NORTH AMERICAN LITERARY

ARTISTS AND THEIR NOTABLE

WORKS
1. Janet Elizabeth Aalfs
(born August 14, 1956) is
an American poet and martial artist. She is
a founding member of Valley Women's
Martial Arts and the National Women's
Martial Arts Federation, and founder and
director of Lotus Peace Arts. She served
as poet laureate of Northampton,
Massachusetts from 2003-2005.
 Facing the Wall
Someone found a heart
on market street not human
there’s really no cause
for alarm though a naked heart
warm on the sidewalk on halloween
is upsetting but not as bad as if
it were the organ of a valuable life
we don’t mean
one of the seventeen women found
strewn along desert highways
you can’t question whores their
stories
aren’t reliable their lives aren’t
stable
the reason we haven’t found a
suspect
yet is that we can’t
get a straight answer out of anyone
and no one really knows
a slut she’ll go with whatever man
will take her you can’t trust women
like that to die when they’re
supposed to
with their clothes on at a legal
address
we think we’ve discovered the
eighteenth
2. Jesse Ball
- (born June 7, 1978) is an
American novelist and poet. He
has published novels, volumes
of poetry, short stories, and
drawings. His works are
distinguished by the use of a
spare style.
 Inside the Stove - Poem by Jesse Ball
Inside the stove, he found
a passageway, leading to a set of
stairs.
This caused him a great deal of
worry
as well as elation and gladness of
living.
He did not, however, venture
into the oven, but sent his little
brother in
in his stead. This seemed at first
a good idea, but when the brother
had been gone three days, he
began
to second-guess the wisdom
of his rash choice.
He'd go in after him,
he decided. But the passage
had shrunk by then, and no
normal-sized
person could fit through. Yes, that's
it,
I sent him in because, from a
purely physical
standpoint, I myself could never
have gone.
And besides, he mumbled to
himself,
it's probably nice in there.
3. John Caddy is an American poet, and naturalist.
- was born in Hibbing, Minnesota, in 1937, and grew
up in Virginia, Minnesota.
- In 1967, John was one of the founding poets of the
Minnesota Poets in the Schools Program.
- Caddy has long used poetry and other art forms in
his environmental teaching, and in the mid-1990s,
he began his Self Expressing Earth program.
- John Caddy was chosen from artists of all genres to
receive the 2012 McKnight Foundation
Distinguished Artist Award
4. Lily Brown
- (born March 20, 1981,
in Boston, Massachusetts) is an American poet
- Brown is author of the poetry collection Rust or
Go Missing.
- Her poetry has appeared in journals such
as American Letters and Commentary, Colorado
Review, Denver Quarterly, Fence, Gulf
Coast, Pleiades, and Tarpaulin Sky.
- She now teaches English at the Nueva Upper
School in San Mateo, CA, and is known for
making fantastic Kahoots. Her work has gained
prominence as a bolded phenotype of modern
poetry in some academic circles.
 SOCKET
Out of a ripped situation,
we learned
to boat. Tacked once the harbor
in a wood-ribbed float
then curved to port.
I remember twirling through air,
a baton in pain, then an arm
backed into its socket
by a doctor.
Luxuriating in a structural schedule,
I open my bones.
I could go about it
differently, but what good
is rattling in a basket?
And is it waiting if you
don't know after
is what you'd want?