Poetry: Chelsea Whitton, Dilruba "Ruba" Ahmed, and Sahar Muradi

Award-winning poetry by established and emerging poets throughout the summer. Chelsea Whitton is the author of Bear Trap (Dancing Girl Press, 2018) and Wonder Wheel , published by LSU Press in March of this year. She holds a PhD from the University of Cincinnati and an MFA in Poetry from The New School. Her poetry and prose have appeared in many of print and online publications, including Beloit Poetry Journal , Copper Nickel , Cream City Review , Poetry Ireland , The Atlanta Review , and Forklift-Ohio . Her work has been a finalist for the Gearhart Prize, and the Frost Place and Adrienne Richard awards for poetry. She is the recipient of the 2018 Sandy Crimmins National Poetry Prize. Raised in the Carolinas, she spent her twenties in New York and now lives in Southwestern Ohio, where she teaches at the Art Academy of Cincinnati. Dilruba “Ruba” Ahmed is the author of Bring Now the Angels (Pitt Poetry), with poems featured in New York Times Magazine , The Slowdown , and Poetry Unbound .  Her debut book, Dhaka Dust (Graywolf Press), won the Bakeless Prize.  Her poems have appeared in Kenyon Review , New England Review , Ploughshares , and Virginia Quarterly Review .  Her work has also been anthologized in Best American Poetry , Halal If You Hear Me , New Moons: Contemporary Writing by North American Muslims , They Rise Like a Wave: An Anthology of Asian American Women Poets , and elsewhere. Ahmed received The Florida Review ’s Editors’ Award, a Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Memorial Prize, and the Katharine Bakeless Nason Fellowship awarded by the Bread Loaf Writers Conference. In 2021, she joined the faculty at Warren Wilson College’s MFA Program for Writers. Sahar Muradi is author of the collection OCTOBERS , selected by Naomi Shihab Nye for the 2022 Donald Hall Prize for Poetry and a finalist for the National Poetry Series. She is author of the chapbooks [ G A T E S ] , Ask Hafiz , and A Garden Beyond My Hand , and co-editor of two anthologies: One Story, Thirty Stories: An Anthology of Contemporary Afghan American Literature , and EMERGENC(Y): Writing Afghan Lives Beyond the Forever War, An Anthology of Writing from Afghanistan and its Diaspora . Her writing has been supported by Asian American Writers’ Workshop, Bethany Arts Community, Blue Mountain Center, Kundiman, and Sustainable Arts Foundation. Sahar directs the arts education programs at City Lore and dearly believes in the bottom of the rice pot. May 26: Arden Levine, Chet'la Sebree, Darrel Alejandro Holnes, and Monica Ferrell June 2: A Celebration of Sonnets with Dora Malech and Phillis Levin June 9: Anne Marie Macari, Francisco Aragon, Maggie Dietz, and Yanyi June 16: Poets from Four Way Books with Hannah Matheson July 7: A Tribute to Robert Hayden with Iain Haley Pollack and Nathan McClain July 14: J. Brooke, Nicole Santalucia, Phillip Schultz, and R.A. Villanueva July 21: Adrian Matejka and Elizabeth Scanlon July 28: Beth Ann Fennelly, David Baker, Maya C. Popa, and Owen Lewis August 4: David Groff, Kazim Ali, Martha Rhodes, and Richard Smith August 11: Allison Joseph, Brendan Constantine, Erica Lewis, and Stephen Mills August 18: Amy Dryansky, Dan Tobin, Ethel Rackin, and Steven Kleinman August 25: A Tribute to Larry Levis with Debra Allbery and John Skoyles September 1: A Celebration of Poetry and Healing with Danielle Ofri and Thomas Dooley September 8: Poets from Sibling Rivalry Press with Bryan Borland September 15: Chelsea Whitton, Dilruba Ahmed, Matt Yaeger, and Sahar Muradi