To celebrate the poets who penned the wonderful works in our September issue, we’re hosting a poetry reading at 7 p.m. on Sept. 27 at Charles Village’s Bird in Hand.
Learn a little more about the writers below:
Shirley Brewer
Shirley J. Brewer graduated from careers in bartending, palm-reading and speech therapy. She serves as poet-in-residence at Carver Center for the Arts & Technology in Baltimore. Her poems garnish BarrowStreet, Poetry East, Slant, Gargoyle, Comstock Review, and many other journals. Shirley’s poetry chapbooks include A Little Breast Music, 2008, Passager Books, and After Words, 2013, Apprentice House. In 2017, Main Street Rag released her first full-length collection of poems, Bistro in Another Realm. Shirley was awarded the first Creativity Award for Excellence in Plorking (Play + Work) from the University of Baltimore, where she earned her Master’s degree in Creative Writing/Publishing Arts. Her definition of shame is a bare wrist.
celeste doaks
Poet and journalist celeste doaks is the author of Cornrows and Cornfields (Wrecking Ball Press, UK), and most recently the editor of Not Without Our Laughter (Mason Jar Press). Cornrows was listed as one of the “Ten Best Books of 2015” by Beltway Poetry Quarterly. Her multiple accolades include a Lucille Clifton Scholarship to attend Squaw Valley Writers Workshop, the 2010 AWP WC&C Scholarship, and residencies at Atlantic Center of the Arts and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. Her journalism has appeared in the Huffington Post, Village Voice, Time Out New York, and QBR (Quarterly Black Book Review). Her poems have been published in multiple on-line and print publications such as Chicago Quarterly Review, Asheville Poetry Review, Bayou Magazine and Beltway Poetry Quarterly. Doaks, who garnered a 2015 Pushcart Prize nomination, will be the 2017-2018 Visiting Assistant Professor in Creative Writing at University of Delaware. For more visit www.doaksgirl.com
Kathy Mangan
Kathy Mangan lives in Baltimore and teaches creative writing and American literature at McDaniel College, where she is Professor of English and holds the Joan Develin Coley Chair in Creative Expression and the Arts. Her books include a chapbook, Ragged Alphabet, from Rook Press, and Above the Tree Line, from Carnegie Mellon University Press. Her poems have been published in Georgia Review, Gettysburg Review, Shenandoah, Ploughshares, and Pushcart Prize, as well as many anthologies, including Boomer Girls: Poems by Women from the Baby Boom Generation and the Bedford Introduction to Literature.
Michael Ratcliffe
Michael Ratcliffe is a geographer whose poetry often is rooted in observations of people, places, and the landscape. His work has appeared in a variety of print and on-line journals, including Fredericksburg Literary and Arts Review, Fourth & Sycamore, Peacock Journal, and Free State Review. When he is not writing poetry or managing geographic programs, he can be found bicycling throughout Central Maryland. He also can be found online at michaelratcliffespoetry.wordpress.com.
Derick Ebert
Inaugural Baltimore City Youth Poet Laureate and author of Black Boy Archaeologists Derick Ebert uses poetry to challenge traditional masculinity, discuss social issues and explore identity. A graduate of University of Baltimore and recipient of Baltimore’s Best Rising Star Award, Ebert has had his work featured in Baltimore Magazine, American Short Fiction and the Poetry Society of America and is now pursuing his MFA in poetry at Sarah Lawrence College. He can be found online at derickpoetry.com.
Image courtesy of the Bird in Hand Instagram.
