Plant People, An Anthology of Environmental Artists Vol. 4
Plant People, An Anthology of Environmental Artists Vol. 4
This anthology honors the sacred bond between humans and plants. Our contributors are a diverse group of poets, prose writers, and visual artists from around the globe—each sharing their unique perspectives and relationships with the plants they live among.
Poetry | Prose | Mixed Media
Taliet Marsman Ruiz (they/them) is a Curaçao-born, Netherlands-raised community organizer and artist who works with the written and/or spoken word and fibers. They are all-ways diligently listening, playing, relational, (re)searching togetherness. Plants are central in Taliet’s (re)search, offering vital insights, guidance, and companionship. The fibers they work with are carefully gathered from plants with which they cultivate lasting relationships and are then processed into paper. IG: @mami_tera_
Dabu is an emerging American poet based in Salt Lake City, Utah. He is currently an MFA candidate in the Rainier Writing Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University and a multi-year participant of the Poet Studio at the Portland, Oregon-based Attic Institute. He is an advocate for plants and their healing properties.
Elizabeth Janczyk is a children’s book author and writer for all ages. Her work is featured in Bella Grace, Calla Press, and Little Thoughts Press literary magazines. She is an accountant by day, and lives in Southern California with her husband and two sons. You can find her on IG @libbysstories.
Eli Germaine, a native of southern Florida, holds a Bachelor of Science in Biological Sciences and a Bachelor of Art in Creative Writing. Two of her unpublished creative nonfiction works, “Sanibel” and “Fawn Response,” had been selected to be read for the "Her Voice" series event at the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, Florida in 2022 and 2023, respectfully. She partakes in confessional and nature writing in both poetry and creative nonfiction genres, and delves into these personal styles to explore and provide a voice for herself and others who have experienced trauma and live a life of disability. But despite the limitations of chronic illness, she enjoys going on nature trails, sketching, scrapbooking, and writing about memorable encounters.
Sheila Lynch-Benttinen is a poet who has been writing her whole life but has had a varied career. She worked in Boston for many years in the arts and sciences. She has degrees from U.Mass, Amherst, and Harvard University. She has had poem published in many different journals, long verse, haiku, rhyming, not rhyming. She is a 2024 Pushcart Prize Nominee. She enjoys photography, painting, archeology, horseback riding, and history. She lives on the south shore of Boston with her husband and daughter. She feels a strong connection to nature, seasons, and the passage of time in her poetry.
Harsh Ramchandani is a Hong Kong based writer whose work has been published in various literary journals and anthologies. Though primarily a writer of poetry, he is also involved in the visual arts and enjoys experimenting with different mediums, usually at the cost of other people’s sanity. www.harshchan.com
Gerry Sloan is a retired music professor living in Fayetteville, Arkansas. He has been writing poetry since high school where he was lucky enough to have an inspiring English teacher. An essay won the Preternatural Readers Contest in 1987 from The Missouri Review. In 1990 he received the WORDS Award in Poetry from the Arkansas Literary Society in Little Rock. In 2018 he won First Prize in Poetry from the Gaza Freedom Flotilla Coalition for “Poem for Palestine.” His poetry collections are Paper Lanterns (Half Acre Press, 2011), Crossings: A Memoir in Verse (Rollston Press, 2017), and a selection in the “chapthology” Wild Muse: Ozarks Nature Poetry (Cornerpost Press, 2022). His poems have appeared in The Christian Science Monitor, Kansas Quarterly, The Nebraska Review, North Dakota Quarterly, The Midwest Quarterly, Plains Poetry Journal, and Arkansas Review as well as the Anthology of Magazine Verse & Yearbook of American Poetry (1986-88). He can be reached on Facebook or at gsloan@uark.edu.
Nick Conrad’s poems continue to appear in national and international journals, most recently in acumen (UK) The American Poetry Journal, Aquifer, Orbis (U.K.), Poetry South, Stand(U.K.), Valparaiso Poetry Review, and WA (Western Australia) Poets Inc’s Ross Spencer 2023 Anthology and have been accepted for a future issues of Blueline, Cloudbank, and Stand. His first book, Lake Erie Blues (Urban Farmhouse Press) appeared in August 2020. His podcast interview with All Write in Sin City aired 8/29/21.
Carisa Coburn Pineda is from Costa Rica and the United States. She studied at Occidental College in Los Angeles, California and received degrees in Spanish Literature and English and Comparative Literary Studies. She received her Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing in Fiction from the University of Maryland, College Park. She lives in Burke, VA with her family. Carisa greatly admires plants and plant people, especially since maintaining plants and flowers is still an emergent skill for her. Carisa writes about language, culture, and loss for adults and youth.
