Aaron Belz holds a Masters in Poetry from NYU (1995) and a Ph.D. in American Literature from Saint Louis University (2007) where his scholarship was recognized with a Walter J. Ong Award. He’s also an alumnus of the Vermont Studio Center (2007) where he received an NEA Grant to support his creative work. He’s since published four collections of poems:The Bird Hoverer (BlazeVOX, 2007), Lovely, Raspberry (Persea, 2010),Glitter Bomb (Persea, 2014), and Soft Launch (Persea, 2019). He’s also served as poetry columnist for Paste Magazine and Capital Commentary, book reviewer for Books & Culture,The San Francisco Chronicle, and St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and Poet Laureate of Hillsborough, North Carolina (2014-16). A St. Louis native, he is probably best known as founder of Observable Poetry, a live reading series that has been active since 2003 and named “Best of St. Louis” by The Riverfront Times.

Brett Lars Underwood is a St. Louis poet and promoter. He is the author of MUSH (SPARTAN PRESS, 2018) and MUSHARONA (Kung Fu Treachery Press, 2020), and the soon to be published, GATEWAY TO MUSH (Spartan Press, Spring/Summer 2024). His verse and riddles have been published by 52nd City and included in FLOOD STAGE: An Anthology of Saint Louis Poets. His work has been heard at the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts SOUND WAVES series and with the HEARDING CATS COLLECTIVE. He is the former host of THE NO SHOW (KDHX 88.1 FM, 2000-07). Underwood314.387.8009

R. W. Smith is a frazzled educator, frustrated writer, and a sometimes wannabe musician. He has a Saint Louisan by way of the Bronx, New York. He began the Brooklyn Moon poetry readings in Fort Greene Brookyn while hustling as an adjunct and attending classes at The City College and other campuses at the City University of New York. He came to Saint Louis during the Great Recession along with other way ward souls trying to escape the calamity that was and is New York City. He has taught at Saint Louis University and University of Missouri in Saint Louis where he received a Doctorate in Education. He currently teaching high school English and working on a documentary about Saint Louis poet K. Curtis Lyle.