Lens and Line: 5 poems inspired by nature photography

Washington Post

30-04-2025

About this story
Editing by John Williams and Christian Font.
Photographs by Robert Miller, Matt McClain, Carolyn Van Houten, Melina Mara, Joshua Lott. Poems by Jericho Brown, India Lena González, Debra Nystrom, Christopher Kondrich, Kyle Dargan.
Jericho Brown is author of the 'The Tradition,' for which he won the Pulitzer Prize, 'The New Testament' and 'Please.' He is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard, and the National Endowment for the Arts, and he is the winner of the Whiting Award. His poems have appeared in the Bennington Review, the New York Times, the New Yorker, the Paris Review, Time and several volumes of 'The Best American Poetry.' He is the director of the Creative Writing Program and a professor at Emory University.
India Lena González is a poet, editor, and multidisciplinary artist. Her poetry collection, fox woman get out!, was a finalist for Poetry Society of America's 2024 Norma Farber First Book Award. Currently at work on a book of mythology and creative nonfiction, she lives in Harlem, NY.
Debra Nystrom is the author of four collections of poetry, most recently 'Night Sky Frequencies.' Her poetry, nonfiction and fiction have been published in the New Yorker, Ploughshares, Slate, the Kenyon Review, Narrative, Yale Review and numerous other journals and anthologies. She has taught for many years in the University of Virginia's MFA Program in Creative Writing. She is working on a memoir.
Christopher Kondrich is the author of 'Tread Upon,' forthcoming from Copper Canyon Press in 2026, as well as 'Valuing' (University of Georgia Press, 2019), a winner of the National Poetry Series. His poetry appears widely in such venues as the Kenyon Review, the Los Angeles Review of Books, New England Review, the New York Review of Books, the Paris Review, Ploughshares and the Yale Review. A recipient of fellowships from MacDowell and Yaddo, he teaches for the MFA Program in Creative & Environmental Writing at Eastern Oregon University.
Kyle G .Dargan is the author of six collections of poetry, which have been awarded the Cave Canem Prize, the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award, the Lenore Marshall Prize, and longlisted for the Pulitzer Prize. He has partnered with the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities to produce poetry programming at the White House and support the development of the National Student Poets Program. He heads the books division for Janelle Monáe's creative company, Wondaland, and is an Associate Professor of Creative Communications at American University in Washington, D.C.