http://belinda_subraman.podomatic.com/entry/eg/2008-09-24T15_04_32-07_00

J. P. Dancing Bear is the author of Conflicted Light (SalmonPoetry, 2008), Gacela of Narcissus City (Main Street Rag, 2006), Billy Last Crow (Turning Point, 2004) and What Language (Slipstream, 2002). His poems have been published in Shenandoah, Poetry International, New Orleans Review, National Poetry Review, Marlboro Review, Mississippi Review, diode, Natural Bridge, Verse Daily and many others. His translations of Nicaraguan poet, Blanca Castellón, have been published in Malboro Review, International Poetry Review and the upcoming issue of Bitter Oleander (Fall, 2008). He is the editor of the American Poetry Journal, the owner/editor of Dream Horse Press, and the host of "Out of Our Minds" a weekly poetry program on public radio station KKUP.

http://belinda_subraman.podomatic.com/entry/eg/2006-09-01T15_36_38-07_00 or you may listen from the Player on my front page.

Connie Day, Nurse Practitioner, has just returned from one of her nine month stays in Afghanistan. She tells about her experiences in the medical clinic in war torn Kabul.

Connie's notes: Worked in refugee camps in Pakistan
Led mobile clinic in Afghanistan during the war with the (Russian) now Soviet Union.
Worked in Angola, Africa during the civil war providing health care for the displaced
Returned to Afghanistan twice since 9-11

As an NP, my specialty is women's health. I last worked in a women's hospital in Kabul where I set in place a curriculum and taught Afghan midwives. Also provided a study guide to prepare midwives for their National Certification Exam administered by the Ministry of Health.

http://belinda_subraman.podomatic.com/entry/eg/2008-09-20T08_15_42-07_00 or listen from the Pod Player on my front page.

David Hernandez's poetry collections include Always Danger (Southern Illinois University Press, 2006), winner of the Crab Orchard Series in Poetry, and A House Waiting for Music (Tupelo Press, 2003). Earlier this year, HarperCollins published his first YA novel Suckerpunch, and will follow it up next year with No More Us For You. His poems have appeared in FIELD, Ploughshares, The Missouri Review, The Kenyon Review, TriQuarterly, AGNI, and The Southern Review. His drawings have also appeared in literary magazines, including a feature in Indiana Review. David lives in Long Beach, California and is married to writer Lisa Glatt.

http://belinda_subraman.podomatic.com/entry/eg/2008-09-13T08_02_04-07_00 or listen from the Pod Player on the front page.

Robert Lee Brewer is the editor of Writer's Market and will be the editor of Poet's Market (beginning with the 2010 edition). He is the sole contributor to the Poetic Asides blog at http://blog.writersdigest.com/poeticasides, and beginning this fall will be teaching online poetry courses at www.writersonlineworkshops.com. Brewer's poetry has been published in several print and online journals, including MEAT, Words Dance, Otoliths, and MiPOesias (Cafe Cafe Edition). He recently married the poet formerly known as Tammy F. Trendle, has 2 sons, 1 stepson, and another boy on the way. He splits his time between Dayton, Ohio, and Atlanta, Georgia.

http://belinda_subraman.podomatic.com/entry/eg/2008-09-05T15_45_18-07_00 or listen from the Pod Player on my front page.

Tony Barnstone is Associate Professor of creative writing at Whittier College. His first book of poetry, Impure, a finalist for the Walt Whitman Prize, the National Poetry Series Prize, and the White Pine Prize, appeared with the UP of Florida in June 1999. His chapbook of poems, Naked Magic, appeared in 2002 with Main Street Rag Press. Other books include Out of the Howling Storm: The New Chinese Poetry (Middletown: Wesleyan UP, 1993), Laughing Lost in the Mountains: Selected Poems of Wang Wei (Hanover: UP of New England, 1991), The Art of Writing: Teachings of Chinese Masters (Boston: Shambhala, 1996), and a number of textbooks, most recently The Literatures of Asia and The Literatures of the Middle East (Prentice Hall). His poetry, translations, essays on poetics, and fiction have appeared in dozens of American literary journals, from APR to Agni. He has won an Artists Fellowship from the California Arts Council, as well as many national poetry awards. A few of his other books are The Anchor Book of Chinese Poetry (Anchor, 2003) and a number of textbooks for Prentice Hall, including The Pleasures of Poetry: An Introduction (2005), World Literature (two volumes, 2003), and Modern Poetry: An Anthology with Contexts (2004).

