Spry Lit x Poetry of Science: Issue Contributors

Charles Coe is the author of three books of poetry and author of Spin Cycles, a novella published by Gemma Media. Charles was selected as a Boston Literary Light by the Associates of the Boston Public Library and is a former artist fellow at the St. Botolph Club in Boston. He was a 2017 artist-in-residence for the city of Boston, where he created an oral history project focused on residents of Mission Hill. Charles has served as poet-in-residence at Wheaton College and at the Chautauqua Institution in New York State and is an adjunct professor of English at Salve Regina University in Newport, Rhode Island, and Bay Path University, where he teaches in both MFA programs. Collaborators: Nandita Menon and Michael Wells. Learn more about Charles >>

Danielle Legros Georges is a writer, academic, and author of several books of poetry including The Dear Remote Nearness of You, winner of the New England Poetry Club’s Sheila Margaret Motten book prize. Her awards include fellowships from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, MacDowell, the Black Metropolis Research Consortium, and the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art. She is the former Poet Laureate of the city of Boston, serving in the role from 2015 to 2019. She is a professor of creative writing at Lesley University. Her most recent work is a book of translations, Island Heart: The Poems of Ida Faubert, published in 2021. Collaborators: Daniel Chonde and Sheena Vasquez. Learn more about Danielle >>

Sophie Laurence’s favorite childhood poet was Robert Desnos (whose poems she recited by heart). Growing up, she also loved Korean sijo. Her first national honorable mention came in third grade with an original Korean sijo poem, “My Wild Panther,” published in Faces magazine. Later, in high school, her poem, “Complicit,” was a winner of a New York Times poetry contest. Sophie’s multilingualism (French, Korean, English) shapes her relationship with language. She studies computer languages, and embraces music, color, and numbers as languages. Sophie is currently a first-year student at Amherst College, where she studies and writes poetry while majoring in computer science and political science. Collaborator: Jason Samaroo. Learn more about Sophie>>

Miriam Manglani lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts with her husband and three children. She works full-time as a Technical Training Manager at Sonos. Her poetry has been published in Village Square, Poetry Quarterly, Rushing Thru the Dark, Vita Brevis, Cerasus Magazine,Trouville Review, and is forthcoming in Prospectus and Canyon Voices. Collaborators: Swati Gupta and Olumakinde Ogunnaike.

Suparnamaaya Prasad is an undergraduate junior at MIT majoring in Electrical Engineering and Creative Writing. She was born to South Indian immigrants, and the drive to maintain continuity in family and culture fundamentally shaped her childhood. These instilled values have led her to storytelling, where she’s not only able to share the experiences of those who came before her, but to also advocate for those yet to come. Collaborators: Kareem Carr and Kathleen Esfahany.

Luisa Fernanda Apolaya Torres is a Peruvian-born, Los Angeles-raised poet and is deeply honored to be a part of The Poetry of Science. In high school, her English teacher insisted that she participate in a “Poetry Out Loud” competition — that’s when she first savored the intrigue of words and pauses on her tongue, and the inexplicable joy that stemmed from that. She studied mechanical engineering and theater at MIT. Her poetry is inspired by an assortment of things from her daily life — from trees to arduinos to inexplicable dichotomies. Collaborators: Shannon Johnson and Christian Loyo.

Rachel Wahlert is a poet who supports low-income undergraduate students to get them to graduation and find employment. In her free time, you can find her upside down playing capoeira or curled in a ball reading a romance novel. She is honored to be a poet for The Poetry of Science. She is inspired by her grandmothers, her experiences, human suffering, and resilience. Collaborators: Huili Chen and José Zepeda.