Poet Laureate 2016

AUTUMN KONOPKA 

Autumn Konopka is a poet, mother, teacher, and coffee addict. Her poems have appeared in Literary Mama, Crab Orchard Review, Philadelphia Stories, Apiary, Mad Poets Review, and others. In 2014, her chapbook a chain of paper dolls was published by the Head & the Hand Press. She has an MFA from Antioch University in Los Angeles, where she focused on memoirs in verse as well as the intersection of socio-economics and poetry. A grammar geek to the core, Autumn teaches creative writing, composition, and critical reading in Philadelphia. She lives with her family in Glenside, where she is sustained by reading with her kiddos, making sweet treats, running until her legs ache, and watching embarrassingly bad tv. Find her online: autumnkonopka.com. 

“These poems manage to confront the realities of teaching in the midst of urban blight, poverty, and violence with a distinctive personal voice that avoids political rhetoric. Thoughtful, self-critical, often self-mocking, they enact a lively engagement with those who are trying not merely to defend themselves but to give their lives purpose and possibility.”

Carl Dennis

2016 Celebrity Judge