Reece A.J. Chambers, Sicily Famolaro, and Kate Harding, from Volume 2:1

Reece A.J. Chambers is a 21-year-old writer and student from Northamptonshire, England, currently at the University of Northamptonshire. He has been writing prose for 10 years, and poetry qith increasing frequence since 2011. His influences include Sylvia Plath, Ted Hughes, Simon Armitage, the Beat Generation writers, and Nick Hornby. The vast majority of his poems are available online at Hello Poetry.

Reece contributed two poems to Volume 2:1, "Come, Autumn" and "Stagnant," the latter a remarkable and chilling short lyric that will be previewed here:

                    You've done it now.
                    Opened your mouth,
                    hoping the ice starts to thaw.

                                  ...

                    Everyone moves forward.
                    Is that so?

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Sicily Famolaro is a San Diego native. She is a sophomore at San Diego State University, studying English. She has been writing poetry leisurely for a few years, but only seriously began writing the spring of 2013. Since last springtime, a few of her poems have been published through the university and other independent publications. Her style varies from sonnets to free verse—she enjoys experimenting with form, though she has yet to solidify her aesthetic. With the poems she’s written up to this point, she focuses on evocative images, and the personification of emotion and thought.

Here's an excerpt from her poem "Irene," startling in its moving simplicity:

                    Irene in the lotus pose,
                    wrinkled sun hands
                    opened, a question
                    blooming in the heart of her palms

                    Are you here?

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Kate Harding (a.k.a. Penny Perry) has been widely published as a poet, most recently in Lilith and the San Diego Poetry Annual. She was the first woman admitted to the American Film Institute's screenwriting program, and a film based on her script A Berkeley Christmas aired on PBS. Her first collection of poetry, Santa Monica Disposal & Salvage was published by Garden Oak Press in 2012.

Harding's poems have power and wax confessional. For instance, take a look at the ending of "Holdfast" from the new volume:

                   I should have laced our fingers together
                   like strands of kelp in a ball at the beach.
                   I should have held you back from the tide.

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To see these poems and the others contributed by these fabulous poets, peek inside Synesthesia Literary Journal Volume 2:1.