OUR FINALISTS
Cielo Lagunas says that she "was struggling to let some secrets out and let them out through poetry. Ever since I took that risk, my life has changed and so many opportunities have opened up for me. I guess I could say poetry was the light in my darkness.
Arielle Moosman is a student studying at Arizona State University West and has been writing poetry her whole life. She graduated from Metropolitan Arts Institute where she refined her writing skills and learned how to use them to communicate with the world. Her hobbies include cooking, playing a variety of musical instruments, making all kinds of art, and, of course, writing. 
Lucy Negatu: Selam! I am Lucy and I've been writing poetry for 5 years now, but I have only recently gone public with my work. I write about my life as an Ethiopian-born American girl and the struggles that come with being black and African. Even though those are not mutually exclusive, my poems talk about how it might feel like it is. I love all types of poetry and would love to read yours! Just feel free to DM me and we can exchange notes. 
Dorcas Nsengamungu OUR JUDGES
Megan Atencia graduated from ASU in May of 2017 with degrees in Global Health, English Literature, and Spanish. During and directly after college, she worked in nonprofit global health fields and quickly learned that draining your soul is probably not the best way to save the world. Instead, you have to change people -- and while poetry can't change the world, poetry can change people... and people change the world. Megan now works as a teaching artist, poet, and aspiring poetry therapist. She teaches English Literature full time at an alternative high school in South Phoenix. Her current projects include community workshops in Phoenix and Tempe with underprivileged youth and mental/behavioral health patients, founding the writing collective Water Sprouts, and learning how to have self-care. She can be found at mayagainpoetry.com. 
Rosemarie Dombrowski is the inaugural Poet Laureate of Phoenix, AZ, the founding editor of both rinky dink press and Write On, Downtown: A Journal of Phoenix Writing, as well as the curator and host of the Phoenix Poetry Series and First Friday Poetry on Roosevelt Row. She is the recipient of five Pushcart nominations, a 2017 Arts Hero Award, the 2017 Carrie McCray Literary Award in Nonfiction, and a fellowship from the Lincoln Center for Applied Ethics. Her collections include The Book of Emergencies (Five Oaks Press, 2014), The Philosophy of Unclean Things (Finishing Line Press, 2017) and The Cleavage Planes of Southwest Minerals [A Love Story], winner of the 2017 Split Rock Review chapbook competition. www.rdpoet.com 
Gizela Hernandez is an artist and lover of storytelling through the spoken word. Currently, she is working on what it looks like to be a liberated and whole individual in a world that often makes us feel otherwise. 
M. McDonough is a poet, originally from Denver, reseeded in Phoenix. Since beginning their journey in spoken word in high school, they have taken the stage in local, national, and international poetry slam competitions. While performing and writing they also cultivated a deep interest and love of community. They worked for 7 years as a poetry mentor and outreach coordinator for Denver Minor Disturbance youth poetry slam. In this role they facilitated workshops, wrote curriculum, coached performance, and supported the growth of young artists. 
Alexandra McWatters is one of the founding members of RE:FRAME: Youth Arts Center, and is a full time student at Glendale Community College, currently pursuing an Associate of Science degree in Engineering. She plans to transfer to ASU to receive a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering. She is also a dancer and a visual artist. As a part of staff in RE:FRAME, she enjoys sharing her art and movement and being able to see others' artistic expressions through their chosen mediums. Poetry is one of her loves, whether it be written, recited or performed. 
Thameenah “Ty” Muhammad is an 18 year old Afro-Caribbean sophomore at Phoenix College. Ty is an Apprentice Artist with Rising Youth Theatre and has worked on ten RYT productions as an ensemble member. Her main artistic mediums include: acting, dancing, poetry/spoken word, and drawing. Currently, she is working as a Teaching Artist at Rising Youth's Create Academy and Glenview College Preparatory residency. Ty’s work reflects the fire in her heart; she aims to help world the best she can, whether that's during a protest or by smiling at everyone she meets. 
Hadiyah Muhammad-Dean is seventeen years old and currently going to college for a major in fashion merchandising (and probably a dual degree in English). She graduated from Arizona School for the Arts where she played violin and piano. Now she is going to school, working, and participating in the art community. 
Susan Nguyen hails from Virginia but currently lives and writes in Arizona. She received her MFA in poetry from Arizona State University. She is the recipient of fellowships from the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing and the Aleida Rodriguez Memorial Award. In 2018, she was featured on PBS NewsHour as “one of three women poets to watch” and she was a finalist for the Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry. 
Erin Noehre is a Midwestern-born poet currently living and writing in Tempe, Arizona where she is an M.F.A. candidate at Arizona State University and an Associate Editor at Hayden’s Ferry Review. She is the recipient of an Interdisciplinary Enrichment Fellowship from the Graduate College at Arizona State University as well as the Dr. Russell Brock Memorial Scholarship for Non-Technical Writing. Her work has been featured or is forthcoming from The Poetry Spot in AZCentral, Northern Lights (2016 award for best poetry), and Sonora Review. 
Shawnte Orion attended Paradise Valley Community College for one day. He is the author of two recent collections of poetry: The Existentialist Cookbook (NYQBooks) and Faithful as the Ground (Five Oaks Press). His poems have been published in The Threepenny Review, Barrelhouse, New York Quarterly, Sugar House Review, and elsewhere. He is an editor for Rinky Dink Press and he has performed in bookstores, bars, universities, hair salons, museums, and laundromats. He has co-hosted and organized monthly poetry readings at Glendale Community College and in downtown Phoenix for over a decade. www.batteredhive.blogspot.com 
Rashaad Thomas is a USAF Veteran, poet, essayist, husband and father. 
Laura Tohe is Diné. She holds a Ph.D. in Indigenous American Literature. A librettist and an award-winning poet, she was written or edited 5 books. She wrote a commissioned libretto, Enemy Slayer, A Navajo Oratorio, for the Phoenix Symphony. She was commissioned by Opera du Rouen to write the libretto for Nahasdzaan in the Glittering World, which premiered in Rouen and Caen, France in April and May 2019. In 2019 she was awarded the American Indian Writer’s Award by the Tulsa Hardesty Library. She is Professor Emerita with Distinction in Indigenous Literature at Arizona State University and is the Navajo Nation Poet Laureate for 2015-2019. |
Joy Young is a performance and teaching spoken word artist based in Phoenix, Az. Their performance works focuses on transgressing borders, both real and imagined, entering social justice topics through poetic personal narratives, has been featured on Button Poetry and Everyday Feminism as well as on stages and in colleges and classrooms across the country. Additionally, they are the cofounder and editor of Prickly Pear Printing, a project dedicated to highlighting written and visual work with a focus on growth, beauty, and the celebration of bodies and narratives often silenced. Whether creating storytelling curriculum for restorative justice or community engagement projects, running workshops that explore identity and what it means to be human, or performing their own poetry and stories, Joy's work seeks to cultivate strong personal narratives within a larger social justice context which is why they were selected for the 2018 Mayor's Arts Award for literature. They believe these personal narratives should be a driving force for healing ourselves and the world around us— that they are a doorway through which we should consciously enter the world of social justice in hopes of creating understanding, connection, and making substantive change.