Carol Mirakove approaches poetry like a documentarian, tackling such topics as the revolutions in Bolivia and Venezuela, sweatshop labor, and racism without sounding like an over-earnest activist. Her style is decidedly challenging and vibrant, as much about language and structure as global politics. Egyptian-born, Seattle-based poet Maged Zaher, meanwhile, translates contemporary Egyptian poetry into English in his spare time. His own work, which deals with themes of identity, religion, and the dense web of cultural touchstones in contemporary culture, has been published in the Columbia Poetry Review, Exquisite Corpse, and Tinfish.