The two poets featured in the June edition of What The Universe Is: A (Virtual) Reading Series each have a remarkable way of writing into aspects of human existence that are difficult — and often unspoken. Megan and Michael have both found words and forms that allow for consideration of the range of human emotion and experience. Don’t miss this reading. 

Megan Pinto is the author of Saints of Little Faith, her debut collection, just out from Four Way Books. Her poems can be found in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Poets.org, Ploughshares, The Slowdown podcast and elsewhere. She has won the Anne Halley Prize from the Massachusetts Review and an Amy Award from Poets & Writers, as well as scholarships and fellowships from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing, the Port Townsend Writers’ Conference and Storyknife. Megan lives in Brooklyn and holds an MFA in poetry from Warren Wilson College. 

Michael Dhyne is the author of Afterlife, winner of the 2023 Felix Pollak Prize in Poetry (University of Wisconsin Press). His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Denver Quarterly, Gulf Coast, The Iowa Review, New England Review, and West Branch, among others. His work has been supported by the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Community of Writers, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. He received his MFA from the University of Virginia and his MSW from the University of California, Berkeley. He lives in Oakland, California, and works as a grief counselor at Stanford Children’s Hospital. 

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