We’ve managed to twist Anthony Robinson’s arm to get to him to blog for us here at Unstressed.  Robinson is the author of the chapbook, Brief Weather and I Guess a Sort of Vision, available from Pilot Books.   According to Robinson, he lives but doesn’t work in Eugene, Oregon, where he has spent far too many years of his life.  He used to write poems, used to be a graduate student, used to be a writing instructor and academic advisor, sold antique books for a spell, and now he spends most of his time Netflixing and hanging out with his daughter. He’s currently looking for a way back “in” to poetry.

Check out Robinson’s poem celebrating metal god Dave Mustaine first published here on Linebreak.

Find him here on You Tube.

Read my favorite Anthony Robinson poem here.

This week’s guest editor is Ada Limón. We first became aware of Limón and her work at this year’s AWP conference. What a lucky find.

Limón’s first book, lucky wreck, was the winner of the Autumn House Poetry Prize and her second book, This Big Fake World, was the winner of the Pearl Poetry Prize. She’s won the Chicago Literary Award and fellowships from the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center and the New York Foundation for the Arts. Her work has appeared in the Iowa Review, Subtropics, Barrow Street, The New Yorker, and others. She is the Creative Director, Advertising for Travel + Leisure. Her third book of poems Sharks in the Rivers, will be published by Milkweed Editions in 2010. She’s at work on her first novel as well as a book of essays.

This week’s Unstressed guest blogger is Alison Pelegrin. Pelegrin’s poems have appeared in Poetry, Ploughshares, Shenandoah, The Southern Review, Verse Daily, and The Writer’s Almanac.  She is the author of  The Zydeco Tablets, Squeezers, Voodoo Lips, and Dancing with the One-Armed Man.  Her book, Big Muddy River of Stars, won the 2007 Akron Poetry Prize.  A broadside of her poem “In Livingston Parish, Dreaming of Li Po” is being released this week from Broadsided Press.  A recipient of a Creative Writing Fellowship in Poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts, she currently teaches English at Southeastern Louisiana University and lives in Covington, Louisiana, with her husband and two sons.

Read her poem, “The Last Holdout,” here.

This week we’re delighted to have poet T.R. Hummer guest edit the Unstressed blog. Hummer is the author of seven books of poetry, and a selected collection called Bluegrass Wasteland appeared in 2005. A collection of essays on the art and craft of poetry appeared in 2006 under the title The Muse in the Machine. The winner of numerous awards for his poetry, he now teaches in the creative writing program at Arizona State University. Learn more here.

Read Hummer’s poem “Argument from Design.”

We’re delighted to have Adam Clay sit in this week as the guest blogger of Linebreak.

Adam is the author of A Hotel Lobby at the Edge of the World (forthcoming from Milkweed Editions), The Wash (Parlor Press), In a World of Ideas, I Have No Particular Loyalty (forthcoming from Cinematheque Press), As Complete as a Thought Can Be (Cannibal Books), and Canoe (Horse Less Press). He lives and writes in Michigan where he is completing his PhD. Adam recently became a father, and we extend our congratulations to him and his wife.  Find out more at adamclay.org

In addition to Sarah J. Sloat, we have Dorianne Laux serving as a guest blogger this week. Laux has been a supporter of Linebreak from way back, and we’re delighted to have her contributing this week.

Laux has published four books of poems. The fourth, Facts about the Moon (W.W. Norton), won the Oregon Book Award. Eastern Washington University Press reprinted Awake, her first collection, and Superman: the Chapbook is being brought out by Red Dragonfly Press. Her awards include two Best American Poetry Prizes, a Best American Erotic Poems Prize, a Pushcart Prize, two fellowships from The NEA, and a Guggenheim Fellowship.

After teaching at the University of Oregon in Eugene and Pacific University, Laux recently moved to Raleigh, North Carolina, where she joins the faculty at North Carolina State University. She’s married to poet Joseph Millar.

I was first brought to Laux’s poetry by the poem “Vacation Sex.”  And it’s still one of my favorites.

Read more about her and her work.

This week, we’re pleased to have Linebreak contributor Sarah J. Sloat joining us as a guest editor here at Unstressed. Sarah’s poetry has appeared in many online and print journals, including Third Coast, Barn Owl Review, and Opium. Mostly recently, three poems were published online at Swink Magazine, and a new chapbook, In the Voice of a Minor Saint, is just out from Tilt Press. (Love that cover, by the way). When she’s not updating her own blog, she works as an editor in Germany. Welcome, Sarah!

We’re happy to welcome Katrina Vandenberg as this week’s guest editor at Unstressed. Katrina’s first collection Atlas was a finalist for the Minnesota Book Award. A new chapbook, On Marriage, was published last year by Red Dragonfly Press. She’s received residencies from the Sewanee Writer’s Conference, the Amy Clampitt House, and the MacDowell Colony, and her work has appeared in journals such as The American Scholar, The Iowa Review, and Post Road.

For an online sampler of her poetry, we recommend Fuchsia, One Argument for the Existence of God, and First Lesson: The Anatomist Explains the Primacy of Imagination. Oh, and you might as well read an essay, too: Putting Your Poetry in Order: The Mix-Tape Strategy.

Admiration for Katrina’s poetry was one of the common tastes that drew we Linebreakers together when we started planning our little project more than a year ago. We’re thrilled to be sharing a screen with her.

This week we’re delighted to have Amanda Auchter serve as the guest editor of Unstressed. She is editor of the Pebble Lake Review and is currently on faculty at Lone Star College. Her poems have appeared practically everywhere a contemporary poet would like to have his or her poems appear. Her manuscript was a finalist for Alice James Books in 2008, when she was also a finalist for the Ruth Lily Award. Her list of awards and achievements is endless.

One of my favorite poems by Amanda is “Poem for the Adoptive Mother,” one that Linebreak had the good fortune to publish. Check it out here.