Michael Mercurio (Poetry, January 2017) lives and writes in the Pioneer Valley of Western Massachusetts. His poems, critical essays, and interviews have appeared in Palette Poetry, The Inflectionist Review, Sierra (the magazine of the Sierra Club), Lily Poetry Review, Thrush Poetry Journal, Bear Review, Sugar House Review, Rust + Moth, Coal Hill Review, the Common, and elsewhere. 

Michael curates What The Universe Is: A Reading Series, which happens monthly on Zoom. He is the Director of Community Engagement for the Faraday Publishing Company, a nonprofit organization dedicated to fostering discourse of enduring value rooted in the work and experiences of the global majority, and he also serves as a member of the steering committee for the Tell It Slant Poetry Festival, held each September at Emily Dickinson’s house. You can find out more about Michael at poetmercurio.com.

Toti O’Brien is the Italian Accordionist with the Irish Last Name. Born in Rome, living in Los Angeles, she is an artist, musician and dancer. She is the author of Other Maidens (BlazeVOX, 2020), An Alphabet of Birds (Moonrise Press, 2020), In Her Terms (Cholla Needles Press, 2021), Pages of a Broken Diary (Pski’s Porch, 2022) and Alter Alter (Elyssar Press, 2022).

Patrick Meeds lives in Syracuse, NY and studies writing at the Syracuse YMCA’s Downtown Writer’s Center. He has been previously published in Stone Canoe literary journal, the New Ohio Review, Tupelo Quarterly, the Atticus Review, Whiskey Island, Guernica, The Main Street Rag, and Nine Mile Review among others.

The reading will be followed by a Q&A with the poets.