44th Anniversary Reading of the Cyril A. Dostal Poetry Workshop

Wow, the Poets' League of Greater Cleveland poetry workshop-- recently renamed the "Cyril A. Dostal Poetry Workshop" in honor of its founder and long-time moderator, the poet-curmudgeon Cy Dostal ("I'm here to calm down trouble, if people make trouble, and to stir up trouble, if nobody makes trouble") is 44 years old! and the South Euclid-Lyndhurst Branch of the Cuyahoga County Public Library (the current home of the workshop) is celebrating on Sunday, October 22, from 2 to 3:30 pm.
They write:
Join us as we celebrate one of the oldest public writing workshops in the nation as well as its official renaming in honor of founder Cyril A. Dostal. Enjoy poetry readings by past workshop participants and stay afterward for refreshments and conversation.

So, come hear some poems, and celebrate Cleveland's oldest poetry workshop!

Now moderated by legendary Cleveland poet Bob McDunough, the workshop is still going strong, still free, and still open to the public, meeting every third Thursday of the month at 6:30 in the Porch meeting room of the South Euclid-Lyndhurst Library.  Bring 20 copies of a poem, and you'll be welcome too!

• 44th Anniversary Reading of the Cyril A. Dostal Poetry Workshop, Sunday Oct. 22, 2-3:30pm

44th Anniversary Reading:
 1 Marilyn Schraff Subbing 100%
2 Jill Lange Zinnias
3 Rebecca Ferlotti Short North
4 Geoffrey Landis Shout
5 Rob Farmer ON WALKING WITH HOUND THROUGH RAINY FOREST AFTER LEARNING OF A COLLEAGUES DEATH
6 Kathryn Brock Aunt Kittie's Silver
7 Fred Schraff Settling
8 Len Seyfrid Junipers
9 Roberta Jupin Stone
10 Rick Ferris Comrades
11 M.A.Shaheed Conclusions
12 Arlene Ring Karma and Grace
13 Mary Turzillo Earth, Wind, Air, Fire
14 Chris Franke Re t Con Volution
15 Adrian Schnall Conversation
16 Carolyn Ritchie Uncelebrated
17 Doc Janning Together
18 Jim Bolce September 1942
19 Dail Duncan Blessed Are the Slow of Speech
20 Bob McDonough People Who Live on Dirt Roads

Call for Applicants: City of Cleveland Heights Poet Laureate 2018-2020

Heights Arts Announces Search for Next Cleveland Heights Poet Laureate

Heights Arts has begun the process of selecting the Cleveland Heights Poet Laureate who will serve from April 2018, to March 2020. The term of Christine Howey, the current Cleveland Heights poet laureate, will end on March 31, 2018.

Poets across the northeast Ohio region are encouraged to apply. Candidates are not required to live in Cleveland Heights, but must demonstrate a strong connection to the city.

Applications will be accepted at the Heights Arts website (www. heightsarts.org) from mid-October, 2017 to December 31, 2017. Detailed information about the responsibilities of the Cleveland Heights Poet Laureate are available on the Heights Arts website. The Heights Writes Committee of Heights Arts will review applications and conduct interviews in January and February. They will make a final selection by March 2018.

An Interview with Blood Pudding

Juliet Cook, proprietor of Blood Pudding Press, was interviewed by rob mclennan about Blood Pudding, and about writing and small press publishing in general.

"Blood Pudding Press initially derived from Juliet Cook being intensely passionate about poetic creative expression, but not being a fan of light-hearted, semi-normal, semi-clichéd, lightly comedic poetry, which seemed akin to vanilla snack pack pudding in her mind.
"She tends to prefer more bloody, visceral, intense, emotional, personal, quirky poetic expression.
"She and Blood Pudding are open to a variety of different poetic styles, as long as they're not too light-hearted, bland, dry, or plain old silly. And as long as they don't interpret human bodies as nothing but pieces of meat.

• 12 or 20 (small press) questions with Juliet Cook on Blood Pudding Press

Lakewood Art Gallery To Launch Monthly Reading Series On 10/24/2017

September 2017, CLEVELAND - Art on Madison is excited to announce the launch of POETRY +, a
new monthly reading series for emerging and established writers in Cleveland and the surrounding
regions. POETRY + aims to shine the spotlight on a single writer, providing them with the platform
and time necessary to present a body of their work and to engage and connect with their audience.
Each presenter is given the freedom to decide which materials and anecdotes they will share, as
well as can decide the duration of their reading. POETRY + kicks off on October 24, 2017 with
Cleveland based poet, Andrew Field.

