Mago Academy offers the final poetry salon on November 21, 2026, to close up the first series of Nine Poets Speak salons. Poetry Salons have guided the Matriversal Feminist Activist Spirituality Movement, which began about ten years ago in the form of She Rises trilogy and their sequels (She Summons series and Celebrating the Goddess series). “Nine Poets Speak” is a spinoff of the first and inaugural salon presented by the nine poets at the April She Rises Salon under the theme of “Poets Lead the Goddess Feminist Activist Spirituality Movement,” which was held on April 12, 2025. We co-planners, Mary Saracino and Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, facilitate the tri-annual salons (see below for the schedule).
What about Nine Poets? The number nine represents the Ninefold Cosmic Music, the creative force of the Matriverse (Maternally perceived universe). It refers to a ceaseless interplay of sonically charged nine numbers (from 1 to 9), wherein the ninth mother embraces the eight daughter numbers. See Dr. Hwang’s essay on the Soteriology of the Ninefold Cosmic Music.
Theme: Restoring the Mother World
When: Nov 21 (Sat) Noon – 1:30 PM PT (90 min)
Moderator: Mary Saracino & Helen Hye-Sook Hwang
Featured Poets: Ambika Devi, Margaret R. Sáraco, Noris Binet, Beverly Scott (Oayh), Carolyn Lee Boyd, Louisa Cailo, Mary Saracino, Helen Hye-Sook Hwang (Open)
Participating Poets: Harriet Ann Ellenberger (Open)
Contents:
Presentations (each presents for about 10 min)
Respondences (each responds for 6 min)
Open Floor Time with the audience (15-20 min)
Presentation details are included at the end of this page.
Registration: Free of charge but registration required. Nonetheless, any amount of donation will be appreciated (enter your own amount).
Registration Questions: With your answers to below questions, email it to Dr. Helen Hwang (magoacademy@gmail.com):
- Your name (if you are new to the poetry salon)
- Country of residence at the time of this salon
- What makes you interested in this Salon?
Featured Poets
Moderator Mary Saracino & Helen Hye-Sook Hwang
Biography: Mary Saracino is a novelist, memoir writer, and poet. Her book of poetry, Motherlines, was published by Pearlsong Press in 2026. She is the author of four novels: Heretics: A Love Story, The Singing of Swans, No Matter What, and Finding Grace, and the memoir, Voices of the Soft-bellied Warrior. She co-edited (with Mary Beth Moser) She Is Everywhere! Volume 3: An anthology of writings in womanist/feminist spirituality (iUniverse 2012), which earned the 2013 Enheduanna Award for Excellence in Women-Centered Literature from Sofia University.
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Biography: Dr. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang is a researcher, author, and advocate of Ceto-Magoism (the Whale-guided Way of the Creatrix) and has recently established the MA/PhD. program as well as Lifetime Education Certificate Programs in Creatrix Studies. Having achieved an MA and Ph.D. in Religion with emphasis on Feminist Studies (Claremont Graduate University), Hwang studied an M.A. program at UCLA. Having founded The Mago Work, Hwang has recently launched the S/HE Conference and the S/HE Forum in 2024. She authored, co-edited, and published by Mago Books Reader: Toward Magoist Cetaceanism (2023), The Mago Way: Re-discovering Mago, the Great Goddess from East Asia (2015), Mago Almanac: 13 Month 28 Day Calendar annually since 2018, and the Budoji Workbook series since 2020, Goddesses in Myth, History and Culture (2018), Celebrating Intercosmic Kinship of the Goddess (2023), the She Rises trilogy series (2015, 2016, and 2019), and Celebrating Seasons of the Goddess (2017).
Presenting Poet: Ambika Devi
Title: The Mother of Us All
Summary: The heartbeat of the Great Mother Goddess surges through our bodies, echoing through generations from mother to daughter, maiden to mother to crone. We see her in our ancestral lineage, hear her in our breath, and feel her presence in the Earth beneath our feet. The spark of Shakti creates, transforms, and destroys. By her grace, we ebb, flow, and release. Nuliajuk tells of a mortal woman whose descent into primordial waters transforms her into a Sea Goddess. Watching the storm witnesses life’s fragility through the forces of nature, honoring mortality and the power of release. Kali stotra invokes the fierce, creative energies of the Goddess, embracing destruction and renewal. Together, these three poems celebrate the eternal Divine Feminine, whose power moves through our bodies, the natural world, and the ancestral currents connecting humanity to the mythic realm.