IG: @carisawrites
X: @CarisaCPineda
Benjamin Fairfield received his MA and PhD in ethnomusicology from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, where he serves as lecturer. He has led instrument workshops at the East-West Center Gallery, Downtown Arts Center, and various schools; taught music at Ala Wai Elementary School; produced a high school garage rock band’s debut album in Thailand as a Peace Corps volunteer; and has published in various academic and literary journals. His homemade instruments made from trash can be seen and heard on Instagram #MUS311 or at his website, www.kanikaopala.com
Jesse, (she/her) is a poet, visual artist and herbalist residing in unceded land of both Anishnabe in Michigan and Abenaki in Vermont. She studied poetry at Vermont College. Her book Native was published in 2020. She was a participating fellow of Nature Culture’s Writing the Land Project, with poems in the anthology, Windblown l, and in the anthology, Migration and Home, as well as a yearly contributor and facilitator for PoemCity in Montpelier, VT.
Lora Berg has published a collaborative poetry book with visual artist Canute Caliste, and poems in Shenandoah, Colorado Review, The Carolina Quarterly, etc. She served as a Poet-in-Residence at the Saint Albans School and holds an MFA from Johns Hopkins. Lora served as a U.S. Cultural Attaché at U.S. Embassies abroad. She is a 2022-23 participant in the Poetry Collective based at Lighthouse Writers Workshop. She is a proud mom and grandma in a vibrant, multicultural family. Lora was raised by biologists. Her garden is part of herself, and she is part of her garden.
Lauren Breen received a BA in Creative writing from Susquehanna University. There she read for the writing program’s literary magazine, Rivercraft, as well as the student run literary magazine, Sanctuary, the year after they published her poem “Estuary.” She moved to Pittsburgh in 2012 and received her MFA in Poetry at Chatham in 2015. She became involved in Madwomen in the Attic shortly after graduating.
Kristi Joy currently lives and writes in a small town in Connecticut with her fiance and their kids. She writes with bare honesty, sensuality, and humor about her fumbling human journey. Kristi’s work has been published in Sunrise Summits: A Poetry Anthology, a Colorado Book Awards Finalist. In addition, she was a finalist in the 2017 Battle of the Bards Poetry Contest in Fort Collins, Colorado.
Sarah B. Cahalan (she/her) writes about natural history, hope/grief/faith, the layers of places and how those correspond with our own layers as people moving through time and place. She has poems, current or forthcoming, in Echtrai, EcoTheo, Trampoline, and others. Sarah is from Massachusetts and is currently based in Dayton, Ohio (USA).
X: @stampedinblind
bluesky: @sarahbc
Emily Seymour (she/her) is a writer out of central Arkansas. In her free time, she is a Master’s student in Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Tech. Her work explores themes of yearning, loss, and hope.
Julie Martin. A poet and public school teacher, Julie Martin lives near the confluence of the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers. Her work has recently appeared in the following journals: The Talking Stick, Pasque Petals, Plants and Poetry, Agates, and The Coop: A Poetry Cooperative. With poet and artist River Urke, she co-hosts Up Close: Meet the Poet Behind the Verse, a quarterly program that showcases the work of local poets in the Twin Cities and beyond. Read more of her work at JulieMartinpoet.com.
FB: Julie.martin.3557
IG: @jumar002
Celeste Pfister is an award-winning visual artist, former physician specializing in childhood mental health, writer, and teacher. She has taught literary courses and has been published in Persimmon Tree, Hearth & Coffin, Fahmidan, Lily Poetry Review, Genrepunk, Reunion (Shodair Children's Hospital), and The American Psychoanalyst. She lives in Venice, Florida.
Substack: creativeinspiration.substack.com
Caroline Canter Triscik is a poet, Licensed Professional Counselor, and Midwesterner transplanted to the East Coast. She holds a B.A. in English from Purdue University and an M.A. in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from Messiah University. In her work as a writer and as a therapist, she believes that healing is found in connection with one another through words and presence.
Deborah Potter is a preacher, poet, writer and natural artist whose work converges around one fascination--the spaces between land, self, and maker. She has written two books, a full-length poetry manuscript and a poetry chapbook: Directions to Beauty: An Almanac for Personal Transformation, Probably God is a Bayou: Brackish Reflections on Life, Death, and Place, Poems from an Un-manicured Yard and When Owls Call: Eulogies for my Youth and the Planet. Deborah lives in Pensacola, Florida. You can find more of her work at deborah-potter.com.
New York Times and USA Today Bestselling Author, Laura Wright is passionate about fiction. Though she has spent her early life immersed in acting, singing and competitive ballroom dancing, when she found the world of writing and books and endless cups of coffee she knew she was home. Laura is the author of the bestselling Mark of the Vampire and Cavanaugh Brothers series, as well as the USA Today bestselling series, Bayou Heat, which she co-authors with Alexandra Ivy. While Laura is plotting her next novel, she continues to study writing at both UCLA and Harvard Extension programs. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, two children, two dogs, one Appaloosa, eight chickens and a killer urban orchard.
Francis Flavin draws upon his experience as an educator, public interest lawyer and observer on four continents. He was the Winner of the 2021 Poetry Quarterly Rebecca Lard Award. In the Soul-Making Keats Literary Competition, Flavin placed first in the Memoir/Vignette category (2022), and in prior years received recognition for humor and flash fiction (2), short story (2), novel excerpt (3), creative nonfiction and personal essay categories. He also received recognition in the social impact category of the Chicagoland Poetry Contest, the Partisan Press Working People’s Poetry Competition (first place) and the personal essay and rhymed poetry categories of the 2020 Writer’s Digest awards.
