022 Pushcart Prize. Her fifth book, Shooting Myself in the Dark, was just published by Cajun Mutt Press in January 2023.

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Diana Rosen is the author of the hybrid micro-fiction and poetry book High Stakes & Expectations from  thetinypublisher.com/shop. She is a poet, essayist, and flash writer whose work appears in Rattle, Tiferet Journal, Drunk Monkeys, Rat’s Ass Review among other journals and anthologies online and in print in England, India, Canada, Australia, and the U.S.  To read more of her work, please visit  authory.com/dianarosen

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Ed Ruzicka, an occupational therapist, lives in Baton Rouge, LA where he and his wife, Renee, often sit on a patio that backs up to the sunset. Find Ed’s many takes on the rocky marriage between freedom and the American highway in his second book My Life in Cars. Ed’s poems have appeared in the Xavier Review, Rattle, and Canary as well as many other literary journals and anthologies.
More at: http://edrpoet.com/poems.html

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Bernard Saint is a U.K. poet who has published in U.K. and United States literary magazines since the 1960’s. He is a regular contributor to International Times. His most recent book is ROMA, published by Smokestack Books. He worked as a therapist and supervisor in the U.K. National Health Service in psychiatry and in addiction recovery.

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photo by Mya Smbg

Moe Seager is a poet and jazz & blues vocalist who sings his poems on stages in Paris, New York and elsewhere.  He has six collections of poetry and currently publishes with Onslaught press, Oxford, U.K.  He won a Golden Quill Award (USA) for investigative journalism in 1989, and received an International Human Rights award from the Zepp foundation in 1990. He is one of the coordinators for le Fédération des Poètes, Paris.

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Bill Siegel lives in the Boston MA area, and writes both prose and poetry to express his love of jazz. Bill’s work appears in Indigenous Pop: Native American Music from Jazz to Hip Hop (Univ of Arizona Press, 2016); Rust & Moth; Blue Mountain Review; AllAboutJazz.com; inmotionmagazine.com; Brilliant Corners; Blue Mesa Review: Cruzando Fronteras (Crossing Borders); SIEVA Magazine (forthcoming Dec. 2023) and other publications. He also created jimpepperlives.wordpress.com, a collection of articles, poetry and news celebrating the work of the late saxophonist, Jim Pepper.

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Dr. Roger Singer was in private chiropractic practice for 38 years in upstate New York, and served as a medical technician during the Vietnam era. He has four children, Abigail, Caleb, Andrew and Philip and seven grandchildren.  Dr. Singer is the Poet Laureate of Old Lyme, Connecticut. He has had over 1,070 poems published on the Internet, magazines and in books and is a 2017 Pushcart Prize Award Nominee. He is also the President of the Shoreline Chapter of the Connecticut Poetry Society.

 

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M. G. Stephens is author of 27 books, most recently the novels King Ezra and Kid Coole (both published by Spuyten Duyvil in 2022), and History of Theatre or the Glass of Fashion, prose poems and poetry  (MadHat Press, 2021). Forthcoming in 23: Ornithology, poems (Finishing Line Press) and Jesus’ Dog, stories, from Paycock Press.

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Peter Gregg Slater, a historian, has taught at several institutions, including Dartmouth College and the University of California, Berkeley. His poetry, fiction, parody, and essays have appeared in DASH, Workers Write!, The Satirist, Masque & Spectacle, and The Westchester Review. He has been a jazz buff since his teenage years, with a special passion for hard bop.

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photo by Jack Underwood

Terrance Underwood is a retired Rolls-Royce Service Engineer, veteran, College Grad (B.A. History) who has been listening to recorded jazz music since he was 5-6 yrs old. One of his first memories is listening to a 78 version of “Cherokee” by Charlie Barnett.

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Anthony Ward chooses to write because he has no choice. He writes to get rid of himself and lay his thoughts to rest. He derives most of his inspiration from listening to classical music and jazz since it is often the mood which inspires him. He has recently been published in Jerry Jazz Musician, Synchronized Chaos, Literary Yard, Mad Swirl, Shot Glass Journal and Ariel Chart.

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Phyllis Wax writes in Milwaukee on a bluff overlooking Lake Michigan. Inspired by nature and human nature, as well as by music of all sorts, her poetry has appeared previously in Jerry Jazz Musician as well as in many other journals and anthologies, both online and in print.

 

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Lynn White lives in north Wales. Her work is influenced by issues of social justice and events, places and people she has known or imagined. She is especially interested in exploring the boundaries of dream, fantasy and reality. Click here to visit her website, and here for her Facebook page.

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 Henry Wolstat is a retired psychiatrist in his late 80’s living in the greater Boston area with his wife. He is the author of a poetry book, Driftwood. He has also been published in both printed anthologies and online. He is passionate about running, the arts, and poetry.

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Click here to read the spring 2023 collection of jazz poetry.

Click here to read a collection of short jazz poetry, published in January, 2023

Click here to read the fall/winter 2022/23 collection of jazz poetry

Click here to read the summer 2022 collection of jazz poetry

 

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Click here for information about how to submit your poetry

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