Issue no. 2: Mystics & Saints contributors

Daniel Abdal-Hayy Moore (born in 1940 in Oakland, California and died in 2016 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, rahimahullah) had his first book of poems, Dawn Visions, published by Lawrence Ferlinghetti of City Lights Books, San Francisco, in 1964, and the second in 1972, Burnt Heart/Ode to the War Dead. He created and directed The Floating Lotus Magic Opera Company in Berkeley, California in the late 60s, and presented two major productions, The Walls Are Running Blood and Bliss Apocalypse. 
He became a Sufi Muslim in 1970, performed the Hajj in 1972, and lived and traveled throughout Morocco, Spain, Algeria and Nigeria, landing in California and publishing The Desert is the Only Way Out and Chronicles of Akhira in the early 80s (Zilzal Press). 
Residing in Philadelphia since 1990, in 1996 he published The Ramadan Sonnets (Jusoor/City Lights), and in 2002, The Blind Beekeeper (Jusoor/Syracuse University Press). He has been the major editor for a number of works, including The Burdah of Shaykh Busiri, translated by Hamza Yusuf, and the poetry of Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, translated by Munir Akash. He has been poetry editor for Seasons Journal, Islamica Magazine, a 2010 translation by Munir Akash of State of Siege by Mahmoud Darwish (Syracuse University Press), and The Prayer of the Oppressed by Imam Muhammad Nasir al-Dar’i, translated by Hamza Yusuf (Sandala). 
In 2011, 2012 and 2014, he was a winner of the Nazim Hikmet Prize for Poetry. In 2013, he won an American Book Award, and in 2013 and 2014, he was listed among The 500 Most Influential Muslims for his poetry.

D.W. Baker is a poet from St. Petersburg, Florida. His poems appear in Amethyst Review, ballast, Corporeal, and Electric Pink, among others, and have received nominations for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize. His reviews and essays appear in Variant Lit, Philly Poetry Chapbook Review, Panorama, and more. He edited poetry for Libre. See more of his work at www.dwbakerpoetry.com.

Kara Barlow is a trilingual poet with an MA in Poetry from Queen’s University Belfast, where she received the Seamus Heaney International Scholarship. She has lived internationally and considers her work a translation exercise between trauma, resilience, and longing. Her poems are published in Bear Review, Letters Journal, Ragaire, the Silver Press Tendrils anthology, and Bending the Arc.

e.l. biddle is a writer and jack-of-all-trades; a settler, living along the banks of Deshkan Ziibi (called London, Ontario); and a Trans man, who just got here. With undergraduate degrees in Classical Civilizations and Anthropology, and a breadth of experience as a designer, arts administrator, and technical writer, Bidz now writes about his own lived experience at the crossroads of ritual, Animism, and the post-human. His poetry has appeared in Prudence Dispatch and OROBORO Literary Journal.

Cat Brogan is a queer poet from Omagh in the north of Ireland. Her work explores ritual, inheritance, migration and the charged border between the sacred and the everyday. Moving between Catholic upbringing, interfaith encounter and post-conflict landscapes, she writes toward reimagined forms of belonging. Her poems have appeared in Local Wonders (Dedalus Press), Skylight 47, Ragaire and other journals, and she was runner-up in the 2025 International Lawrence Durrell Society White Mice Poetry Competition. She is currently completing her debut collection.

Linda Bryant-Davis is a retired journalist with thirty-plus years of experience who pivoted to poetry and creative non-fiction. She grew up in Chicago and has an MFA in Poetry from Fairleigh Dickinson University. She owns Owsley Fork Writers Sanctuary in Berea, Kentucky, a writing retreat where authors and artists from across the country pursue special projects. Her most recent publication is Ghost Dancing With Music from Act of Power Press (2025). She has been published in numerous literary journals and received five Pushcart nominations. 

Joseph Byrd is a 2025 Best Small Fictions winner, a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, and was in the StoryBoard Chicago cohort with Kaveh Akbar. An Associate Artist in Poetry under Joy Harjo at the Atlantic Center for the Arts, his work has appeared or is forthcoming in West Trade Review, Exposition Review, The South Carolina Review, Stone Canoe, CutBank, Pedestal, South Florida Poetry Journal, DIAGRAM, Novus Literary Arts, and elsewhere. He is the founder and animator of Sundays on the Avenue, a monthly reading series for poets in Portland, Oregon, and serves as Poetry Editor for The Plentitudes.

Halliday Carpender is a Chicago-based poet. She completed the MA Poetry program at the Seamus Heaney Center in Belfast, NI. Her work appears in Basket magazine and The Apiary.

Sophie Cornwell (she/her) is a PhD student living in the midwest with her spouse and chronically sleepy dog. Her most recent publications can be found in Barzakh Magazine, Fleeting Daze Mag, and Bodega Magazine. When she is not writing, she can usually be found out on a long walk or curled up with a book, and she is more than likely eating cheese right now.

Stephan Crown-Weber is a translator and writer from Danville, Kentucky. His work has appeared in publications such as Trinity Journal of Literary Translation, ExPat Press, World Hunger and Minor Literature[s]. A definitive list of extant credited translations and other writing credits of his is here: www.crownweber.com/creditedpublications.

