Liberation as Poetic Form
A Zine from Mississippi (Part 3)
This is Part 3 of our collaboration with the creators of the Liberation as Poetic Form (LPF) Zine. (Check out Part 1 and Part 2.) The LPF workshop was led by poet C.T. Salazar in fall of 2024, bringing together over twenty poets with geographical, genealogical, historical, political, and psychological ties to Mississippi. The zine pulls together original poems written by twelve members of the first LPF workshop. The collage-work and layout for each page was done by C.T. Salazar, Rachel Guerry, Margaret Lawson, and Anastasia Taylor. The full zine was riso printed by Jackson-based book designer Connor Frew.
Celeste Maria Schueler is a poet and twin mom living in the Pacific Northwest. Originally from Mississippi, she has her BA in English and MFA in creative writing from Mississippi University for Women. Nominated for a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net, she has been published in FERAL, The Institutionalized Review, The Circus Collective, Creative Colloquy, Libre, and others. She has also taught poetry workshops with the Tacoma Public Library and worked with Voices of Tacoma. Her first full length collection, Peonies of Resurrection, about her journey with bipolar disorder is forthcoming from ELJ Editions. Celeste loves writing poetry and essays, reading all sorts of books, baking bundt cakes, and taking her twin daughters on adventures around the Puget Sound.
Brooke Harries’ work has appeared in Arkansas Review, Denver Quarterly, Laurel Review, Puerto del Sol, Salamander, Sixth Finch, and elsewhere. She has an MFA from the University of California, Irvine and is currently pursuing a PhD at the University of Southern Mississippi.
C.T. Salazar is a Latinx poet and librarian from Mississippi. His debut collection Headless John the Baptist Hitchhiking (Acre Books 2022) was a 2023 finalist for the Theodore Roethke Memorial Award. C.T. was the 2017 recipient of the AWP Intro Journals poetry award and the 2020 recipient of the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters award in poetry. C.T. is an assistant professor at Delta State University where he directs the University Archives and Museums.
Read more LPF:
Liberation as Poetic Form
In September 2024, over twenty poets with geographical, genealogical, historical, political, and psychological ties to Mississippi came together for a poetry workshop inspired by a grassroots tradition of action in the state.
Liberation as Poetic Form
This is Part 2 of our collaboration with the creators of the Liberation as Poetic Form (LPF) Zine.
Read more from Celeste Schueler:
Mississippi Rebirth
Shame rises like
the heat of
Birds.
First Good Friday
I am always
Hospitalized in the Spring.
Mississippi Expat: Celeste Schueler
"I miss the landscape and liveliness. Rolling hills and the levees against the Mississippi River. Trees and flowers all throughout spring and summer."