URL: http://belinda_subraman.podomatic.com/entry/eg/2008-07-18T12_52_01-07_00 or listen from the Pod Player on my front page.

David Biespiel was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1964 and grew up in Houston, Texas. He has degrees from Boston University and the University of Maryland. A former NCAA scholarship diver who competed in the United States National Diving Championships, he continues to coach national, international and Olympic-caliber divers. The recipient of the Academy of American Poets Prize, the Individual Artist Award in Poetry from the Maryland Arts Council and a Wallace Stegner Fellowship, Biespiel has taught at several colleges, including Stanford University. He now lives in Portland, Oregon, where he is Director and Writer-in-Residence of The Attic Writers' Workshop and also teaches at Oregon State University.

Biespiel's second book of poems, Wild Civility, was published in 2003 by University of Washington Press in a new series edited by Linda Bierds. His first book of poems, Shattering Air, was published by BOA Editions in 1996. He writes a monthly poetry column for The Oregonian and edits the recently revived Poetry Northwest, once revered as the longest-running poetry-only journal in the United States, and now back in print in a new format.

Try the Player on my front page or go to http://belinda_subraman.podomatic.com

Brian had been working on a book of poetry when he attended a Lucinda Williams concert where, between songs, her father Miller Williams read his poetry. Brian thought that Andy and Renee might be the perfect choice to do something similar. The folk/rock duo had carved a niche for themselves in Los Angeles as one of the few acts playing over 200 local and out-of-town dates per year either as a duo, with their band Hard Rain, at their annual Bob Dylan Birthday Party (now in its 17th year), or recreating The Band's legendary Last Waltz concert.

Andy and Renee paired their folk/rock music sensibilities and vast catalogue of favorite tunes and originals with Brian's poetry. "We began to place songs within the context of the poems to weave themes in and around each piece to create a kind of conversation," states Brian. This unique performance concept resulted in an Evening of Music & Poetry performed monthly since January 2007 at various venues in Los Angeles.

Born and raised in Boston, Massachusetts, Brian graduated from Harvard University and putting his writing on hold, moved to California to start a career in real estate. When his wife introduced him to yoga several years ago, Brian rediscovered his love of poetry and started writing again. Since then his poems have been featured in Gentle Strength Quarterly and several issues of Yogi Times Magazine.

Andy Hill is a student of the folk and rock classics and has won several songwriting awards, including for "Two Trains," one of the featured songs on Midnight Tea. In 2005 Renee Safier's blues and jazz vocal chops won the Telluride Blues Festival's Acoustic Blues Competition.

Midnight Tea and Driving With Dante are also available through midnightteapoetry.com and other selected outlets.

You may listen from the Player on my page.

"Dry Land Drowning" by Jamie Phillips is an incredible and compassionate story about his Gulf War experience published in The Gulf War: Many Perspectives from 1992.

Special thanks to David Rovics for use of his stunning, compassionate song, "The Firefighter".

The Gulf War: Many Perspectives anthology edited by Belinda Subraman
ISBN: 0-935839-13-5
1992, perfect bound, glossy three-tone cover, 164 pages, (out of print)
A collection of stories, essays, journals entries, letter excerpts and poetry sharing true experiences of the Gulf War, minus media hype and political propaganda.
"Again and again, the selections return to the theme of making the war real, of finding an angle that reveals the horrid effects of war in specific human lives."
--Jim Sullivan, Coal city Review

"…gives us a rare, honest and uncompromising look at the true, agonizing history and devastating personal consequences of our most recent war."
--Edward Tick, The Arkansas Quarterly

"I appreciate your thoughtfulness."
--Joan Rivers