Tony DiCarlo is a poet and translator from Northern California who now lives in Wellington, New Zealand. He received his MFA in poetry from the University of Michigan and his work has recently appeared in RHINO, Capgras, Sweet Mammalian, and Symposia, among others. His non-poetry aspirations include writing an essay called "'Warcraft III' and the Permanent Efficacy of Grace" and learning to tech-chase on reaction.

Jané Dowd is a South African poet whose work moves between the sacred and the feral, the personal and the planetary. Her poems often explore the strange symbiosis between grief and wonder: how we survive the unbearable by naming it. Drawing on influences that range from mysticism and mythology to modern pop culture and the quiet absurdity of daily life, she writes at the intersection of philosophy, ecology, and the body. Find her at @jane_doe.8.0.

Bart Edelman’s poetry collections include Crossing the Hackensack, Under Damaris’ Dress, The Alphabet of Love, The Gentle Man, The Last Mojito, The Geographer’s Wife, Whistling to Trick the Wind, and This Body Is Never at Rest: New and Selected Poems 1993 – 2023. He has taught at Glendale College, where he edited Eclipse, a literary journal, and, most recently, in the MFA program at Antioch University, Los Angeles. His work has been anthologized in textbooks published by City Lights Books, Etruscan Press, Harcourt Brace, Longman, McGraw-Hill, Prentice Hall, the University of Iowa Press, Wadsworth, and others. He lives in Pasadena, California.

Elliot is a trans-masc dyke living in Glasgow who writes some poems, keeps a diary, and experiments with translation.

Beatriz F. Fernandez is a Miami-area poet and university reference librarian. She is the author of three poetry chapbooks, the most recent being Simultaneous States (Bainbridge Island Press, 2025). She has read her work on WLRN public radio and has been featured on their website several times. Her poetry has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize four times in recent years and won the 2nd annual Writer’s Digest Poetry Award. She is a member of the Old Scratch Press Poetry and Short Form writing collective. Find her at www.beatrizffernandez.com and @nebula4291.

Gretchen Gales (she/her) is a disabled educator, freelance writer, and the executive editor of Quail Bell Magazine. Her creative and journalistic work has appeared in Next Avenue, Your Tango, Plainsongs, Plathian Urges, Nebo, and others. Gretchen is also the author of the poetry chapbook Agora (Alien Buddha Press, 2023) and the co-editor of Her Plumage: An Anthology of Women's Writings. See more of her work at www.writinggales.com and follow her @writinggales. 

Charisse Gendron is a poet living in Portland, Maine. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Anomaly Poetry, Blood & Bourbon, Clepsydra, Empyrean, Feral, Ivo Review, The RavensPerch, The Soliloquist, Third Wednesday, Trashlight, Local Gems Press, and other publications. Her favorite poets include Louise Glück, Anne Carson, A. E. Stallings, Franz Wright, and Frederick Seidel. She holds a doctorate in English from the University of Connecticut.

Z.H. Gill lives in East Hollywood, CA, with his cat Hans. His writings appear in Pithead Chapel, Wigleaf, X-R-A-Y, HAD, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, hex, minor literature[s], MEMO, Vlad Mag, Be About It, Keep Planning, Apocalypse Confidential, Forever, The Bulb Region, and many more outlets for such things. He edits Burial Magazine.

Ewen Glass (he/him) is a screenwriter and poet from Northern Ireland who lives with two dogs, a tortoise and a body of self-doubt; his poetry has appeared in the likes of Okay Donkey, Maudlin House, HAD, Poetry Scotland and One Art Poetry. Bluesky/X/IG: @ewenglass.

Fernando Jerez Hernández (Valladolid, Spain, 1984) holds a diploma in Library Science and Documentation from the University of Salamanca and a degree in Documentation from the University of Barcelona. Since 2014, he has been working as a librarian in the city of Burgos, where he runs book clubs, book presentations, and a local literature podcast. His first poetry work, Hija, is in the process of being published.

Victor Kamhazi is a writer from Caracas, Venezuela, currently based in Chicago, IL. His work has been published in Raging Opossum Press and is forthcoming in Sobotka Literary Magazine and Written on a Napkin Zine.

Justin Karcher is a Best of the Net- and Pushcart-nominated poet and playwright from Buffalo. He is the author of several books, including Tailgating at the Gates of Hell (Ghost City Press, 2015). Recent playwriting credits include The Birth of Santa (American Repertory Theater of WNY) and The Buffalo Bills Need Our Help (Alleyway Theatre). Find him at www.justinkarcherauthor.com, Twitter: @justin_karcher, Bluesky: @justinkarcher.bsky.social. 

Kristin Lueke is a Chicana poet and author of the chapbooks here i show you a human heart and (in)different math (Dancing Girl Press). Her poems appear in Sixth Finch, HAD, Wildness, The Maine Review, Mizna and elsewhere. She has been nominated for a Pushcart, Best of the Net and Best New Poets, and holds an MA from the University of Chicago as well as an AB from Princeton University, where she received the Morris W. Kroll Poetry Prize. She lives in Cerrillos, NM and writes at www.theanimaleats.com.

