The Poet and the Poem
2026-27 Series

Featured Shirley J. Brewer

Click here for Shirley J. Brewer podcast.mp3

Shirley J. Brewer graduated from careers in palm-reading, bartending, and speech therapy. She serves as resident poet at Carver Center for the Arts & Technology in Towson. Nominated four times for a Pushcart Prize, her poems garnish Comstock Review, Chiron Review, Gargoyle, Poetry East, Slant, and many other journals and anthologies. Shirley’s poem, “My Movie Monsters,” won 3RD Prize in the 2025 Beullah Rose Poetry Contest sponsored by Smartish Pace. Her books include A Little Breast Music (Passager Books), After Words (Apprentice House), Bistro in Another Realm (Main Street Rag), and Wild Girls (Apprentice House). Her most recent book, Goddess of Swizzle (Apprentice House) is a 2026 Storytrade Book Awards Finalist in Poetry. Prior to earning her Master’s in Creative Writing/Publishing Arts from the University of Baltimore in 2005, Shirley received the program’s first-ever Creativity Award. She endeavors to infuse all aspects of her life with a creative spirit.

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