MEGAN VOLPERT writes for PopMatters & is the author of a bunch of books on communication & popular culture, including two Lambda Literary Award finalists. She has been teaching high school English in Atlanta for over a decade & was 2014 Teacher of the Year. She edited the American Library Association-honored anthology This assignment is so gay: LGBTIQ Poets on the Art of Teaching and co-edited Tom Petty & Philosophy.

Boss Broad contains forty poems and dozens of essays that explore what it takes to be a middle-aged hero. The poems are English-to-English translations of Bruce Springsteen songs--popular ones where he directly addresses a female listener, which Volpert audaciously rewrites to answer the Boss back using his own rhyme and meter. In these pages Volpert wears Springsteen's own lyrical swagger so that Rosalita becomes a drag queen, Wendy captains her own ship, and Bobby Jean finally comes out of the closet. The essays examine injections of spirituality in progressive politics, with topics including Stephen Colbert, Patti Smith, the author’s career as a punk high school English teacher, what she learned surviving hurricanes in Louisiana, and meditations on what it means to be a cool liberal. As usual, Volpert trespasses on hallowed ground, doing battle with her white lady demons in the name of rock ‘n’ roll.

ERIN DORNEY is a writer and artist. Her collection of erasure poetry "I Am Not Famous Anymore: Poems after Shia LaBeouf" was published by Mason Jar Press in 2018. She is the co-founder of Fear No Lit and lives in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.