Brian Russell is the author of The Year of What Now (Graywolf, 2013), which was named a finalist for the Levis Reading Prize. His poems appear in The New Yorker, The New Republic, and The Kenyon Review. He lives in St. Louis.

Yahya Frederickson’s books include In a Homeland Not Far: New & Selected Poems (Press 53, 2017), The Gold Shop of Ba-’Ali (Lost Horse, 2014), and four chapbooks, including The Birds of al-Merjeh Square: Poems from Syria (Finishing Line, 2014). His poems have appeared in Arts & Letters, Michigan Quarterly Review, Mizna, RHINO, The Southern Review, Witness Magazine, and elsewhere. He is a professor of English at Minnesota State University Moorhead, on Dakota and Anishinaabe lands.

Teja Sudhakar is an MFA student at Indiana University. A native of Chennai, India, and a longtime resident of Lexington, Kentucky, their work explores queer and immigrant narratives of the transnational South. Sudhakar’s work has been published or is forthcoming with the Academy of American Poets, Salt Hill, Mid-American Review, The Arkansas International, and others. They currently live and write in Bloomington with their cat Soup.

Amber Flora Thomas is the author of Eye of Water (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2005), which won the Cave Canem Prize for a first book by a Black poet. Her other books are The Rabbits Could Sing (University of Alaska Press, 2012), and most recently Red Channel in the Rupture (Red Hen Press, 2018). Her poetry has been published widely in journals and anthologies. A native of northern California, she currently lives in North Carolina.

Lauren K. Watel’s debut book, a collection of hybrid prose poetry entitled Book of Potions, was awarded the Kathryn A. Morton Prize in Poetry from Sarabande Books and was released in February. Her poetry, fiction, essays, and translations have appeared widely, and she was named a One Story Literary Debutante. A native of Dallas, Texas, she now lives in Decatur, Georgia.

janan alexandra is the author of Come From (BOA Editions, 2025). Her poem “on form & matter” won the 2023 Adrienne Rich Award, and her poem “Open Letter to a Politician” is featured in Lit Hub’s “50 Contemporary Poets on the Best Poems They Read in 2024.” She teaches creative writing at Indiana University, edits poetry for The Rumpus, and helps curate Mondays Are Free, a Substack collaboration by poets Ross Gay and Pat Rosal.

Josh Fomon’s second book, Our Human Shores, will be published by Black Ocean in 2025. His first book, Though We Bled Meticulously, was published by Black Ocean in 2016. His poems have appeared in Afternoon Visitor, Caketrain, DIAGRAM, The Destroyer, DREGINALD, jubilat, mercury firs, Paperbark, Poetry Northwest, Typo Magazine, Yalobusha Review, and others. Fomon lives on the unceded lands of the Coast Salish peoples in Seattle.

Timothy Liu’s books of poems include Down Low and Lowdown (2023) and Luminous Debris (2018), both published by Barrow Street Press. A reader of occult esoterica, he teaches at SUNY New Paltz and lives in the Hudson Valley.

Saadi Youssef (1934–2021) is considered one of the most important contemporary poets in the Arab world. He was born near Basra, Iraq. Following his experience as a political prisoner in Iraq, he spent most of his life in exile. He is the author of over forty books of poetry, two novels, a book of short stories, and several books of essay and memoir, in addition to being an acclaimed literary translator.