George Coles-EL
George Coles-EL is a poet, emcee, and graffiti artist incarcerated in California. His first novel, Triumph, is forthcoming this summer by Capital Gaines LLC. When Coles isn't playing Dungeons and Dragons, he mentors kids in juvenile hall through his work with The Beat Within.
Artist Statement
I got my worldview from emcees and graffiti artists. When you get your knowledge off a wall, there's no filter like the news. It's pure. This poem is like my graffiti on the wall, a tribute to the Ghost Ship and marginalized people period.
Sergio Del Bianco
Sergio Del Bianco is an artist living and working in Europe. He is interested in the convergence of psychology and art. He collaborates with his spouse, Donna Roberts, on various artistic and literary projects. Their broader interests include animal and humanitarian advocacy.
Artist Statement
Sergio Del Bianco and Donna Roberts, whose collaborative works are offered here, believe that humanity lies at the intersection of art and psychology. In its purest form art is an expression of the self – the individual and the collective. Each work speaks differently to different people, depending upon who and where they are in the journey of life. In short, the beauty, or the horror, lies in the eyes and the heart of the beholder.
Emile DeWeaver
Emile DeWeaver is the editor and Co-Founder of Prison Renaissance. He's also a contributing editor and columnist for Easy Street Magazine. His fiction, essays and poetry have been published in Rumpus, The Lascaux Review, Your Impossible Voice, Punchnel's, and Seventh Wave.
Artist Statement
A member of the LGBTQ community was quoted as saying that “unsafe” places like the Ghost Ship warehouse are where people living alternative lifestyles feel the safest. I wrote this poem thinking how factors in America ostracize members of the LGBTQ community, where ostracism begins, and how it spreads—as destructive as fire.
Pat Kuras
Pat M. Kuras has published poems in Crab Creek Review, Lavender Review, Nerve Cowboy, and One Sentence Poems. She has two chapbooks: Hope: Newfound Clarity (2015) and Insomniac Bliss (2017), both from IWA Publishing.
Artist Statement
The idea of a community of artists living together is intriguing. I imagine conversations about music, art and literature running late into the night, the closeness, the camaraderie. Add to that the bold rebellion of living in a space not meant for habitation. A warehouse with jerry-built walls, lighting and wiring snaking through it. Amid all this, I hear a warning voice: Something could go wrong. You could get hurt. It's dangerous. This is the voice I listened to when I wrote this poem.
Biographies & Artist Statements
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