Andrew Field is a poet and librarian and earning his master’s in Library and Information Science
from Kent State University. He has published essays about poetry at Thethe Poetry Blog, B O D Y
Literature, and the California Journal of Poetics, book reviews at the Rumpus and Jerry Magazine,
and poems at the Ocean State Review, Words Dance, and Mantis. He tweets at
https://twitter.com/AField81. In August of 2016, his chapbook, All I Want, was published by Red
Flag Poetry.

POETRY + is free and open to the public. Doors open at 7:00pm. Readings begin at 7:30pm.
More information and how to submit to POETRY + can be found at poetrypluscleveland.weebly.com
or via email at poetrypluscleveland@gmail.com.

Art on Madison is the new studio and gallery of artist, Ivan Kende, Founder and Vanessa Wright,
Director. Art on Madison is currently featuring the artwork of Ivan Kende, and will soon present
rotating exhibitions of local and regional artists.

Art on Madison
13703 Madison Avenue
Lakewood, OH 44107

Media Contact for Poetry +:
poetrypluscleveland@gmail.com

Media Contact for Art on Madison:
ivankende@gmail.com
vanessa.wrightart@gmail.com

LITERARY TOURISM: CLEVELAND, OHIO

Jennifer Marer gives us a quick guide to LITERARY TOURISM: CLEVELAND, OHIO, stopping at some of the high points of Cleveland: Horizontal Books in Ohio City, Mac's Backs in Coventry, Appletree book at Cedar Fairmont, and the Writer's Center Stage at Maltz Performing Arts Center.

• Bookriot.com: Literary Tourism: Cleveland Ohio 

Visible Voice Books Returns

Visible Voice, the classic bookstore in Tremont, is back!
Visible Voice had been a staple of the poetry scene in Cleveland until it closed three years ago.  Now it's reopening. According to Scene, Visible Voice Books will officially be open on September 27, in a new location above Crust Pizza Kitchen in Tremont, with even more space and with parking. For those who like sweets with their words, it says they will feature locally-made pastries from Sweet Tooth Confections, specialty teas and brew-in-house coffee from Gimme! Coffee.

Visible Voice Books
2258 Professor Avenue
Cleveland, OH 44113

• Check them out on Facebook

"A bookstore with that lost independent feel — a relaxed, inviting environment conducive to discovery, where quality takes precedence over quantity, where the books marginalized by commercial concerns have a home. If you come in looking for something specific, we will have it or we will find it for you. If you come in looking for nothing in particular, you can lose yourself in a world of new ideas."

George Bilgere at the Rocky River Public Library 9/28

Rocky River Public Library

1600 Hampton Road

Rocky River, Ohio 44116

Lighthouse Reading: Hayan Charara & Abraham Smith, 9/29 at CSU

Please join the Cleveland State University Poetry Center for the Lighthouse Reading Series's first event of the year! This reading will take place in Parker Hannafin 104 (on CSU's campus, across from the Student Center) on 9/29 at 7pm.

Hayan Charara is a poet, children’s book author, essayist, and editor. His third collection of poetry, Something Sinister (2016), was awarded the 2017 Arab American Book Award; he is also the author of The Sadness of Others (2006) and The Alchemist’s Diary (2001). His children’s book, The Three Lucys (2016), received the New Voices Award Honor, and he edited Inclined to Speak (2008), an anthology of contemporary Arab American poetry. With Fady Joudah, he is a series editor of the Etel Adnan Poetry Prize. He currently teaches in the Honors College at the University of Houston.

Abraham Smith is the author of four poetry collections: Ashagalomancy (Action Books, 2015); Only Jesus Could Icefish in Summer (Action Books, 2014); Hank (Action Books, 2010); and Whim Man Mammon (Action Books, 2007). In 2015, he released Hick Poetics (Lost Roads Press), a co-edited anthology of contemporary rural American poetry and related essays. His creative work has been recognized with fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center, Provincetown, MA, and the Alabama State Council on the Arts. Destruction of Man, his book-length poem about farming, is forthcoming in 2018 from Third Man Books. Presently, he is at work upon a poetry manuscript about cranes—birds whose song and stature electrify him. This fall, Smith joins the Weber State University community as an assistant professor of English.

Poems of Witness

Two of Cleveland's Best Read Wednesday 8/9 at Mac's Backs

INKubator coming- and it's free

Literary Cleveland says:

CLEVELAND INKUBATOR, REGION’S LARGEST FREE ANNUAL FESTIVAL FOR WRITERS AND READERS, SET FOR MONDAY JULY 24th – SATURDAY JULY 29th

Literary Cleveland, a nonprofit organization committed to nurturing a vibrant community of readers and writers in Northeast Ohio, is hosting the third annual Cleveland Inkubator in partnership with Cleveland Public Library from Monday July 24th – Saturday July 29th.

