Here is what Deshawn wrote about "Territorial Boundaries":

"It was a mistake, wasn’t it?”

Coming nearly halfway through the poem, this line forms the foundation underlying the interrogation at work in the stanzas. The speaker here feels that something is off in the way we live our lives; there are many possibilities offered, from how we dress (alone), drink (overpriced), deify (affixing “heads of animals on gods’”), all of which imply the asking of why. If “a hustle for meaning” as the speaker suggests, there does not seem to be the companion finding of meaning, instead we are left with the sense of lack. The poem pushes us further from mooring, taking readers on a journey of self-questioning, and while it does not offer solutions, it suggests possibility. It reminds us “how easy we were as animals” in many ways to give the glimpse of possibility.

There is a power in raising questions without answers, surfacing problems without solutions. In many ways this poem is asking the reader to engage in community with them to better understand, perhaps not so ironically beginning to address some of the issues they find with society. It is a poem that laments, but I have a feeling its true power will be in bridging the gap for many folks, helping them not only feel less alone, less lost, but giving them a shared space to build something new."

Skipping the traditional MFA route, Tresha Faye Haefner has studied poetry outside of academia with poets including Kim Addonizio, Sally Ashton, and Ellen Bass. Her own work has been published in several journals, including BloodLotus, The Cincinnati Review Fourth River, Hunger Mountain, Pirene’s Fountain, Poet Lore, Prairie Schooner, and Rattle. She is founder of The Poetry Salon and is the recipient of the 2011 Robert and Adele Schiff Poetry Prize. Haefner is also a three time Pushcart nominee and author of two chapbooks, The Lone Breakable Night and Take This Longing from Finishing Line Press. She holds a degree in Humanistic Psychology with a Specialization in Creativity Studies from Saybrook University.