“David Biespiel was born in 1964 and grew up in Houston, Texas. He is a poet, literary critic, memoirist, and contributing writer at The Rumpus, American Poetry Review, Politico, New Republic, Slate, Poetry, Bookforum, and The New York Times, among other publications. He is the author of numerous books, most recently Charming Gardeners and The Book of Men and Women, which was chosen one of the Best Books of the Year by the Poetry Foundation.”

“Confession: From his prose, I wasn’t expecting Jay Ponteri to meet me so freshly groomed, polite, and soft-spoken.

It was sloppy for me to assume that Ponteri, the director of Marylhurst University’s undergraduate creative writing program, would appear slovenly or depressive or altogether not-hip in the fashion that he portrayed himself to be in “Wedlocked.”

“Before entering the Portland Archives and Records Center on the fifth floor of the PSU’s Student Recreation Center, I had to leave my purse in a locker, hand over my driver’s license, sign a form, and promise not to lick my fingers before touching anything, which is apparently a common unconscious gesture.”

“Born in Bellingham, Washington in 1954, David Mason was the Poet Laureate of Colorado from 2010 to 2014. He received a BA from Colorado College and an PhD from the University of Rochester in New York. His first poetry collection, The Buried Houses, won the Nicholas Roerich Poetry Prize and his second, The Country I Remember, won the Alice Fay Di Castagnola Award.”

“My conversation with poet Annie Lighthart, debut author of the book Iron String published in 2013 by Airlie Press, took place at TaborSpace in Southeast Portland. It seemed predetermined by the poems that Lighthart writes—lyrical, imaginative, tender, metaphysical writings that begin in the things of this world—that our conversation would touch down on topics like the imagination and the soul. How apropos, then, to meet at TaborSpace, founded five years back by the clergy of Mt. Tabor Presbyterian Church and community leaders as a donation- and volunteer-based coffeehouse and meeting space.”