Joanne Leva

Editor-in-Chief

Author of two poetry collections, Eve Heads Back (2020) and Eve Would Know (2017), published by Kelsay Books, Joanne Leva is an advocate for creative writing and community service. She is founder and Executive Director of the Montgomery County Poet Laureate Program (MCPL) and founder and Editor-in-Chief of Tekpoet, an online poetry manuscript services company.

Leva’s poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, Peace is a Haiku Song (The Foundry Books), 50 Over Fifty (PS Books), Apiary, Schuylkill Valley Journal, Rag Queen Periodical, Mad Poet’s Review, Bucks County Writer, Transcendent Visions, among others.

Her poem, God Walks into a Bar, was featured in a Philadelphia Calligraphers Society Exhibit and Poetry Reading and companion publication entitled, Scripta. (July 2019).

Her poem, Looking Back on the Mountain, was featured in an exhibition and companion publication entitled, Making Magic: Beauty in Word and Image at the James A. Michener Museum in Doylestown, Pennsylvania (November 2012 through March 2013).

 

Go to www.joanneleva.com to learn more.

Her distinguished speaker recruitment portfolio includes:

  • Gilad Jaffe (MCPL 2022)
  • Ernest Hilbert (MCPL 2021)
  • Yolanda Wisher (MCPL 2020)
  • Dilruba Ahmed (MCPL 2019)
  • John Timpane (MCPL 2018)
  • Tim Seibles (MCPL 2017)
  • Carl Dennis (MCPL 2016)
  • Major Jackson (MCPL 2015)
  • J.C. Todd (MCPL 2014)
  • Ethel Rackin (MCPL 2013)
  • Kathleen Sheeder Bonanno (MCPL 2012)
  • Christopher Bursk (MCPL 2011)
  • Robert Bly (MCPL 2010)
  • Tony Hoagland (MCPL 2009)
  • Marie Howe (MCPL 2008)
  • Carolyn Forche (MCPL 2007)
  • Galway Kinnell (MCPL 2006)
  • Grace Paley (MCPL 2005)
  • Ellen Bryant Voigt (MCPL 2004)
  • Gregory Orr (MCPL 2003)
  • Gerald Stern (MCPL 2002)
  • Robert Haas (MCPL 2001)
  • Robert Pinsky (MCPL 2000) *Poet Laureate of the United States
  • and Sonia Sanchez (MCPL 1999)

Artistic Statement:
Joanne offers poetic insight with the same tenacity with which she approaches her writing life. She has conducted an exhaustive effort to relate the theory of postminimalism to poetry on the page. Her disciplined method of exploration begins with recognizing the significance and brevity of the present moment. This awareness is the foundation for many of her poems.