Tessa C. Berman is a poet and literary scholar from Virginia. She is currently an MFA in Poetry candidate and instructor at Syracuse University, and the assistant poetry editor of Salt Hill Journal. In 2025, she earned her BA in English Literature from the University of Virginia, where she co-curated the special collections exhibition Anne Spencer: I Am Here! and completed a thesis on poets and their avian emanations under Mark Edmundson. She also spent considerable time working as an auditory neuroscience researcher. Tessa’s poetry seeks to strike a balance between exploring the self and striving to illuminate intersubjective truths. Her pieces have previously appeared in Literary Matters, Heavy Feather Review, and Neologism, among other places. When not reading or writing, Tessa is likely wandering the Finger Lakes, drinking hot cinnamon tea, or tending to her pet finch, Ruby.