Steven Law

Tacey M. Atsitty is a Diné poet from Cove, Ariz., but grew up in Kirtland, N.M., and reads “A February Snow.” She says the ideas that become poems start from place of quiet and her job is to cultivate the silence and be ready to pay attention when the seeds of a piece start to reveal themselves to her.

New Mexico-based poet Elizabeth Jacobson says her entrée into poetry began as a child when she regularly wandered into the woods behind her house. The more time she spent there, the more nature’s curious patterns and wonders revealed themselves to her. And one day she began writing about the subtle marvels she observed in her notebook. She reads her poem "The Sweetness Off Each Other’s Bodies."

Flagstaff-based poet Larry Stevens is perhaps best known for his five-decade career as an ecologist and Grand Canyon river-runner. He's inspired to write as he’s exploring Arizona’s landscape and shares a piece called “Dinosaurs, Snow.”

Austin-based writer Joanna Klink reads her piece, "3 Bewildered Landscapes, " inspired by getting lost in the wilderness while backpacking. The ordeal created unsettled feelings of desperation and strangeness.

Colorado poet Daiva Chesonis shares her poem, "Burn Out." She's the daughter of Lithuanian immigrants and was inspired to write about the weight of the region’s conflicts on a recent trip to the country, and how they could be a foreshadowing of humanity’s future.

Austin Davis learned to channel his emotions through poetry writing and performance from a young age. He often writes through the lens of his work as an activist for people experiencing homelessness. With the holidays upon us — a time of reflection and gratitude — Davis celebrates some of the people he has known and loved in his poem, "we call it grief."

Gilbert-based poet Karen Rigby says the inspiration for her poem, "Tangelo," came from her childhood memory of seeing a disturbing magazine cover photo depicting political violence. Rigby’s poem weaves together that trauma with vivid sensory beauty, creating a fragile balance of human experiences.

Erik Bitsui's book "Mosh Pit Etiquette Volume One: Secrets of a 21st Century Navajo Headbanger" is a mixture of heavy metal, humor and Diné tradition. Bitsui says it took him 30 years to write it.

Page-based poet Mike Collins was born and raised in Arizona and works as a kayak guide on Lake Powell. He has the unique ability to store dozens of poems in his head, which he can recite at will whenever the situation is right.

Margarita Cruz was always a fiction writer, but she says it was a life-threatening medical crisis that turned her into a poet. Poetry was therapeutic in her recovery and gave her a place to put her grief, a central theme in much of Cruz’s writing. She weaves the idea of loss through the poem she shares with us today, "Like Stars, Like Feathers."