Brooke Harries’ work has appeared work has appeared in Arkansas Review, Laurel Review, Puerto del Sol, Salamander, Sixth Finch, and elsewhere. She has an MFA from the University of California, Irvine and is a PhD student at the University of Southern Mississippi.
Nandini Bhattacharya. I'm a graduate of the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. My first novel Love’s Garden was published in October 2020. Shorter work has been published in Oyster River Pages, Sky Island Journal, the Saturday Evening Post Best Short Stories from the Great American Fiction Contest, The Bombay Review, Meat for Tea: the Valley Review, PANK, and more. I’ve attended the Bread Loaf Writers Workshop and been accepted for residencies at the Buinho International Artist-in-Residency Program (Summer 2024), Ragdale, Vermont Studio Center, and VONA. My awards and honors include a Pushcart nomination for my short story “After the House Burned Down” (2021); first runner-up for the Los Angeles Review Flash Fiction contest (2017-2018); and long-listed for the Disquiet International Literary Prize (2019 and 2020). My second novel Homeland Blues, about love, race, caste, and colorism in India and the US from a female immigrant’s perspective, is currently under multiple agency review as a full manuscript. I also read and review for Tupelo Quarterly, Colorado Review, and Cutbank Literary Journal.
When Kashiana Singh is not writing, she lives to embody her TEDx talk theme of Work as Worship into her every day. Woman by the Door was released with Apprentice House Press in 2022. Her latest full-length collection, Witching Hour is due to be released with Glass Lyre Press.
IG: @kashianasingh
Website - http://www.kashianasingh.com/
Stephen Barile is an award-winning poet from Fresno, California, a Pushcart Prize nominee, and a former member of the Fresno Poets Association. He attended Fresno Pacific University, and CSU Fresno. His poems have been anthologized, published in numerous journals, both print and on-line. He taught writing at Madera College, and CSU Fresno.
Patricia Cannon has been a Registered Nurse at UCSF since 2001. She has worked in cardiac critical care, neurointensive care, heme oncology, school nursing, and currently, in research. Her passion is her faith, photography, and the written word in all its forms.
Journals and notebooks designed by our cover artist, Erica Dionora.
Jennifer Handy explores environmental issues through poetry. Her poetry has been published in The Closed Eye Open, the anthology Hey There, Delilah!, The Rising Phoenix Review, and Wild Roof Journal. Her environmental poetry chapbook California Burning is forthcoming from Bottlecap Press (Fall 2024). "The Oasis" was previously published in Wild Roof Journal.
Artist, mother, photographer, and yoga teacher, Mandy Ramsey loves to create and write. She self-published her first book “Grow Where You’re Planted” in 2019. She has been published in Cirque, Alaskan Women Speak, Tidal Echoes, Poets Choice, Elephant Journal, Alchemy & Miracles Anthology, and Tiny Seed Journal. She holds a M.A in Yoga Studies and Mindfulness Education and has been gardening and living in Haines, Alaska since 2000 in the timber frame home she built with her husband. She believes flowers and the natural world can heal, connect, inspire, and sprout friendships.
Find out more on www.mandyramsey.com
Mario Framis Pujol. born in barcelona, catalonia, rooting all the way from new york, mallorca and france, mario is a writer, a being with the land, organizer, cross-pollinated wanderer, a fugitive of inertia, what dances in the opaque, the chaotic, & the tender. he thanks you for being curious. dedicated to designing, rehearsing, practicing and impulsing pathways of resistance through cultural and communitary spaces that link, amplify and bring closer human relationships with nature. their research field and expression circle around the growth of networks between land-based ecologies, spirituality & art.
Jerrice J Baptiste is a poet born in Haiti, and an author of nine books. Her most recent book Coral in the Diaspora is published by Abode Press (August 2024). Jerrice is well published in magazines and journals: Plants & Poetry Journal, Urthona: Buddhism & Art, Lolwe, Kosmos Journal, Artemis Journal, The Yale Review, Poetica Review, Mantis, Minetta Review, The Caribbean Writer, So Spoke The Earth: Anthology of Women Writers of Haitian Descent and numerous others. Her collaborative songwriting and poems are on the Grammy award nominated album: Many Hands Family Music for Haiti.
Joy Youwakim is an agroecologist and soil scientist who cultivates medicinal and culturally relevant plants in the Black Dirt of Chester, NY. She is passionate about heritage preservation, infusing her harvests into olive oil for use in creating traditional soaps and salves. Her project, Saboon Maazeh, is Arabic for “soap from goats”, paying homage to the goats that provided the milk to begin her soap making journey. Growing up between Lebanon and Texas, Joy is driven by a deep appreciation for life, which she embodies through seed saving, gathering with loved ones over meals, and carrying the tunes of her people forward through organizing and playing oboe in resistance orchestras.
IG: @saboonmaazeh
