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UniVerse Staff
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 Richard Fammerée
Poet, Director/Founder, Editor, Translator
Richard Fammerée is author of Lessons of Water & Thirst, a book of poems recently included in The Poetry Library at The Royal Festival Hall, London. Manfred Gordon (Cambridge University) describes this volume as “sensual and psychological, lush in the tradition of French Symbolism.”
Fammerée is recognized internationally for scoring poems as short films and pioneering alternative/contemporary art songs. He has also composed for select artists including Li-Young Lee and Elise Paschen. Three projects have been produced by David Tickle.
His most recent album Fammerée & Eurydice is “pansophic and visceral in the same breath, offering salvation to the intellectually insatiable who love to dance.”
Fammerée has played the varnish off numerous guitars in numerous countries. He was featured on National Public Radio, PBS and ARTÉ, produced and hosted Poetry & Its Music International at the University of Chicago and appears in Who’s Who in the World 2000 as a poet, composer and performing artist and a member of the advisory board of The Poetry Center of Chicago. Richard Fammerée is frequently featured in American and European venues and publications and appears on reVerse with Mark Strand, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Li-Young Lee, Elise Paschen and Lou Reed.
Audio
Just click on the title of each poem below to listen to them in streaming MP3
format.
Green Man
Evora |
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 Rachel Webster
Poet, Editor
Rachel Webster is a poet, educator and activist. In 1997, she won both the Academy of American Poets’ Young Poets Prize and the Association of University Women Award, the latter for her implementation of a poetry workshop with homeless and gang-involved teens in Portland, Oregon. From there, Rachel moved to Chicago’s Gallery 37, working closely with chair Maggie Daley to extend arts apprenticeships to city teenagers. In 2001, she helped create Words 37, which now offers literary arts programs, after-school and in the summers, to thousands of Chicago teens. Rachel collected and edited these young writers’ poems and stories in two anthologies, Alchemy (2001) and Paper Atrium (2004). Rachel’s own poems and articles have been published in many journals, and she is currently finishing two manuscripts of poetry for book-length publication. Rachel teaches at Loyola University, Chicago, and Northwestern University. She is continually inspired by her students, and grateful to her teachers—from her hometown of Madison, Ohio, from Lewis & Clark College in Portland, from Warren Wilson College, in Asheville, North Carolina, and from all communities of poets and lovers of poetry, living and passed. Rachel can be reached at rachel@universeofpoetry.org. |
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 Francesco Levato
Poet, Artistic Director
Poet and new media artist Francesco Levato is the executive director of The Poetry Center of Chicago. He is the author of Marginal State, a collection of poetry, and his work has been published internationally in journals and anthologies, both in print and online, including The Progressive, XCP: Cross Cultural Poetics, Versal, and many others. His poetry-based video artwork has been exhibited in galleries and featured at film festivals in New York, Chicago, and elsewhere.
Click on the title of each video below to watch.
The Knotting of Rope
© 2007 Francesco Levato
Music by Issa Boulos
The Mechanics of Plastic
© 2007 Francesco Levato
Music by Issa Boulos
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 Kristina Findlay
Community Relations Director
Kristina Findlay has promoted some of Chicago's most significant non-profit arts organizations through media and public relations, events planning and marketing. She has recently completed a master's degree in communication and management. Writing is her trade and her art form, and she practices passionately.
Kristina notes that the mission of UniVerse would be best honored through discussion, and seeks opportunities for exchange with sponsors, members of the media and potential partners. Kristina connects people to our mission by explaining the lively intersection of curiosity, necessary global healing and the universal needs for celebration, teaching and learning.
"We know that now we can communicate more freely and frequently. This takes more responsibility for what, how and why we communicate. UniVerse believes this exchange can inspire peace. And that, to me, is pure, honorable hope." |
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 Michael Splendoria
Poet, Webmaster
Michael Splendoria is a poet, creative and technical writer, editor and designer, usability and content expert, and the spirited webmaster for UniVerse.
