Poets featured on Poetry on the Trail:

Sarah Ann Winn

Find Sarah's poem, "Blue Heron" at Dahlgren Trail mile 8.2.​
Sarah Ann Winn’s first book, Alma Almanac won the Barrow Street Book Prize, judged by Elaine Equi. She is also the author of five chapbooks, most recently, Ever After the End Matter (Porkbelly Press). Her writing can be found in Five Points, Kenyon Review, Massachusetts Review, Nashville Review, Smartish Pace, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of fellowships and residencies at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the Inner Loop's Arcadia Residency, and at the Madeleine Island School for the Arts. In 2015, she founded Poet Camp, a roving residency and online community for writers. Last year, she was awarded the MISA Excellence in Teaching Fellowship by the Loft Literary Center. She currently teaches workshops online at Poet Camp, the Loft, and the Writer’s Center in Bethesda, Maryland.

Catherine Fletcher

Find Catherine's poem, "Foregoing" at Dahlgren Trail mile 8.3.​
​Catherine Fletcher is a writer based in Norfolk, Virginia. Recent work has appeared in The Broadkill Review, The Inflectionist Review, New World Writing, Kissing Dynamite, and the concert series Concept Lab. She is a Virginia Commission for the Arts Fellow (2022) and a Creature Conserve Mentee (2022-23). She has received fellowships from Arizona State University, Queens Council on the Arts, Brooklyn Arts Council, and others. Learn more on her website.

Steve Bucher

Find Steve's poem, "Thresholds" at Dahlgren Trail mile 8.4.​
​Steve Bucher lives and writes poetry in the Virginia Piedmont.  He is an active member of the Poetry Society of Virginia.  His first collection of poetry, We Stay a Brief Telling, was recently published by Propertius Press.  His poetry also appears in the Blue Heron Review, the Journal of Inventive Literature, Glass:  Facets of Poetry, the California Quarterly, the Way to My Heart anthology, the deLuge Journal, Artemis, Nova Bards, and the Smoky Blue Literary and Arts Magazine.

Linda Ankrah-Dove

Find Linda's poem, "Metamorphosis" at Dahlgren Trail mile 8.5.​
​For fourteen years Linda Ankrah-Dove has lived in Harrisonburg in the central Shenandoah Valley after a lifetime working and living internationally. Her recent work focuses mainly on ecology, the nature of the cosmos and poverty issues. For light relief, she enjoys writing about the whimsical and absurd. Her early poetry from 2007 features in Borrowed Glint of Jade, St Brigid Press, 2019. She has featured in various journals and magazines on line and in print. Recent publications include The Virginia Literary Review, Spiritual Direction International, Hunger-X, Months To Years, Quilted Poems, Written in Arlington and Artemis, the last three all publications birthed by PSV poets. She is currently downsizing her home and this is somewhat delaying her submissions and her preparation of of a second book (or some chapbooks). These will include many of the poems she has composed since Linda gained her MFA during the Covid years.

Alison Zak

Find Alison's poem, "From Beavers, Life" at Dahlgren Trail mile 8.7.​
​Alison Zak is the Founder & Executive Director of the Human-Beaver Coexistence Fund. She studied human-wildlife conflict in graduate school, then worked for six years in environmental education and outreach before founding HBCF. She is particularly intrigued, inspired, and challenged by human-beaver coexistence work, because few other animals have such an impact on the world around them. Alison jokes that beavers filled the monkey-sized hole in her heart as she transitioned away from primatological research on endangered, crop-feeding macaques. She now enjoys working with human primates and semi-aquatic rodents alike! Alison holds a BA (University of South Florida) and MA (San Diego State University) in Anthropology. Alison is the author of Wild Asana: Animals, Yoga, and Connecting Our Practice to the Natural Word.

Cathy Hailey

Find Cathy's poem, "White-Breasted Nuthatches" at Dahlgren Trail mile 8.9.​
Cathy Hailey teaches as an adjunct lecturer in Johns Hopkins University’s online MA in Teaching Writing program and previously taught high school English and Creative Writing in Prince William County, Virginia. She is Northern Region vice President of The Poetry Society of Virginia and organizes In the Company of Laureates, a biennial reading of poets laureate held in PWC. Her writing has been published in The New Verse News, Poetry Virginia, Written in Arlington, Stay Salty: Life in the Garden State (Vol 2), Poetry for Ukraine (THE POET), Family (THE POET), and NoVA Bards, Poems are forthcoming in The Poetry Society of Virginia Centennial Anthology. Cathy's most recent book is titled, I'd Rather Be a Hyacinth.

Elizabeth Spencer Spragins

Find Elizabeth's poem, "Dawn Chorus" at Dahlgren Trail mile 9.2.​
Elizabeth Spencer Spragins is a fiber artist, writer and poet who taught in North Carolina community colleges for more than a decade before returning to her home state of Virginia. Her work has appeared in more than 80 journals and anthologies in 11 countries. She is the author of three original poetry collections: Waltzing with Water and With No Bridle for the Breeze (Shanti Arts Publishing) and The Language of Bones (Kelsay Books). Learn more on her website.