Merlin June Mack (they/them) is a hemiplegic writer from Southern California. Their work explores joy, the real in the unreal, saints, bugs, fish, and other hyper femme adjacent daydreams. Merlin has been published in magazines such as The Lavender Review, Troublemaker Firestarter, beestung, Twin Bird Review, and their work has been Best of Net nominated. They are forthcoming in Foglifter. Merlin's name is like the bird, not the wizard.

Pip McGough is a UK-based poet and freelance writer, widely published on both sides of the Atlantic. His poem "Render Error," as featured in the Spring 2025 issue of Wildscapes magazine, has been nominated for a 2026 Pushcart Prize.

Mark J. Mitchell has worked in hospital kitchens, fast food, retail wine and spirits, conventions, tourism, and warehouses. He has also been a working poet for almost 50 years. His latest novel, A Book of Lost Songs, was just published by Histria Books. An award-winning poet, he’s the author of five full-length poetry collections, and six chapbooks. His latest collection is Something To Be from Pski’s Porch Publishing. He is fond of baseball, Louis Aragon, Miles Davis, Kafka, Dante, and his wife, activist Joan Juster. He lives in San Francisco, where he makes his marginal living pointing out pretty things. He can be found on Bluesky @MJMitchellwriter.

KG Newman is a sportswriter for The Denver Post. His first five poetry collections are available on Amazon. The Arizona State University alum is on Twitter @KyleNewmanDP and more info and writing can be found at www.kgnewman.com. He is the poetry editor of Hidden Peak Press and he lives in Hidden Village, Colorado, with his wife and three kids.

Lisa Perkins’s poetry has been featured by The Mum Poem Press, the6ress, Poetry’s Dead anthology, Free Verse Revolution, An Aitiuil anthology and others. She came second in South Dublin Libraries Poetry Competition 2022 and was nominated for the Pushcart Prize for her poem Thrifting. Lisa lives in Dublin, a mammy of three who inspire her love of capturing the everyday. 

Patrick T. Reardon, a Chicago Tribune reporter from 1976 to 2009, is the author of seven poetry collections. His latest, Every Marred Thing: A Time in America, was the winner of the 2024 Faulkner-Wisdom Prize from the Pirate’s Alley Faulkner Society of New Orleans (Lavender Ink). He is a six-time nominee in poetry for a Pushcart Prize. His poetry has appeared in America, RHINO, Commonweal, Long Poem, After Hours, Autumn Sky, Burningword Literary Journal and other journals. His website: www.patricktreardon.com.

jw summerisle is an autistic poet from the English East Midlands. A former Foyle Young Poet of the Year, they have published two chapbooks: kinfolk (2022) with Black Sunflowers Poetry Press, and the book of bad mothers (2024) with Back Room Poetry. Their first full collection, Wat Tyler's Candy Pink Dream House, is forthcoming from Broken Sleep Books in 2027.

Skye Tarshis is a poet from New York City. You can find their criticism in RHINO Reviews and Lucky Jefferson Magazine. They work in publishing and live in Brooklyn.

François Tristan L'Hermite (1601-1655), also known as Tristan L'Hermite, was a significant and multifaceted figure in 17th-century French literature, known for his contributions across various genres including poetry, drama, and prose. His career began in 1626 with a ballet scenario, and he quickly gained recognition for his lyrical poetry, notably in collections such as Les Plaintes d'Acante(1633) and Les Amours de Tristan (1638). Despite facing neglect for centuries, Tristan's poetry has experienced a revival, especially within Symbolist circles, and he is now recognized as a major lyric voice of his time. His complex legacy continues to invite scholarly interest and has solidified his reputation as a precursor to later literary movements (Source: EBSCO).

Hanna Webster is an award-winning journalist, poet, and photographer with an M.A. from Johns Hopkins University. Her literary work and art have appeared in Stonecoast Review, Poynter, ONE ART, Bellingham Review, HAD, Epiphany, and elsewhere. Webster is the current poetry editor for The Science Writer, and her chapbook, I’m So Glad I Stuck Around for This, was a semifinalist for the 2024 YesYes Books Vinyl 45 Chapbook Contest. She lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Payson Whitwell is a writer and actor from Los Angeles whose work deals mainly with shame, family, and fish. Her theatrical writing has been produced at the Cutting Ball Theater in San Francisco and the Elysian Theater in Los Angeles, while her poetry can be found in literary magazines such as Dunce Codex and SARKA. 

Rachael A. Zubal-Ruggieri (she/they) is a long-time employee of Syracuse University. She is Assistant Editor of Wordgathering: A Journal of Disability Poetry and Literature and Managing Editor for Nine Mile Literary Arts & Magazine. A Neurodivergent/NeuroQweird Nerd, she has for many years presented on the X-Men, popular culture, and disability rights and identities. The Micro Mutant Postcard Project is an ongoing endeavor seeking to meld poetry, confessions, memoir, and imagery with pop culture and identity, using specific conventions to bring forth creativity and explore intersectionality.