SHANNON LEIGH (Sept. 15, 1987 - June 30, 2008) was featured on HBO’s Def Poetry Jam and performed alongside Sage Francis, Talib Kweli, Saul Williams and Taalam Acey among others. She performed in over twenty states and two continents, authored three novels (Tetrarch, The Skin Tree, Isaac and Malachi) and produced a hip-hop album, Sanctuary, with Austin’s DJ F. Scott Godot. She was a cellist, cave diver, photographer, polymath, and linguist and a film producer for Atlanta-based Triple Negative Films. She was a pedant and an obscurantist, a lover of strange words, a sometimes spirit-worker, and a practitioner of Krav Maga, the official fighting style of the Israeli army. She was a member of the 2007 Atlanta Ark Amok Slam Team and took 3rd place at the 2007 National Poetry Slam Indies.
Watch Paul’s answers to the top 3 writing questions sent in by the Borders Open-Door Poetry Community Watch
Poetry Contest with Billy Collins
2nd Borders Open-Door Poetry Contest Judge Billy Collins Reads the Winning Poems Watch
Gather & Write with Anthony Tedesco
Welcome to the world’s first glimpse at 3 new poems by 3 top poets: Billy Collins, Patricia Smith and Franz Wright. It’s: Episode 4 of Borders Open-Door Poetry. Less a sneak peek and more a premonition, a presaging of auspicious poetry en route. All are graciously due out in forthcoming books, including two books already available for precursory doting. Also available for doting: You. The writer. The writer in you. It doesn’t take a soothsayer to say: You’ll feel anew after even just a one-minute freewrite...at opendoorpoetry.gather.com.
