JODY BARNES writes, "I wrote this poem out of frustrations in dealing with 'the system' while trying to find help for my son."

ARLEN BEERS-GREEN has been a home schooler for ten years and is now a freshman in high school.

KATE BESSER has taught for many years and, in a career change, is trying to learn how to write.

SHERWIN BITSUI is Navajo from Cottonwood Springs, Arizona. He is of the Bitter Water People, and is currently attending the creative writing program at Institute of American Indian Arts.

MICKEY BOGERT wrote doggerel, parodies, limericks, and is now interested in haiku.

LAUREN BUNKER, 17, is a student at Mora High School and will graduate in May.

JULIET CALABI has had a fantasy all her life about being a writer and has just started acting on it.

IOANNA CARLSEN's poems have appeared in Poetry, Blue Mesa Review, and Chelsea. (ìInfantaî is appearing in Field, and ìOblivionî is appearing in Prairie Schooner.)

PAM CHRISTIE writes and works and walks in Santa Fe; she is one of the last surviving independent realtors, with one office throughout the world.

AMELIA COULTER is a student at Santa Fe Prep.

JOSH FLORES was editor of the literary magazine and newspaper at Capitol High, is now a UNM student studying journalism and mass communication, and has an internship at the Albuquerque Journal.

JESSE GARCIA, thirteen and home-schooled, is a musician, juggler, magician, and likes to play chess.

PATRICIA HANSEN lives in Santa Fe, is raising two children and writing.

NANCY HAYDOCK says, "My first love is painting watercolors, but I have always read, memorized, and listened to poetry and am sometimes compelled to write a poem."

ELLI HINDMARCH is a home schooling teen and loves to write.

ELIZABETH JACOBSON's poems have appeared in Alaska Quarterly Review, Flyway, Blue Violin and elsewhere. She has an MFA from Columbia University, and has taught writing at CUNY in Manhattan, at Santa Fe Community College, and at Warehouse 21 in Santa Fe.

TARA KOHN is a 10th grader at Santa Fe Prep and has always loved to express her thoughts and feelings in writing.

CARLOS MARTINEZ says, "A poem is a verbal photograph that captures all of the world in its splendor in a single instant."

SEENA MICHAELS is in love with life for all the right reasons.

AMANDA MONTGOMERY is grateful for the poems that have moved through her since living in New Mexico.

KIRSTEN MUNDT works at Girls Inc. of Santa Fe where she often leads writing workshops with young girls.

LAURA NICHOLS is a creative writing student at the Institute of American Indian Arts.

SARAH ORTIZ, 14 years old, enjoys writing, poetry, taking dance classes, singing, and would someday like to publish a book of poetry, and dance with the New York City Ballet.

ANN-MARIE OSKOLKOFF is Aleut from Homer, Alaska, and is currently studying creative writing at the Institute of American Indian Arts.

REBECCA PIERPONT is a 16-year-old autodidact who enjoys writing, has been writing for about five years, and found the poetry workshop really inspiring.

DYLAN RAVENFOX liked Joy Harjo's class, and she got him started. Heíd like to continue writing. (Heís 12, almost 13.)

BARBARA ROCKMAN received her MFA in writing from Vermont College in 1998 and finds much of her material for poems in the daily details of domestic life and family.

CALLIE SILVER sincerely loves to write.

GARY STEVENS is from Alaska, and is currently attending IAIA. He is of Tlingit descent and is in the Creative Writing program.

JULIE TAYS is a high school student who thinks of poetry as an extension of music.

BETSY FOGELMAN TIGHE is a teacher, editor, and published poet who lives in Santa Fe with her husband and two small children.

JOHN TRITICA is the author of How Rain Records Its Alphabet, translator of the Swedish poet Niklas Tˆrnlund (All Things Measure Time) and lives in Albuquerque with his family, where he is a teacher.

LYSSA WATSON is thirteen years old and has dreamed of being published since she was seven years old.

JOANNE YOUNG dedicates her poem Veil of Colors to her son August, the child in the first and seventh chakras.