Cynthia Reeves began her writing life over thirty years ago as a poet, but she found that her poetry more often than not drifted into narrative. She gravitates toward forms that lie in the gray area between poetry and prose—prose poems and flash fiction.

She’s the author of three award-winning books: the novel The Last Whaler (Regal House Publishing, September 2024), the novel-in-stories Falling Through the New World (Gold Wake Press 2024), and the novella Badlands (Miami University Press 2007). Reeves’s short stories, poetry, and essays have been widely published. Most recently, three of her Maine-based poems appear in Echoes in the Fog: Reflections on the Liminal Spaces of Maine’s Coast (12 Willows Press).

A Hawthornden Fellow, she’s been awarded residencies to the Arctic Circle Summer Solstice Expedition, Spitsbergen Artists Residency, Art & Science in the Field, and Vermont Studio Center. A graduate of Warren Wilson’s MFA program, she taught in Bryn Mawr College’s Creative Writing Program and Rosemont College’s MFA program. She serves on the board at Millay House Rockland and lives in Camden, Maine.

Learn more at: www.cynthiareeveswriter.com.

This podcast is hosted and produced by John Gillespie. Check out our website for more episodes: https://poetry-medicine-for-the-soul.simplecast.com/

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Arisa White is an associate professor of English and Creative Writing at Colby College. She is the author of Who’s Your Daddy, co-editor of Home Is Where You Queer Your Heart, and co-author of Biddy Mason Speaks Up, the second book in the Fighting for Justice Series for young readers. Post Pardon: The Opera marked Arisa’s debut as a librettist, and the libretto is forthcoming from Ecstatic Motion Press in 2026.

Her poetry is widely published, and her collections have been nominated for both the NAACP (N-double-A-C-P) Image Award and the Lambda Literary Award. She has also won the Per Diem Poetry Prize, the Maine Literary Award, the Nautilus Book Award, an Independent Publisher Book Award, the Golden Crown Literary Award, and the Airlie Press Prize. The poem installation, look after your heart, is permanently displayed at the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens. She is a Cave Canem fellow and serves on the Community Advisory Board for Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance. Learn more at arisawhite.com

This podcast is hosted and produced by John Gillespie. Check out our website for more episodes: https://poetry-medicine-for-the-soul.simplecast.com/

Listen and subscribe to Poetry Medicine for the Soul in Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Get in touch with us at: info@poetrymedicineforthesoul.com

Claire Millikin is a poet and long-distance runner originally from Georgia (USA), and now lives in coastal Maine. The author of ten poetry collections, including Magicicada, a book of poems about juvenile solitary confinement and winner of the 2024 Foreword Indies Award for Poetry, Millikin’s recognitions also include an Independent Press Award Distinguished Favorite and the WB Yeats’ Society Prize. Claire teaches art history and writing for the University of Maine system and for the Maine Media Workshops and College. Learn more at: www.claireraymond.org.

This podcast is hosted and produced by John Gillespie. Check out our website for more episodes: https://poetry-medicine-for-the-soul.simplecast.com/

Listen and subscribe to Poetry Medicine for the Soul in Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Get in touch with us at: info@poetrymedicineforthesoul.com

Maya Williams (ey/em, they/them, and she/her) is a religious Black multiracial nonbinary suicide survivor who is currently an Ashley Bryan Fellow, a Creative Fellow of the University of New England's Maine Women Writers Collection, and was selected as the seventh Poet Laureate of Portland, Maine for a July 2021 to July 2024 term.

Maya's debut poetry collection, Judas & Suicide, is available through Game Over Books. Eir second poetry collection, Refused a Second Date, is available through Harbor Editions. Maya's third poetry collection, a chapbook: What's So Wrong with a Pity Party Anyway? , is available via Garden Party Collective. Maya's fourth poetry collection, a chapbook: Feminine Morbidity is available through The Headlight Review.

Maya's collections are a finalist of a New England Book Award, a finalist of a Maine Literary Award, a winner of Garden Party Collective's chapbook contest, and a winner of The Headlight Review's chapbook contest respectively. They were also a recipient of the Maine Humanities Council's Constance Carlson Public Humanities Prize in 2024.

