Meryl DePasquale lives in Minneapolis and is an MFA student in poetry at the University of Minnesota. She was an editorial assistant for the Norton anthology Language for a New Century: Poetry from the Middle East, Asia, and Beyond, has interned at Milkweed Editions, and looks forward to teaching in the youth program at the Loft Literary Center. Her work has appeared in Connecticut Review.

The war has been too long; autumn, and now winter, has been too long. I looked to Whitman, and then I responded to Whitman. Hence, the poem. For money and love of the job, I am a freelance book editor, hired by authors and publishers alike to clean up manuscripts.

Susan Koefod's poems have appeared or are forthcoming in print and online journals including The Talking Stick, Minnetonka Review, Corpse of Milk II, Snakeskin, Tattoo Highway and anthologies. Other projects include a novel-in-progress, Riverbaby, and an anthology of food/travel writing, Let Them Eat Crêpes. She earned her MFA from Hamline University and lives in West St. Paul, Minnesota, with her husband and three children.