A lover of language and educated in anthropology and world studies, Splendoria is multilingual (Russian, Serbo-Croatian, Spanish, Mandarin Chinese, learning French)
and considers himself a global citizen. He is a cross-cultural maven at heart, an avid student of human diversity, perfectly at home with a cause of international reach such as that at UniVerse. He has also worked extensively
to help those in the refugee community from Bosnia-Herzegovina, Iraq, and Vietnam.
In his spare time, as a passionately budding poet, he enjoys penning inspired homages to his favorite flower.
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Editorial Board
Joanne Diaz
Parneshia Jones
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 Judith Valente
Editorial Board Member
Judith Valente is an awarding-winning print and broadcast journalist, poet and essayist.
She began her career in journalism at the age of 21 as a staff reporter for The Washington Post. She later joined the staff of The Wall Street Journal, reporting from that paper's Chicago and London bureaus. She was twice a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, first in the public service category as part of a team of reporters at The Dallas Times Herald investigating airline safety in the 1980's. In 1993, she was a finalist for the Pulitzer in the feature writing category for her front page article in The Wall Street Journal, chronicling the story of a religiously conservative father caring for his son dying of AIDS.
For the past eight years, Ms. Valente has been a regular contributor to the national PBS-TV news program Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly. She has won eight broadcast awards for her work. She is also a commentator for National Public Radio and Chicago Public Radio where she covers religion, interviews poets and authors, and is a guest essayist. She is also a segment producer for the Hallmark Channel program, “New Morning.”
Ms. Valente has won numerous awards for her poetry. In 2004, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Mary Oliver selected her poetry chapbook, “Inventing An Alphabet,” for the national Aldrich Poetry Prize. She was awarded a Jo-Anne Hirshfield Poetry Award in 2005 for her poem “Body & Soul” and an Illinois Arts Council Poetry Award in 2003 for her poem, “Green” She was a finalist in 2004 for the Emily Dickinson Prize from Universities West Press. She has received two artist's grants from the Illinois Arts Council.
Her poems have appeared in TriQuarterly, RHINO, Folio, Ninth Letter, AfterHours, Free Lunch, National Catholic Reporter and the anthologies “Best Catholic Writing of 2004” and “Illinois Poets: Where We Live.” She was a 2006 fellow at the Ragdale Foundation artists' colony in Lake Forest, IL. Her poems often explore the the transcendent in the ordinary, and the mysterious coexistence of life and death.
She is co-editor with Charles Reynard of Twenty Poems to Nourish Your Soul (Loyola Press/Chicago, 2005), an anthology of poems and essays on finding the sacred in the everyday. Ms. Valente and Mr. Reynard give readings and presentations based on their book across the country. They lead spiritual retreats on the theme of “Discovering the Sacred In Daily Life,” as well as poetry workshops called “Touching the Sacred Through Poetry.”
Ms. Valente is currently at work on a new collection of poems, and a book of poems with photographs by Chicago photographer John Matt Dorn. She is also writing a collection of personal reflections on the theme of journey.
Ms. Valente grew up in Bayonne, NJ. She graduated from the Academy of St. Aloysius in Jersey City, NJ, and received a bachelor's degree in English and classical languages from St. Peter's College in Jersey City. She holds a Masters in Fine Arts degree in creative writing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She is the daughter of Charles Valente, currently of Mobile, AL and the late Theresa Valente. She is married to Illinois Circuit Court Judge Charles Reynard, also a poet. The couple lives in Chicago and Normal, IL. |
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Board of Directors
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 Susan Aurinko
President of Board of Directors
Susan Aurinko is President of the Board of UniVerse of Poetry. She is a poet and photographer, and has shown at Rencontres d’Arles, France, and in Marghera Photography, Mestre, and Il Musee Molini, Venice, Italy, as well as in the US. She will show her work from India, at ThinkArt, in Chicago in August 2008, and at Kriti Gallery in Varanasi, India in February 2009.
