Poetry Medicine for the Soul is a podcast inviting poets to share, explore, and celebrate poetry, hosted by John Gillespie. This National Poetry Month 2026 bonus episode features James Davis reading "Juvenilia" from his forthcoming collection (2027) Bottoming for Dummies. You can read "Juvenilia" in the Bennington Review.

James Davis is the author of the poetry collection Club Q, which won the Anthony Hecht Prize. His poetry has been featured on NBC News and CBC Radio and anthologized in two installments of Best New Poets (2011 and 2019). Recent poems have appeared or are forthcoming in the Bennington Review, Five Points, Literary Matters, Salamander, The Sewanee Review, and other notable venues. Originally from Colorado Springs, he lives in Denton, Texas, where he teaches English at the University of North Texas. Learn more at www.jamesdavispoet.com.

This podcast is hosted and produced by John Gillespie. Check out our website for more episodes: https://poetry-medicine-for-the-soul.simplecast.com/

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Poetry Medicine for the Soul is a podcast inviting poets to share, explore, and celebrate poetry, hosted by John Gillespie. This National Poetry Month 2026 bonus episode features Lisken Van Pelt Dus reading “if up’s the word” by E.E. Cummings. You can read "if up's the word" on the Poetry Foundation website.

Lisken Van Pelt Dus is the author of two full-length collections of poems, What We’re Made Of (Cherry Grove 2016) and How Many Hands to Home (Mayapple Press 2025), as well as two chapbooks, Everywhere at Once and Letters to My Dead. She was raised in England, the US, and Mexico, and now lives with her husband in western Massachusetts, where she is an award-winning teacher of writing, languages, and martial arts. Her work can be found in many journals, anthologies, and craft books, including recently Naugatuck River Review, The Comstock Review, and The Bond Street Review, and has earned several awards and Pushcart Prize nominations.

Learn more at LVPDPoetry.com.

This podcast is hosted and produced by John Gillespie. Check out our website for more episodes: https://poetry-medicine-for-the-soul.simplecast.com/

Listen and subscribe to Poetry Medicine for the Soul in Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Get in touch with us at: info@poetrymedicineforthesoul.com

Poetry Medicine for the Soul is a podcast inviting poets to share, explore, and celebrate poetry, hosted by John Gillespie. This National Poetry Month 2026 bonus episode features Maria Lisella, former Poet Laureate of Queens, reading her poems "Cornrows" and "The Same."

Born in South Jamaica, Queens, Lisella is poet and travel writer. She is a graduate of Queensborough Community College and Queens College, holds a master’s degree from the NYU–Polytechnic Institute, and attended Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

Lisella is the author of two full-length poetry collections, At the Hour of Now (Bordighera Press, 2026) and Thieves in the Family (NYQ Books, 2014), and two chapbooks: Amore on Hope Street (Finishing Line Press, 2009) and Two Naked Feet (Poets Wear Prada, 2009). In 2018, when her poet husband Gil Fagiani died, Lisella shepherded two of his books posthumously: Soundtrack of a Life, a bilingual selection of Fagiani’s work (Legas, 2023), and Missing Madonnas (Bordighera Press, 2018).

Lisella’s work has been anthologized in the bilingual anthology Di là mare/Across the Sea: Contemporary Italian and Italian-American Poetry (Bordighera Press, 2026); Stronger than Fear: Poems of Empowerment, Compassion, and Social Justice (Cave Moon Press, 2022); and NYC through the Eyes of the Poets Who Live Here (Blue Light Press, 2022), among others volumes. Her poetry has been translated into Albanian, Italian, and Korean.

Lisella curates the Italian American Writers Association’s literary series and is poetry editor for the literary and scholarly review Voices in Italian Americana (VIA). She has led poetry workshops for underserved communities for various institutions, including the Queens Public Library system, the Greater Astoria Historical Society, Heights & Hills, and The Noguchi Museum. Lisella served as poet laureate of Queens, New York, from 2015 to 2019. She has lived in Astoria, Queens, for forty years.

Read about Maria Lisella’s 2020 Poets Laureate Fellowship project.

This podcast is hosted and produced by John Gillespie. Check out our website for more episodes: https://poetry-medicine-for-the-soul.simplecast.com/

Listen and subscribe to Poetry Medicine for the Soul in Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Get in touch with us at: info@poetrymedicineforthesoul.com