Big Blue Marble kicks off National Poetry Month with two great Philadelphia poets: Cynthia Arrieu-King and Emily August, in celebration of Cynthia's new book "Futureless Languages."

From Louisville, Kentucky, Cynthia Arrieu-King is an associate professor of creative writing and a former Kundiman fellow. Her full-length books of poetry include People are Tiny in Paintings of China (Octopus 2010), Manifest (Switchback Books 2013) winner of the Gatewood Prize selected by Harryette Mullen, and Futureless Languages (Radiator Press 2018). She edited the posthumous volume of poems by Hillary Gravendyk The Soluble Hour (Omnidawn 2017). Her poems have appeared in Poetry Magazine, BOMB Magazine, Crazyhorse, and others. She has worked as a stagehand for Mister Rogers, as a nanny in an infant nursery, and on the line at a tomato sauce factory. cynthiaarrieuking.blogspot.com

Emily August is an Assistant Professor of Literature at Stockton University, where she teaches courses in nineteenth-century British literature, medical humanities, and creative writing. Her poetry has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and has appeared in Missouri Review, Callaloo, Ninth Letter, Southern Humanities Review, Hayden's Ferry Review, and other journals. Her current manuscript of poems, The Punishments Must Be a School, explores a centuries-long family legacy of domestic violence.