Catch Maya hosting the hybrid open mic series Port Veritas on Tuesday nights and hosting the hybrid writing workshop series at Novel Maine on Sunday mornings. You can support Maya's poetry on eir Patreon page and follow their work at mayawilliamspoet.com.

*SENSITIVE CONTENT WARNING: This episode references the existence of suicide. If you or someone you know needs help, call or text 988 in the U.S., or visit www.988maine.com.

This podcast is hosted and produced by John Gillespie. Check out our website for more episodes: https://poetry-medicine-for-the-soul.simplecast.com/

Listen and subscribe to Poetry Medicine for the Soul in Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Get in touch with us at: info@poetrymedicineforthesoul.com

Dr. Therí A. Pickens received her undergraduate degree in Comparative Literature from Princeton University and her PhD in Comparative Literature from UCLA. She is a poet-scholar who focuses on Arab American Studies, Black Studies, Comparative Literature and Disability Studies. Dr. Pickens is currently the Charles A Dana Professor of English & Africana at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine. In her debut poetry collection, What Had Happened Was, Therí A. Pickens investigates the complex structures of Black storytelling.

Learn more at: www.tpickens.org

This podcast is hosted and produced by John Gillespie. Check out our website for more episodes: https://poetry-medicine-for-the-soul.simplecast.com/

Listen and subscribe to Poetry Medicine for the Soul in Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Get in touch with us at: info@poetrymedicineforthesoul.com

John Reinhart has been awarded the Dark Poetry Scholarship from the Horror Writers Association, Reinhart's poems and short works have been published internationally in print and online. He has been nominated for the Rhysling Award for best science-fiction poem in the previous year and the Dwarf Stars Award for the best short sci-fi poem of the previous year. He has won the Poetry Nook weekly contest seven times.

Reinhart's eight books to date span a wide range of his work, ranging from dark sci-fi/horror to humorous scenes from his family life, to experimental word compositions, and more serious social commentary.

You can earn more on John's website: https://home.hampshire.edu/~jcr00/reinhart.html

Sign up for John Reinhart's Patreon content here: https://www.patreon.com/johnreinhart

This podcast is hosted and produced by John Gillespie. Check out our website for more episodes: https://poetry-medicine-for-the-soul.simplecast.com/

Listen and subscribe to Poetry Medicine for the Soul in Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Get in touch with us at: info@poetrymedicineforthesoul.com

Kristen Lindquist attended Middlebury College in Vermont and received her MFA in poetry from the University of Oregon. Her poetry and other writings have appeared in such venues as Down East magazine, Maine Times, and Bangor Daily News, as well as in many literary/haiku journals and anthologies. Her haiku chapbook It Always Comes Back was a winner of the 2020 Snapshot Press eChapbook Award. Her haiku collection ISLAND, published in 2023, was runner-up for the Haiku Society of America’s Merit Book Award.

Learn more at www.kristenlindquist.com, where you can sign up for Kristen's daily haiku newsletter.

This podcast is hosted and produced by John Gillespie. Check out our website for more episodes: https://poetry-medicine-for-the-soul.simplecast.com/

Listen and subscribe to Poetry Medicine for the Soul in Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Get in touch with us at: info@poetrymedicineforthesoul.com

Meg Weston is a poet, non-fiction writer, and photographer with passion for the geological processes that shape the earth and the stories that shape our lives. She has an MFA from Lesley University. As co-founder of The Poets Corner, and the Camden Festival of Poetry, and a board member of Millay House Rockland, Meg actively supports the poetry community. Images can be seen on her photography website, www.volcanoes.com.

Meg Weston's poems have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. Her publications include a poetry collection, Magma Intrusions, published by Kelsay Books in 2023, a self-published chapbook, Letters from the White Queen. and a collaborative collection with poet Margaret Haberman, To the Point and Back: Swimming Poems.

This podcast is hosted and produced by John Gillespie. Check out our website for more episodes: https://poetry-medicine-for-the-soul.simplecast.com/

Listen and subscribe to Poetry Medicine for the Soul in Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Get in touch with us at: info@poetrymedicineforthesoul.com