Colin Killick is a poet and disability rights activist based in Somerville, MA, where he is the chair of the city’s Commission for Persons With Disabilities. He has appeared as a featured poet at the Lizard Lounge in Cambridge, MA, GotPoetry Live in Providence, RI, and the Parlor Cafe in North Adams, MA. Some of his pieces are focused on disability issues, and his experience with dysgraphia. More information at colinkillick.com and @killickwrites

 

Kythryne Aisling is a full-time artist, part-time poet, and occasional musician. She is a brain tumor survivor living with C-PTSD and chronic Lyme disease. Most Thursday nights she can be found at Slam Free or Die in Manchester NH, usually wearing too much glitter. In her completely non-existent spare time, she lifts weights and usually manages to avoid dropping the barbell on her head. She has been favorably compared to a poison dart frog,  owns a geiger counter and a large collection of hammers, and occasionally actually remembers to eat dinner before midnight. She tweets about work, life, poetry, dis/ability, gardening, shiny objects, raising a toddler, and anything else that crosses her mind at @wyrdingstudios.

 

Eli A. Wolff directs the Inclusive Sports Initiative at the Institute for Human Centered Design. Eli led a global effort to include provisions addressing sport and recreation within the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Eli also participated in the process to establish the International Day of Sport for Development and Peace. He was a member of the United States Paralympic Soccer Team in the 1996 and 2004 Paralympic Games. Eli is a graduate of Brown University and is currently pursuing his PhD through the German Sport University of Cologne. He has a creative writing and expression blog: Writing Down a Dream. Twitter handle: @eliwolff10

 

Mani G. Iyer was born and raised in Bombay, India. He has lived in the United States since 1985. He is deaf/blind due to Usher Syndrome, a genetic disorder that is the leading cause of deaf/blindness in the world. Many of his poems have appeared on www.visionthroughwords.com, a blog site dedicated to writing by and for the visually-impaired and the blind. In September 2013, he was awarded a Poetry fellowship by the National Endowment of Arts(NEA) for a one-month residency at the Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, Vermont. He is currently enrolled in the MFA program for Poetry at Lesley University.

 

Ekiwah’s poetry opens surprising windows to personal mystical experience delivered with a playful and at times whimsical and irreverent spirit. Much like Gregory Orr, Ekiwah believes poetry can save a life.

Born September 14, 1987, Ekiwah Adler-Beléndez is from Amatlan, Mexico, a small village an hour from Mexico City. The son of a North American father and a Mexican mother, Ekiwah Adler Belendez is the author of five collections of poetry, Soy (I Am); Palabras Inagotables, (Never-ending Words); Weaver (2003), his first book in English; The Coyotes Trace, which features an introduction by Mary Oliver. His journey with poetry began early. At the age of three he recited spontaneous verses to the mountains and at twelve he published his first collection of poetry. His work has been published in diverse poetry magazines and journals in the U.S.

He has given numerous talks, readings and workshops at colleges, high schools and festivals both in Mexico and the United States. Including The Dodge Poetry Festival, The Poetry Therapy Conference, Mythic Journeys and Writing the Medical Experience He has had the pleasure of reading with the poets Li-young Lee, Coleman Barks, Franz Wright, and Mary Oliver. Some of his work is featured on blueflowerarts.com. and on his website www.ekiwahadler-belendez.net

Ekiwah’s name means warrior in Purepecha, an indigenous languageof Mexico. His name is a fitting one. He has had to embrace the challenges and learn to accept the gifts of being born with Cerebral Palsy and using a wheelchair. His latest work, Love on Wheels, deals with coming to grips with the richness and complexities of life in a wheelchair, taking into account its symbolic connotations as well. Love on wheels also explores the relationship between poetry disability and sexuality – a theme that often is not so nakedly addressed.

Ekiwah also offers poetry workshops for people with and without a physical disability. As well as workshops to parents and teachers who work with people with disability. A graduate of Bard College at Simon’s Rock and Hampshire College, where he studied poetry, theater, and world religions he spends his most of his time Mexico, where he was born and raised, and travels frequently to the U.S.