poem

Paul Verlaine (1844 – 1896), precursor of the Symbolists, composed ten volumes of lushly musical poetry replete with eroticism and subtle moods. His life was a tempestuous sequence of prosperity, poverty, Parisian café society, a violent affair with the young Rimbaud, two imprisonments for assault—including one on his mother—as well as failed business ventures and intervals of teaching in England.

After her Tulsa upbringing and with a psychology degree from Vassar College, Diane Furtney worked a year in Israel (1967), then took an assortment of jobs, sometimes in clinical psychology, in several U.S. cities. Besides nonfiction ghostwriting, she has authored two prize-winning poetry chapbooks (Destination Rooms and It Was a Game) and two comic mystery novels (pseudonym D.J.H. Jones). Her poems and translations (French, Japanese) are in numerous journals in the U.S.

Pierre de Ronsard (1524 – 1585) was for many years the royal poet for the House of Valois, memorializing numerous kings and members of the French court as well as official events and literary figures, including Henri II, Charles IX, François Rabelais, and Marguerite de Navarre. Among the more than one thousand poems he wrote were sonnets on Petrarch, odes after Pindar and Horace, elegies, eclogues, songs, and witty if sometimes dark light verse.

Terese Coe’s poems and translations have appeared in Poetry, The Threepenny Review, Ploughshares, New American Writing, Alaska Quarterly Review, The Cincinnati Review, Smartish Pace, Tar River Poetry and The Huffington Post; in the UK, The TLS, Poetry Review, Agenda, New Walk Magazine, Orbis, and Warwick Review; in Ireland, The Stinging Fly; and in many other publications, including anthologies.

Catherine Chandler is an American poet, teacher and translator.

Duane Caylor is a physician in Dubuque, Iowa. His poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in various journals, most recently Blue Unicorn, American Arts Quarterly, Off the Coast, Atlanta Review, and First Things. He has been a finalist for both the Morton Marr Poetry Prize and the Nemerov Sonnet Award, and he received honorable mention for the Frost Farm Prize in 2014.

Catharine Savage Brosman, PhD, is Professor Emerita of French at Tulane University. She was Mellon Professor of Humanities for 1990 and later held the Gore Chair in French. She was also visiting professor for a term at the University of Sheffield, UK. Her scholarly publications comprise eighteen books on French literary history and criticism. A new volume, Louisiana Creole Literature: A Historical Study, has just been published.

Eric Berlin grew up in suburban New Jersey during the 1980s with a love for storytelling instilled by his grandmother. He was drawn to poetry partly as a way of coping with her death. After studying English at Harvard, he joined an improv troupe to cultivate spontaneity within various comedic forms. Shifting from that collaborative creativity to a more individual sort, he earned a Sculpture MFA at NY Academy of Art and a Poetry MFA at Syracuse University, where he lives with his partner Ellen, her wonderful son Joah, and their newest family member Ezra.

Roy Bentley has received fellowships from the NEA, the Florida Division of Cultural Affairs, and the Ohio Arts Council. Poems have appeared in The Southern Review, Shenandoah, Pleiades, Blackbird, North American Review, Prairie Schooner and elsewhere. Books include Boy in a Boat (University of Alabama, 1986), Any One Man (Bottom Dog, 1992), The Trouble with a Short Horse in Montana (White Pine, 2006), and Starlight Taxi (Lynx House 2013).

Peter Austin lives with his wife and three daughters in Toronto, Canada, where he teaches English at Seneca College. He has published three collections of poems and a short verse novel. A fourth collection, The Acid Test, will appear later in 2014. In a previous life, he wrote a musical version of The Wind in the Willows, which received four professional productions.