Aurinko’s work has appeared on several book covers, and four pieces of her work are included in the Museum of Contemporary Photography’s permanent collection. In addition, many of her images hang in private collections in France, Italy, Monaco, the UK, and across the United States. Aurinko’s photography can be seen at www.aurinkophoto.com.
Aurinko is also the Founder/Director of FLATFILEgalleries in Chicago (www.flatfilegalleries.com), which represents over 60 artists and photographers, including Prabir Purkayastha, who is a UniVerse of Poetry poet, representing India.
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 Ram Devineni
Board Director
Ram Devineni is the publisher of Rattapallax
Press and a film-maker who has had films shown at the Cairo International
Film Festival, San Jose Film Festival, Philadelphia Festival of World
Cinema, etc. and has appeared on television programs in New York City,
Philadelphia, San Francisco and Los Angeles. He was an Eagleton Associate
at the Eagleton Institute for Politics at Rutgers University where
he studied political theory and campaign management. He has organized
several state and federal elections. He also integrates new technologies
(e.g., networks, SANs) for Salomon Smith Barney and Citigroup. He
also organized the Dialogue Among Civilizations Through Poetry with
the United Nations. |
UniVerse Advisors
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 Chris
Green
Advisor
Chris Green’s poems have appeared in numerous publications, including Poetry,
Verse, Black Clock, North American Review, RATTLE, 5 AM, Poet Lore, and Poetry
East. His book, The Sky Over Walgreens, was published in 2007 by Mayapple Press; his chapbook, Conceptual Animals, was published in 2006 by Sheltering Pines Press. He has been a featured reader and lecturer for the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, Amnesty International, and National Public Radio.
He has an M.F.A. in Poetry from Bennington College and an M.A in British and American Literature from the University of Utah. He has been an editor for Quarterly
West and RHINO. He was Editorial Manager for BearingPoint Inc., one of the largest consulting companies in the world. He has also taught for fifteen years at high schools and colleges across the country; he currently teaches poetry at Loyola University and DePaul University. He is also a Visiting Fellow at the DePaul University Humanities Center.
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Jennifer Harris
Kurt Heintz
Larry Jaffe
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 Erin Lambert
Advisor
Poet and educator, Erin Lambert is the author of Resolution, forthcoming in November 2008 from Finishing Line Press. Her poetry has appeared in journals such as Blackbird: an online journal of literature and the arts, Conjunctions, and Mudlark (Posters 44 and 75). She is currently an assistant professor in the School of Writing, Rhetoric and Technical Communication at James Madison University, and teaches in Virginia Commonwealth University’s study abroad program in Peru. Her journals include:
www.blackbird.vcu.edu/v2n1/index.htm
www.conjunctions.com/webconj.htm
www.unf.edu/mudlark/posters/posters.html
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 Lauren
Levato
Advisor
Artist, writer, and feminist activist Lauren
Levato is the author of Marriage
Bones (Fractal Edge Press, 2006) and at the hotel andromeda (Dancing
Girl Press, 2007), a limited edition visual art and poetry folio created
with fellow poet/publisher Kristy Bowen.
Levato holds degrees in professional writing and women's studies from
Purdue University, and in political journalism from Georgetown University.
She exhibits her visual art internationally and is the recipient of
a Vermont Studio Center fellowship, among other awards.
Since 1997 Levato has worked as a writer, editor, and advisor for news,
literature/culture, B-to-B, marketing, and PR publications.
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 Arica
Hilton
Advisor
Arica Hilton, poet, painter, art dealer, interior designer and patron of the arts is a board member of The Poetry Center of Chicago, the International Women Associates, North Side Affiliates of the Museum of Contemporary Art, UNIFEM USA (United Nations Development Fund for Women) and a member of the President's Circle of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.
