John A. deSouza is a poet living in Jersey City, New Jersey. He is the author of the collection Concord Ave. Georgics (Broadstone Books, forthcoming September, 2027) and five chapbooks: Hidden, a sequence of poems addressing the war in Ukraine (Bottlecap Press, 2025); Labyrinth (Bainbridge Island Press, 2026); This Rough Magic (Rockwood Press, 2026); In the Garden (Finishing Line Press, forthcoming May, 2027); of liberty, a sequence of 12 poems (Antiphony Press, forthcoming June, 2027). He was shortlisted for the Letter Review Prize for his manuscript Unimaginable Hardship (poems for Ukraine, after Goya’s Disasters of War).
A print interview about This Rough Magic was published in Philly Chapbook Review (May 2026), and his poem "Prodigal" (from that collection) was nominated for a 2025 Pushcart Prize. He has been published widely in journals, with work forthcoming in Dialogist, Abstract Magazine TV, Dalhousie Review, The Courtship of Winds, and Half Day Moon Journal.
He has recently completed a full collection of 87 prose poems titled of liberty. Written during America's Sestercentennial year, of liberty treats significant moments in American history in ways that examine the relationship between freedom and language. The manuscript is currently available for acquisition. A chapbook sequence of 12 poems from this manuscript has been picked up for publication by Antiphony Press for publication in June 2027.
For further information, John can be messaged through Substack at https://substack.com/@johnadesouza
John is a graduate of the University of Toronto with a B.A. in English. He has been a resident of Jersey City for over a decade, where he lives with his wife, Oksana, whose family is of Ukrainian background. Oksana's father was a professor of Ukrainian History (The Formation of the Ukrainian Republic, Oleh Pidhainy, New Review Books) and her Grandfather was Semen Pidhainy, a Ukrainian dissident and editor of Black Deeds of the Kremlin, a two volume collection of first person accounts of the Holodomor (The artificial Soviet Famine), and Nedostriliani, a record of eight years spent in the Soviet prison camp for political dissidents at Solovki Island. John's poetry addressing Ukraine stems from a deep respect for his wife's family's work and sacrifices.
