Photo by Jovis Aloor

PROTESTATION by Daisy Bassen

Daisy Bassen is a poet and practicing psychiatrist who graduated from Princeton University’s creative writing program and completed her medical training at the University of Rochester and Brown. Her work has been published in Oberon, McSweeney’s, The Sow’s Ear, and [PANK] as well as multiple other journals. She was the winner of the So to Speak 2019 Poetry Contest, the 2019 ILDS White Mice Contest, and the 2020 Beullah Rose Poetry Prize. She was doubly nominated for the 2019 Best of the Net anthology and for a 2019 Pushcart Prize. She lives in Rhode Island with her family.

PERHAPS by Aremu Adams Adebesi

Aremu Adams Adebisi is a North-Central Nigerian writer and economist. In 2019, he was nominated for Best of the Net, a Pushcart Prize, and the 2019 Philadelphia Fringe Festival. His work of poetry, “Force Mechanism,” was adapted into Lucent Dreaming’s first theatrical performance in Wales. He has works published in Newfound Magazine, Lucky Jefferson, and elsewhere. He served as a mentor for SprinNG Fellowship and a panelist for the Gloria Anzaldua Prize. He edits poetry for ARTmosterrific, facilitates Transcendence Poetry Masterclass, and curates the newsletter Poetry Weekly on Substack.

Illustration by Mafe Izaguirre

OTHERING by Aremu Adams Adebesi

Aremu Adams Adebisi is a North-Central Nigerian writer and economist. In 2019, he was nominated for Best of the Net, a Pushcart Prize, and the 2019 Philadelphia Fringe Festival. His work of poetry, “Force Mechanism,” was adapted into Lucent Dreaming’s first theatrical performance in Wales. He has works published in Newfound Magazine, Lucky Jefferson, and elsewhere. He served as a mentor for SprinNG Fellowship and a panelist for the Gloria Anzaldua Prize. He edits poetry for ARTmosterrific, facilitates Transcendence Poetry Masterclass, and curates the newsletter Poetry Weekly on Substack.

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THE POWER IS IN YOUR PULSE by Paula Coomer

Paula Coomer spent most of her childhood in the industrial Ohio River town of New Albany, Indiana. The daughter of more than two hundred years of Kentucky Appalachian farmers, she moved to the Pacific Northwest in 1978. She has been a migrant farm laborer, a waitress, a bean sorter in a cannery, a cosmetics saleswoman, a federal officer, a nurse, and a university writing instructor. Her essays, short fiction, and poetry have appeared in Gargoyle, Ascent, and The Raven Chronicles, among others.

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THE WITNESSES by Margarita Serafimova

Margarita Serafimova is the winner of the 2020 Tony Quagliano International Poetry Award and a 2020 Pushcart nominee. She has four collections in Bulgarian and a chapbook, A Surgery of A Star (Staring Problem Press). Her chapbook, En Tîm (Wilderness) (San Francisco University Poetry Center), and a full-length collection, A White Boat and Foam (Interstellar Flight Press), are forthcoming. Her work appears widely, including in the Nashville Review, LIT, Agenda Poetry, Poetry South, Botticelli, London Grip, Steam Ticket Literary Journal, Waxwing, A-Minor, Trafika Europe, Noble/ Gas Qtrly, Obra/Artifact, great weather for Media, Origins, and Nixes Mate Review.