Currently, echoes is about paths of change. Life is not a straight line down a flat road. There are twists and hills and forks that derail us on our journeys. Our games are inspired by poems that push back against the well-trodden paths and ponder the marks people leave on our hearts. This semester we echo the paths of poets.
John Roche lives in Placitas, New Mexico, helping Jules Nyquist run Jules’ Poetry Playhouse and edit Poetry Playhouse Publications. He taught Literature and Creative Writing classes for decades, is Emeritus Associate Professor from Rochester Institute of Technology, and was formerly President of Just Poets in Rochester, NY, member of the board of BOA Editions, chief organizer of the Black Mountain North Symposium, and an instigator of the annual Cloudburst Council poets' retreat in the Finger Lakes. Along with editing the five-volume Poets Speak series and other anthologies (including Mo' Joe), his own poetry collections include On Conesus, Topicalities, Road Ghosts, The Joe Poems: The Continuing Saga of Joe the Poet, Joe Rides Again: Further Adventures of Joe the Poet, and Tubbables (spring 2024).
John's BooksMuch of my writing involves loss and its aftermath, mainly because there’s been so much of it in my life with war, illness, and early deaths. I come at it from many angles, different situations, and genres. When my sister asks why I don’t write about more happy subjects, I tell her I am a happy person, just one obsessed with unhappy subjects. I write as a witness. I write to understand. I write to put fragments back together.
Author of the memoir Snake’s Daughter, and three books of poems, Adieu, Retrieval, and The Tug. Essays and poems have appeared in such places as Waxwing, South Dakota Review, Nimrod International, and Lillith Magazine. Some pieces have been anthologized. MFA from Bennington Writing Seminars. Several Pushcart nominations. Now at work on a memoir about a mother and the military.
Paulette Swartzfager is a poet, freelance journalist, essayist, and activist originally from New Orleans, who moved to Rochester NY after Katrina. Now retired, she taught Writing and Creative Writing in New Orleans and Rochester: University of New Orleans, Loyola University of New Orleans, and Rochester Institute of Technology. Her poems have been included in anthologies and small publications in New Orleans, and since 2006 in NY (CounterPunch, Just Poets Le Mot Juste, and in RootDrinker). Some of her early feminist poetry was published in a feminist zine in The Wandering Womb (Julia Sorrentino, Erica Ciccarone, eds 2003). One of her poems was selected as inspiration and lyric for a jazz composition performed in the Thelonius Monk Competition in New Orleans in 2009. As one of the poets in the Rochester writing group Beets, she collaborated with PUSH THEATER, on Journey, a work performed at Geva in 2009.
WebsiteA user explores and dives through an ever-expanding pool to feel peace and bliss, but also yearning.
Myth of Change brings the player on the road to come to terms with the fears and anxieties of change. Moving away from the home you’ve known, you’ll say goodbye to loved ones, reconnect with old friends, and meet your new neighbors. Your time on the road teaches you to accept the coming change.
A game about a child exploring a cool boardwalk, collecting cool stuff, and trading with cool people – all to achieve your goal of obtaining the most amazing thing you can imagine, a jelly donut.
Play as a scared child living through an unknown Cold War era crisis trying to piece together what is happening while completing games and chores.