This edition of the journal celebrates some of the LGBTQIA2S+ poets and writers who have shared their work with us over the years. The poetry and stories span topics exploring a vast range of themes including religion, the AIDS epidemic, the queering of nature, love poems and more. Herein you’ll find work that transcends genre, revolutionizes the written word, and that you will carry with you through your life like a sweet note tucked into your back pocket.
Poetry
Danni Bergren | they/them
Danni (they/them) is a poet, photographer, and artist who was born and raised in Denver but has recently relocated to Butte, Montana to try living a little slower on for size. They have an Associate’s of Arts in Theatre from the Community College of Aurora and a Bachelor’s degree in Interdisciplinary Studies with concentrations in creative writing, visual art, and performance from Naropa University. You can see more of their work on dannithealien.com. Instagram: @dannithealien
POETRY
ask again later
Crisosto Apache | they/them
Crisosto Apache is from Mescalero Apache Reservation in New Mexico (US) and lives in Lakewood, CO. They are Mescalero, Chiricahua Apache, and Diné of the Salt Clan born for the Towering House Clan. They are Assistant Professor of English and Associate Poetry Editor for The Offing Magazine. Crisosto’s debut collection GENESIS (Lost Alphabet) stems from the vestiges of memory and cultural identity of self-emergence as language, body, and cosmology. Crisosto is an Associate Professor of English at the Rocky Mountain College of Art & Design. They hold an MFA from the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, NM. Their latest collection of poetry, GHOSTWORD, is available now through Gnashing Teeth Publishing.
POETRY
Moonlit Slabs of Light on a Hernandez Church Floor
Violence is not new to the world, nor is it new to those closest to us. I know because I am a product of its history. Fighting against hate has been my life and those before and I will not will my power over to hate. People often blindly forget, life is an irreplaceable gift, and we should always strive to live as that gift intended, in an embrace of loving unity and not indifference.
Crisosto Apache
Caleb Ferganchick | he/they
Caleb Ferganchick is a rural, queer, slam poet activist and author of Poetry Heels (2018). His work has been featured and published by the South Broadway Ghost Society (2020, 2021), “Slam Ur Ex ((the podcast))” (2020), and the Colorado Mesa University Literary Review. He organizes the annual “Slamming Bricks” poetry slam competition in honor of the 1969 Stonewall Riots and serves as a board member to Western Colorado Writer’s Form. A SUP river guide, Caleb also dreams of establishing a queer commune with a river otter rescue and falconry. He lives in Grand Junction, Colorado.
POETRY
The Dance Floor
Erasure
The Uncertainty of Our Futures
Bacon
Hayden Dansky | they/them
Hayden Dansky (pronouns: they/them/theirs) is a nonbinary rural queer kid trying their best to not to be smothered by capitalism. They have been writing and performing poetry for several years, and are currently collaborating with local experimental musicians, dancers and videographers to create performances that encompass multiple disciplines. They just published their first full length poetry book called I Would Tell You a Secret. Their most recent poetry can also be found in anthologies such as Isele Magazine, Bible Belt Queers, Thought for Food, and Dwell. They are also the Executive Director of Boulder Food Rescue, a nonprofit working to create a more just and less wasteful food system, through the sustainable redistribution of healthy food and participatory and community-led food access systems.
Photo: Zane Lee
POETRY
After losing two of my closest family members only weeks apart in tragic and sudden ways, I’ve always been curious about how being close to death shapes how we live. These poems are a call to consider not just our own deaths, but our own lives. The recent shooting at Club Q is a tragedy, and a reminder of how precious our lives are, how precious our loved ones lives are, how precious our queer and trans lives are. The fear, rage, shock, dissociation, and grief are all very alive right now, and so are you, and what a fucking miracle you are.
Hayden Dansky
Ahja Fox | she/her
Ahja Fox, the current poet laureate of Aurora, is a Colorado native who has editorial, hosting, and teaching experience through Art of Storytelling, Poetix University, Copper Nickel, and Homology Lit. She has been published in various online and print journals and nominated for Best of the Net and The Pushcart Prize various times by multiple journals. One of her two draft manuscripts was a CAAPP Book Prize Finalist in 2021 and a GASHER Press First Book Scholarship Finalist in 2022. She is currently working on a third manuscript.
POETRY
I am the triangulation of what hate likes to target, so when I write, I write as a war-cry and as a song. This journey makes you afraid to be “weak”, but what I have learned is: revealing those supposed weaknesses (think of all the connotations and synonymous words), always leaves room for another to grow even stronger whether that is mentally, emotionally, or physically. I have manifested myself an armor to wear. It changes shape, color, and sizes all the time. That’s a gift.
Ahja Fox
Cipriano Ortega | they/them
Cipriano Ortega (they/them) has been fortunate enough to have their work recognized and shown both nationally and internationally. Cipriano strives to create works of art that probe the mind and make people question what they perceive as the normative. Whether that is shown in music, theater, visual art or some sort of culmination of all of the above; Cipriano enjoys blending all creative forms of expression. As a sociological artist, Cipriano deconstructs the worlds around them and observes it under a nihilistic perspective. As an indigenous POC, they also have no choice but to deal with colonialism head on by making it a daily practice to see the divisions we as a society create and continue to make the ‘normative.’
POETRY
MUSIC VIDEO
Cheryl Aguirre | they/them
Cheryl Aguirre is a queer biracial poet based in Austin, Texas. You can find their previously published work in Ghost City Press, decomp journal, and The Whorticulturalist. You can follow them at @drowsy_orchid on Instagram and @Wheat_Mistress on Twitter.
POETRY
Liza Sparks | she/her
Liza Sparks (she/her) is an intersectional feminist, writer, poet, and creative. She is a brown-multiracial-queer-woman living and working in Colorado. Her work has appeared with Ghost City Review, Bozalta Collective, Cosmonauts Avenue, and many others; and is forthcoming with Honey Literary, Split This Rock’s social justice database—The Quarry, and will be included in Nonwhite and Woman Anthology published by Woodhall Press in 2022. Liza was a semifinalist for Button Poetry’s Chapbook contest in 2018 and was a finalist for Denver Lighthouse Writers Workshop Emerging Writer Fellowship in Poetry in 2020 and 2019. She is a poetry reader for The Chestnut Review. You can read more of Liza’s work at lizasparks.com, IG @sparksliza534, or TW @lizathepoet.
POETRY
Queerness is expansion, shameless, revolution, and ancient.
Queerness is gorgeous and magical and here to stay.
Queerness is a song and strong and powerful.
I am proud to be part of the queer community.
Love is a greater force than hate ever will be.
Liza Sparks
Fiction
Brian Byrdsong | he/him
Brian Byrdsong is a gay, black, bilingual writer living in Denver, CO. Originally from Georgia, he’s called Colorado home since 2010, when he moved there to attend the University of Northern Colorado. He has degrees in both Spanish and Communications. When he’s not writing, he enjoys playing video games with his partner and spending time with his cat, Mew. @arrythmicbyrd www.abyrdmind.com
STORY
Addison Herron-Wheeler | she/her
Addison Herron-Wheeler is editor of OUT FRONT Magazine, web editor of New Noise Magazine, and an avid sci-fi and metal nerd. Her first collection of fiction, Respirator, is out with Spaceboy Books.
STORY
Body Sculpt: Suffer for Beauty
If you are a queer author who has been previously featured on our journal and you would like to be featured as a part of this edition, please email us at submissions@soboghoso.org
If you would like to submit to South Broadway Ghost Society, you can review our current calls for submissions here.
South Broadway Ghost Society 