George Wallace and Walt Whitman Birthplace proudly present season three of POETS BUILDING BRIDGES: A TRIANGULATION PROJECT, inaugurated in March 2022 with the purpose of enhancing dialogue between communities of writers across the US and internationally. Based on a shared small-group experience, these Saturday zoom sessions engage three distinct and well defined communities of poets with each other to share work and foster further interaction. In Season Three, POETS BUILDING BRIDGES will build on that experience, triangulating national and international groups based not only on location but additionally offering key small press publications an opportunity to form a participating group.
THIS IS A ZOOM ONLY EVENT.
Join Zoom Meeting:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81536786664
GLOUCESTER POETS MA
Robert Whelan is a poet, playwright and essayist who lives in Rockport, MA where he is the current Poet Laureate. His poems have been published in several anthologies and journals and translated into multiple languages. Believing poetry is best as spoken word, he frequents open mics in Boston, New England and Internationally. In September 2022 Robert was awarded a silver medal at the International Poetry Festival in Naoussa, Greece. In November 2025 one of his poems will be launched to the moon as part of NASA’s Artemis Lunar Codex Project. He organizes the annual Rockport Poetry Festival and hosts the monthly Rockport Poetry Open Mic and the Gloucester Writers Center Open Mic.
Martha Fox published This Arc of Assurances with Grayson Books in November 2022. Previous work includes a chapbook Tides/The Land Sighted with poet Thomas Lux and a book If the River’s this High all Summer (Martha Fritz, Pym-Randall Press, Cambridge, MA). She has published numerous poems in literary journals, and her poems are included in Tide Lines: An Anthology of Cape Ann Poets. After an M.F.A from The University of California, Irvine, Martha was an NEA Poet in the Schools in California and has continued to teach writers.
Carol Seitchik is the author of the poetry collection, The Distance From Odessa (Atmosphere Press, 2021). Her poems have been published in the anthologies; A Feast of Cape Ann Poets (Folly Cove Press), The Practicing Poet (Terrapin Books), Culture and Identity (Thepoetmagazine.org) and most recently Tide Lines an anthology of Cape Ann Poets (Rockport Press).
Suellen Wedmore, Poet Laureate emerita for the small seaside town of Rockport, Massachusetts, has been awarded first place in Writer’s Digest’s Rhyming Poem and Non-Rhyming Poem Contests. Her chapbook Deployed won the Grayson Press annual contest, and her chapbook Mind the Light won first place in Quill’s Edge Press’s “Women on the Edge” contest. Five of her poems have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and recently Down East Books published her full-length book of poems: A Fixed White Light: Poems of Women Lighthouse Keepers.
PINK TREES PRESS POETS NYC
Linda Kleinbub is the Founding Editor of Pink Trees Press, curator of Fahrenheit Open Mic, contributing editor at Girls Write Now, and co-founder of Pen Pal Poets. She’s the author of Cover Charge (Autonomedia, 2022,) Appear to Dance (Pink Trees Press, 2024,) and co-editor of the Silver Tongued Devil Anthology (Pink Trees Press, 2020.) Linda was one of six local poets invited to read at the Americas Poetry Festival of New York 2021.
Madeline Artenberg was a photojournalist and street theatre performer before falling for poetry. She was a Finalist in the Mudfish 2020 contest, First Place Winner in the Performance Poets Association 2024 poetry contest, and Judge of the 2024 Deane Wagner poetry contest for the St. Louis Writers Guild. Her poetry book, Naming a Hurricane, was published in 2023 by Pink Trees Press.
Pauline Findlay is a BRIC Poetry Slam winner. She’s the author of Mirror Images and Dysfunction: A Play on Words in the Familiar (Pink Tress Press, 2022) a poetic circus filled with winding roads. Besides writing, Pauline is a filmmaker for Poetry in Motion and a featured chef at the famous Enoteca Maria restaurant on Staten Island.
Jane LeCroy serves the Poetry Gods as a featured character in the Poetry Brothel NYC and as a teaching artist bringing her love of poetry to students. She sets her poetry to music in her bands: Ω▽(Ohmslice), and The Icebergs, records are streaming everywhere. Three Rooms Press published her multimedia book of lyrical poems, Signature Play. Pink Trees Press recently published her new poetry collection, Spellbook of Ordinary Mistakes.
NAOUSSA POETS GREECE
Xanthi Hondrou-Hill is Greek poetess and translator, who was born in Germany and studied German and English Literature, Linguistics, Journalism and Public Relations Management in Germany. She has worked as Teacher for Greek language and culture at the University of Stuttgart, as journalist and as Public Relations Manager at the Greek Consulate in Stuttgart. She is the founder and director of the International Poetry Festival of Naoussa.
Andreas Karakokkinos is from Cyprus and lives in Thessaloniki. He studied Law at the University of Thessaloniki. He has published 4 poetry collections and he is part of the Greek Association of Writers in Thessaloniki and the Union of Writers Cyprus.
Chloe Koutsoubeli was born in Thessaloniki in 1962, and has published eleven poetry collections, three novels and two plays. Her collection OI OMOTRAPEZOI OF ANOTHER LAND was awarded the State Poetry Prize 2017. Her play titled ORFEAS IN THE BAR was performed in 2014 at the Agora Theatre in Patras. In 2020, a collection of ancient themed poems titled ALWAYS KNOWING WHAT THE ANTIGONE STARTS, WHEN SHE LEAVES was published in Seville. In 2020, a study of her work was published by Rome Publications titled THE POETRY OF THE ANCIENT MYTH IN THE WORK OF CHLOE KOUTSOUBELI
Dimitris P. Kraniotis is an award-winning Greek poet who lives in Larissa in central Greece and works as a medical doctor. He studied Medicine at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. He is the author of 11 poetry books in Greece and abroad. In 2011 he edited and published the anthology in English “World Poetry 2011” (205 poets from 65 countries). He is Chairman of the Writers for Peace Committee of PEN Greece, President of the World Poets Society (WPS) and member of the Hellenic Literary Society and the National Society of Greek Literary Writers. In 2022 he was awarded the Gold Award “Aristotle” (1st Poetry Prize) at the 1st Naoussa International Poetry Festival in Greece.