Biography: Ambika Devi is an author, poet, mythologist, rebel anthropologist, and founder of Mythologem Press. The Divine Feminine weaves through her seven books, from Lilith, dedicated to the Great Mother of us all, to Identifying and Honoring the Goddess, and her seventh, Mythic Alchemy, where ancient Navarasa wisdom takes readers on a journey of emotional intelligence. With a master’s degree in the Philosophy and Education of Yoga and Meditation, Ambika draws upon her knowledge of Sanskrit, mythology, Ayurveda, and Jyotisha. She illuminates the mysteries of being human, inviting curiosity, offering food for thought and recipes for body, mind, and spirit.
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Presenting Poet: Margaret R. Sáraco
Title: Mythology or (Imagined Truth)?
Summary: All three poems mean to dispel male-centered myths and rewrite them as feminist tellings. The three poems reach into the mythological sphere—Providence is based on Greek myth, Eve is religious myth, and since we have sketchy records of Hypatia of Alexandria, some, if not much has to be (re)imagined. Through my mathematic studies I encountered Hypatia, a brilliant mathematician who was murdered because she was a threat to the patriarchy. Because of her life and death, many have suffered and so her story is hers, mine and ours. Providence and Eve are my attempts to rewrite religious myths I was raised on. I prefer to create my own Pagan understandings of our world and feel a compulsion to talk back to what was passed on as truth. It takes a lifetime to untangle doctrine.
Biography: Margaret R. Sáraco is the author of If There Is No Wind and Even the Dog Was Quiet (finalist for the Eyelands Book Awards.) She was a semifinalist in the Laura Boss Narrative Book Contest, placed first in the Ginosko Literary Journal Flash Fiction Contest and Moving Words Competition. Margaret’s Women Studies degree from the Graduate Center of CUNY
culminated in a master’s thesis, The Captive: A Prisoner of Its Own Time, exploring the cultural significance of a 1920s play banned on Broadway for referring to a lesbian character offstage. Margaret serves on the board of the Italian American Writers Association.
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Presenting Poet: Noris Binet
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Biography: A native of the Dominican Republic, now living in Ajijic, Mexico, Noris is a visual artist, psycho/spiritual therapist, sociologist, author, and spiritual teacher. She facilitates groups in meditative self-inquiry to support self-realization. Her female root teacher for 25 years is Gangaji, based in Ashland, Oregon. Noris’ Dharma Poetry is a conduit through which she shares her insights and revelations. She has published her poems and essays in articles, journals, and anthologies, and has written sociologically themed columns for several U.S. newspapers. While living in Nashville, Tennessee, Binet created Womenon the Inner Journey Foundation, dedicated to providing a safe space for reclaiming the sacred feminine through art and holistic practices. Her book Women on the Inner Journey describes through word and image Black and White women healing racial wounds. Benet’s work can be viewed online at http://sonomawriters.blogspot.com or on her website at www.norisbinet.org.
Presenting Poet: Oyah
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Responding Poet: Carolyn Lee Boyd
Biography: Carolyn Lee Boyd has published poetry, essays, reviews, and fiction in women’s spirituality, feminist, arts, and literary magazines online and in print for 40 years. Most recently, she is focusing on bringing community building lessons from Matriversal and other cultures to contemporary western cities, towns, and organizations through a novel featuring snakes, a magic lake, and cherry pie and a non-fiction book for community builders of all kinds. This work brings together knowledge of globally and temporally diverse communities with her 30 years of experience as a local and state-level public health professional and human services administrator.
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Responding Poet: Louisa Cailo
Biography: Louisa Cailo is an internationally published, award winning author, photographer and arts advocate whose work has been translated into Sicilian, Italian, Tigrinya, Russian and Korean. Winner: Renaissance Award 2022, Connecticut Commission on the Arts Award to Writers,1978; 1st Prize for Poetry City of Messina, Sicily (2013),1st Prizes” (202, 2017 20191)Il Parnasso Internationale, Canicatti, Sicily or poetry; etc. Honored by Barnard as “A Feminist Who Changed America 2nd Wave(1963-75). Director of the Poet’s Piazza, Hofstra University for 12 years,( 2000-2012) Co- Founder and first Executive Director of City Spirit Artists, Inc. New Haven, Ct (1976-1986). Her recent book Journey to the Heart Waters was published in 2014 by Legas Press. For info see Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisa_Calio
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Participating Poet Harriet Ellenberger
Harriet Ann Ellenberger (aka Harriet Desmoines) was a co-founding editor of Sinister Wisdom, which is now in its fiftieth year of publishing. She has participated in many feminist projects since 1970. Her book, The Ones You Love: Poetry and Prose, 1968-2024, is available for free at akadesmoines@gmail.com. She lives in Hartland, New Brunswick, Canada.
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