Born on the Mediterranean Coast of Turkey, her Turkish name is Hatun. It is a ancient name dating back even before the Ottoman Empire. It was the name of the wife of Kublai Khan, meaning, "Lady" or "Queen." An intrepid voyager, Arica is dedicated to global harmony by helping women and children in third world countries, and in her own neighborhood, find education and economic freedom. Her travels have taken her to more than 20 countries from Europe, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Indonesia, to a journey in the Himalayas to the Ladakhi region of North India with a Tibetan monk. She hiked to the "Top of the World" in what is now known as "Little Tibet," met the Dalai Lama, had an audience with the Karmapa and helped to raise funds for a school in a thousand year old monastery in the remote land of Zanskar.
Arica Hilton is currently working on a collection of poems entitled The Seven Faces of Love. |
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 Deborah
Nodler Rosen
Advisor
Deborah Nodler Rosen is a poet, editor of RHINO, an award-winning poetry
journal, and also a soon-to-be published anthology about HOME written
by women around the world. She holds a B.A. from Wellesley College,
a J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Law School, and is working
on a Doctorate in listening and learning as she travels to many countries
throughout the world. The awards she has won she attributes to these
travels. Awards include: Member of Phi Beta Kappa; Fulbright to India;
First Prize in both a California State Poetry Society Contest and an
Oregon State Poetry Association Contest; and a listing in Who's Who
of American Women.
She has published: a biography, Anwar el-Sadat; text for the history
book, A Proud Nation; and poems in the following journals: The
Journal at Northwestern University; Third
Coast; Where We Live, Illinois Poets;
The Spoon River Poetry Review; and many others. She teaches poetry
in the public schools through a program called Kids Meet Art because
she believes that children who understand that they have the power
to create are children who understand that they have the power to create
peace. Deborah believes that if she can contribute anything to world
peace that will be her greatest achievement. |
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 Steven Schroeder
Advisor
Steven Schroeder received his Ph.D. in Ethics and Society from the University
of Chicago in 1982. He is the co-founder, with composer Clarice Assad,
of the Virtual Artists Collective (a "virtual" gathering of musicians, poets, and visual artists) and (when the pieces fall into place) teaches peace studies, philosophy, and poetry at Shenzhen University in China. Whether the pieces fall into place or not, he lives and writes in Chicago and on the road to Texas.
He grew up in the Texas Panhandle, where he first learned to take nothing seriously, and his poetry continues to be rooted in the experience of the Plains as well as the experience of Chicago and Shenzhen. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Concho River Review, the Cresset, Druskininkai Poetic Fall 2005, Georgetown Review, Karamu, Mid-America Poetry Review, Poetry East, Rhino, Shichao, Sichuan Literature, Texas Review, and other literary journals. His most recent collection is Fallen Prose, published by Virtual Artists Collective in 2006. He can be reached at home.earthlink.net/~steven_schroeder or vacteam.com
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 Laura Schronen and
James Livingston
Advisors
Intrepid world travelers, Laura and James have explored nearly 50 countries between the two of them. Laura studied Chinese Philosophy and language for many years and taught English as a second language in Asia. The villagers in rural China 15 years ago were often surprised to hear this young American woman speaking to them in their own tongue! After many world journeys and several years teaching college level philosophy and ESL in Seattle, Laura decided to settle in Hawaii, where she had earlier received her Master’s degree in Philosophy and still found the “Aloha Spirit” to be quite alive. Since then, she has worked in several capacities, as teacher, entrepreneur and healer.
A talented poet and writer, James has also trekked through many exotic locales to connect with varied peoples and cultures and expand his experience of life. James enjoyed teaching foreign students English, as well as counseling in environmental education programs. He is a perpetual scholar as well as a teacher/counselor. Expressing himself through poetry has been a passion for James throughout his life. A firm believer in the wisdom that each of us has to share with others, James hopes that his involvement with Universe will play a part in amplifying the voice of people throughout the world.
