Welcome to the 2020 Mad Poets Festival! We’re taking the show on the virtual road this year because COVID-19 couldn’t keep us from sharing these phenomenal poets and their works with the world. So, sit back, grab a drink, and prepare to be inspired!
View the Group #8 performances here.
Group #8 Bios
J.C Todd’s recent work focuses on the trauma of war. Books include Beyond Repair (Able Muse Press, 2021), The Damages of Morning (an Eric Hoffer Award finalist), and artist book collaborations. Winner of the 2016 Rita Dove Prize in Poetry, she holds fellowships from the Pew Center for Arts and Heritage, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and many residency programs. Click here to purchase The Damages of Morning.
Bill Van Buskirk lives in Bryn Mawr Pennsylvania. His poems have appeared in The Comstock Review, The Paterson Literary Review, LIPS, The Schuykill Valley Journal, Parting Gifts ,The Mad Poets’ Review, and many others. His chapbook, Everything that’s Fragile is Important, received an honorable mention in the Jesse Bryce Niles Chapbook contest (2007). His book, This Wild Joy that Thrills Outside the Law, won the Joie de vivre contest sponsored by the Mad Poets’ Review (2010).
Therese Halscheid’s latest poetry collection Frozen Latitudes (Press 53), received an Eric Hoffer Book Award. Her poems have appeared in numerous magazines. She has spent many years as an itinerant writer, by way of house-sitting. Her photography chronicles her journey, and has appeared in juried exhibitions. She teaches for Atlantic Cape Community College.
Dilruba Ahmed is the author of Bring Now the Angels (University of Pittsburgh) and Dhaka Dust (Graywolf). Her poems have appeared in Kenyon Review, New England Review, Ploughshares, and Best American Poetry 2019. She teaches creative writing with Chatham University’s MFA program and The Writing Lab: https://www.dilrubaahmed.com/writing-lab. You can order her new book at https://bookshop.org/books/bring-now-the-angels-poems/9780822966074
Alicia Askenase is the author of four chapbooks, including The Luxury of Pathos (Texture Press) and Shirley Shirley (sonaweb), as well as a just completed full-length manuscript. She reads a poem from the most recent Painted Bride Quarterly 100, “Travel Light,” in her video for Mad Poets.
Rebecca O’Bern has been published in Connecticut Review, Blue Monday Review, South 85 Journal, Hartskill Review, and other journals. A recipient of the Leslie Leeds Poetry Prize, she holds an MFA in creative writing and currently reads for Mud Season Review and The Southampton Review. Follow her on Twitter @rebeccaobern.