Vivian Carroll's work contains wisdom gained from a deep well of experience from years working in regional theater as well as teaching costuming to prospective circus clowns. She says the key to writing a good poem is to let the ideas marinate.

Flagstaff poet Lydia Gates specializes in slam poetry, which is a medium that has a unique ability to connect with people. Because it's often less reverent than what's found in literary journals, Gates says it’s an excellent vehicle for political and social issues.

Phoenix-based poet Marlana-Patrice Pugh Hamer talks about channeling her work from a spiritual dimension and becoming a vessel for the written word. She reads her poem “Our Giant Steps," which is dedicated to her late husband and celebrates their shared love of jazz and the good times that often accompanied live music.

Former Taos, N.M., poet laureate Sawnie Morris says as a young girl poetry showed her how events and objects were connected in curious ways. In the latest installment of PoetrySnaps!, she reads her piece called “After the Late-Winter Car Trip.”

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."