Month: February 2020

Rosemarie Dombrowski

Rosemarie Dombrowski is the inaugural Poet Laureate of Phoenix, AZ, the founding editor of Write On, Downtown: A Journal of Phoenix Writing, rinky dink press (a publisher of micropoetry in microzine form), and most recently, The Revolution (Relaunch), a revisionary, radical, and creative resurgence of the weekly women’s rights newspaper founded by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony in 1868. 

She is the recipient of five Pushcart nominations, a Whiting Fellowship nomination (2019), a 2017 Arts Hero Award, the 2017 Carrie McCray Literary Award in Nonfiction, and a 2017 fellowship from the Lincoln Center for Applied Ethics. She was also named a finalist for the Whitman Bicentennial Poetry Contest (sponsored by Brooklyn Poets) in April of 2019.

Her collections include The Book of Emergencies (Five Oaks Press, 2014), The Philosophy of Unclean Things (Finishing Line Press, 2017) and The Cleavage Planes of Southwest Minerals [A Love Story], winner of the 2017 Split Rock Review chapbook competition.

She teaches courses on Women’s Literature, Medical Humanities, Creative Ethnography, and Journal Curation/Editing on ASU’s Downtown Phoenix campus. She also teaches for the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute and at Changing Hands Bookstore. 

Aaron Hopkins-Johnson

Aaron Hopkins-Johnson is an artist and writer from Phoenix, AZ. The 2001 International Poetry Interpretation Champion has performed with the who’s who of the spoken word genre – Gil-Scot Heron, Saul Williams, Michael C Ford, Buddy Wakefield, B Dolan, CR Avery, Watsky, Diana Gabaldon, Lemony Snicket, Derrick Brown, Andrea Gibson, Henry Rollins, Rachel McKibbens, Rudy Francisco, and Jello Biafra. Hopkins-Johnson was the 2001 International Poetry Interpretation Champion (International Forensics Association), the Program Director of Operations at NORAZpoets, two time member of the Flagstaff Poetry Slam Team, the host of Monday Night Open Mic at Applesauce Teahouse in Flagstaff, AZ, the slammaster of FlagSlam from 2006 – 2008, the Arcosanti Slab City Slam Regional Haiku Champion, a two time member of the Phoenix Poetry Slam Team, a National Poetry Slam Haiku Deathmatch Finalist, event coordinator of the Southwest Shootout Regional Qualifiers, event director of the Treetop Poetry Regional Poetry Slam, organizer of sketch comedy show and pioneering online streaming show First Friday Night Live, and the event coordinator of the 2014 Individual World Poetry Slam. He is a recipient of a project grant from AZ Humanities Council, ‘We Are One’ Grant from the City of Glendale, ‘Public Art’ grant from the City of Phoenix Council of the Arts, a Mesa Center for the Arts teaching artist, and facilitator of programming and benefactor of project grants from the National Endowment of the Arts, and the Arizona Arts Commission. Aaron Hopkins-Johnson ran Lawn Gnome Publishing from 2004 until 2023, hosting or organizing events in Arizona, almost daily, for 20 years.

He has released several collections of poetry including “Roach Killer For Her”, “Chainsawsmoking”, “Rights4Lefty”, “Watering The Poetry”, and “Irony Stinks: My Life Is Irony”. He is retired from projects, businesses, and public performances.