Laura and James will record and share the poetry and living oral traditions of indigenous peoples from Hawaii, Asia, and the South Pacific. Sponsors are welcome. Please contact Laura and James at lauraandjames@universeofpoetry.org |
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 Diana Twyman
Advisor
Diana Twyman is an international life sciences consultant, published writer and professional oil and pastel artist. She is an inventor with seven patents to her credit, and was one of 50 women leaders in the USA, Canada, Australia, and the UK interviewed for Regine Birute and Roger Lewin’s article on complexity science entitled, “Third Possibility Leaders: the Invisible Edge Women Have in Complex Organizations”, featuring women who displayed what is called “third possibility leadership”.
Diana was also asked to be one of ten external reviewers for a primer developed by the National Center for Ethics, department of the Veterans Health Administration in Washington D.C. “Ethical Leadership, Fostering an Ethical Environment and Culture”.
Diana is the Treasurer of The Poetry Center of Chicago, is a member of The Chicago Council on Global Affairs, Women Employed and Jobs for Youth. She is working on a memoir, a book of poems and a collection of oil paintings featuring the great dune land beaches of Indiana, the coast of Cape Hataras and the island of Key West.
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 Jeanne Hong Zhang
(Zhang Xiaohong)
Advisor, Translator
Jeanne Hong Zhang (Zhang Xiaohong) is associate professor in comparative literature and deputy director of the Institute of Western Studies at Shenzhen University, People’s Republic of China. She obtained her PhD in 2004 from Leiden University, the Netherlands. She has published two books: The Invention of a Discourse (2004) and Cangshan yehua (2006, Night Talks at the Cang Mountain). She has published in Canadian Review of Comparative Literature, European Review and other distinguished international and Chinese journals, as well as in five books translated from English. She is currently working both as a scholar and as a translator. |
UniVerse Translators
Charles Cantalupo
Translator
Charles Cantalupo is the author of two book of poems – Light
the Lights (Red Sea Press, 2004) and Anima/l
Wo/man and Other Spirits (Spectacular Diseases, 1996) – three books of translations of Eritrean poetry – We
Have Our Voice (Red Sea Press, 2000), We
Invented the Wheel (Red Sea Press, 2002), and Who
Needs a Story? (Hdri, 2006) – and books on Ngugi wa Thiong’o and Thomas Hobbes. Cantalupo has written and directed the new documentary, Against
All Odds: African Languages and Literatures into the 21st Century (2006), and he has recently completed a memoir, Joining
Africa, based on his experiences there since 1985. |
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 Tiphaine Chigot
Translator
Tiphaine Chigot was born in Paris, France, and holds a degree in American
Literature (Universite Michel De Montaigne, Bordeaux). She received a Masters
Degree in French Literature with a specialty in 19th century Naturalist
Novels. Chigot teaches French Literature and Poetry in the International
Baccalaureate Program at Lincoln Park High School in Chicago and is the
UniVerse liaison for French speaking countries.
Tiphaine Chigot est native de Paris, France. Elle est titulaire d'une Licence
en litterature americaine (Universite Michel De Montaigne, Bordeaux). Elle a
recu une "Maitrise es Lettres" avec une specialite pour les romans naturalistes
du dix-neuvieme siecle. T. Chigot enseigne la litterature et la poesie francaise
dans le programme de Baccalaureat International a Lincoln Park High School, Chicago
et elle est la liaison du site UniVerse pour les pays francophones. |
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Omer Hadžiselimović
Translator
Omer Hadžiselimović, born in 1946, formerly Professor of English at the University of Sarajevo (1972-1994), is now Adjunct Professor of English at Loyola University Chicago. He is the author of several dozen articles, reviews, and translations in the fields of American Studies, English literature, and travel writing. His books include Na vratima Istoka: engleski putnici o Bosni i Hercegovini od 16. do 20. vijeka (Sarajevo, 1989); its English version appeared as At the Gates of the East: British Travel Writers on Bosnia and Herzegovina from the Sixteenth to the Twentieth Centuries (Boulder, Colorado/New York, 2001). He is currently working on a study of British travelers in Bosnia in the early twentieth century and co-editing, with Keith Doubt, Duh Bosne (Spirit of Bosnia), a bilingual online journal. His latest article is “Plagiarism between Orientalism and Balkanism: Anthony Rhodes and Bosnia” (East European Quarterly, June, 2007). |
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 Fady Joudah
Poet, Translator
Fady Joudah was born in Austin, Texas, in a Palestinian refugee home. He is a physician of internal medicine and a field member of Doctors Without Borders as well as a poet and translator. His works have appeared in several journals and anthologies. His translation of Mahmoud Darwish’s most recent poetry is collected in The Butterfly’s Burden from Copper Canyon Press. |
Lisa Katz
Philippe Lavie
Samantha Levine
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Amy Liang (Liang Huichun)
Translator
Amy Liang (Liang Huichun) is a Chinese Lecturer at Northeastern Illinois University. Her translations have appeared on the Transparent Languages multi-media web pages and dictionary, and her writing has appeared in Da Gong (Hong Kong), Sing Tao Daily (US), and a variety of media in the People’s Republic of China. She currently translates English-Chinese poetry with American poets and publishes in Sichuan Literature and Rhino magazine. |
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| photo: Txomin Saez |
Elizabeth Macklin
Poet, Translator
Elizabeth Macklin is the author of two poetry collections, You’ve Just Been Told and A Woman Kneeling in the Big City. Her translations from the Basque of Kirmen Uribe have appeared in The New Yorker, Circumference, and Open City, and in 2005 she won a PEN Translation Fund grant for Meanwhile Take My Hand. |
Ghirmai Negash
Translator
Ghirmai Negash is assistant director of the Institute for the African Child, African Studies Program, Ohio University, where he teaches African literature and African languages. Founder-chair of the Department of Eritrean languages and Literatures of the University of Asmara, Eritrea (2001-2005), he is the author of A History of Tigrinya Literature in Eritrea: the Oral and the Written, 1895-1991 (Leiden, 1999). |
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 Zuzanna
Olszewska
Translator
Zuzanna Olszewska is a PhD student in Social Anthropology at Oxford
University, writing a dissertation on 'Poetry and its Social Contexts
Among Afghan Refugees in Iran.' She is a graduate of the Refugee Studies
Centre at Oxford and has conducted research and worked with refugees
and other marginal populations in a number of countries, including
Iran, the UK, India, Nepal, and her native Poland. In her latest projects,
she is happy to be combining her interest in studying forced migration
with her other love, writing and literature. |
Larissa Shmailo
Lina Vitkauskas
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UniVerse Interns
 Samantha Levine
Intern, Editorial Assistant
Samantha Levine is a writer and student from New York. She is beginning her senior year at Northwestern University, where she studies French and Literature. She spent the first half of this year researching Senegalese art and culture in Dakar and Saint-Louis and then continued her studies in Paris, France. She will build on her experiences this summer by working at Amnesty International’s Justice and Accountability Program, and exploring and editing African poetry through UniVerse. |
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 Melissa Dittmann
Intern
Melissa Dittmann is an artist, writer and student of world and its cultures who hails from Indiana and recently returned from India (where she studied cultural arts in a South Indian rainforest, the situation of Tibetan refugees in the Himalayas of northern India, and many things in between). This fall, she continues her studies of world cultures and their connection to the arts at Indiana University as a National Merit Scholar. Melissa has won the National Council of Teachers of English Achievement Award in Writing as well as recognition in the Ginza Festival Haiku Contests, and is a featured songwriter and musician on R.A.W. 1, Recorded Art Words, highlighting live performances in Chicago in 2004. |
Associate Organizations
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