Cleveland Inkubator, Northeast Ohio’s largest free annual festival for writers and readers, will offer an array of free performances, readings and social events as well as a day-long literary conference packed with workshops and craft talks on July 29th.

Inkubator is made by possible with the support of Cleveland Public Library and the residents of Cuyahoga County through a public grant from Cuyahoga Arts and Culture.

“Literary Cleveland continues to put Cleveland’s literary scene on the map and work with partners to build a strong community of writers and readers,” says director Lee Chilcote. “Over the past two years, we’ve helped thousands of people connect with Northeast Ohio’s diverse writing community, learn from professional and amateur writers, and share their talents with the public. Inkubator is a big part of that!"

The schedule for the FREE Cleveland Inkubator includes:

• Monday 7/24, 7:00-9 pm: Read Ohio: Janice Lowe, New York-based author of Leaving CLE: Poems of Nomadic Dispersal, a musical performance, reading and author talk at the Bop Stop in Ohio City
• Tuesday 7/25, 6:30-9 pm: Second annual Lit Cleveland Book Swap at Market Garden Brewery
• Wednesday 7/26, 7:00-9 pm: Between the Lines with Detroit-area writers Kelly Fordon and Laura Hulthen Thomas at the Happy Dog at the Euclid Tavern
• Thursday 7/27, 7:00-8 pm: Crossing Borders: Immigrant Narratives performance on Public Square
• Friday 7/28, 6:30-9 pm: Lit Cleveland Live: Open Mic Night at Cleveland Public Library Eastman Reading Garden
• Saturday 7/29 all day (8:30am-5 pm): Cleveland Inkubator literary conference, readings, craft talks and workshops in Cleveland Public Library’s Stokes Wing

The full schedule for 2017’s Cleveland Inkubator can be found on our website. Literary Cleveland’s mission is to create and nurture a vibrant literary arts community in Northeast Ohio.

--

Free all-day writers’ conference on Saturday, 7/29!

http://www.litcleveland.org/cleveland-inkubator.html

• An Inkubator Who's Who
• Registration link

Quotidian words, or enigmatic riddles- what should poetry be?

In the New York Times, Matthew Zapruder wrote "One of the great pleasures of reading poetry is to feel words mean what they usually do in everyday life...".  He suggests that a good poem never hides its meaning:

• Understanding Poetry Is More Straightforward Than You Think
• Matthew Zapruder Celebrates Poetry’s ‘True Strangeness’ (commentary by Harriet Staff)

But now, commenting to the note on the Poetry Foundation's site, poet and translator Johannes Göransson disagrees.  He suggests that sometimes good poems do hide their meaning:

• To Vibrebrate: In Defense of Strangeness

He says "Zapruder mostly reiterates a dominant U.S. rhetoric about poetry and art, a rhetoric that tends to dismiss the excessive and the strange, emphasizing the importance of "accessible" poetry", and suggests "If we can leave behind the constant injunction of our gatekeepers and tastemakers to comply with aesthetics of the "straightforward," we can embrace intense meadows and ecstatic riddles. Jäderlund, Hopkins, Zurita, Lynch, Jefferson all offer a different route, an ecstatic, visionary route that says: poetry is a strange force that can take over your minds and bodies, transport you out of what you think you know and take you into a new kind of mysterious knowledge."

A new battle in an old war.  But, does a weird and ecstatic poem necessarily have to be one that can't be literal? Possibly they're both right.

Ekphrastacy at the Heights

Image by Mark Slankard, from Heights Arts

Heights Arts presents the next of their continuing series of ekphrastic poetry events, "Ekphrastacy: Artists Talk and Poets Respond" next week, Thursday, July 7 at the Heights Arts Gallery at 2175 Lee Road, Cleveland Heights, OH, 7 p.m.

At a reception and gallery evening, artists Christi Birchfield, Grace Chin, Dexter Davis, Yumiko Goto, Doug Meyer, Mark Slankard, and Douglas Max Utter will talk about concepts and development of their work, and poets Jill Lange, Vince Robinson, and Linda Goodman Robiner, along with Cleveland Heights Poet Laureate Christine Howey, will respond to the art with poetry addressing the works of art on view.

If you like art and poetry both, Ekphrastacy is an event to check out.

--(and even if, like me, you can't make it to the Ekphrastacy event (sorry! Thursdays are an evening I'm already committed on), do check out the art next time you're in the Cedar Lee neighborhood!)

Or, visit the gallery, find an artwork that has something to say to you, and try it yourself:

• an ekphrastic poetry lesson (courtesy the Smithsonian American Art Museum)

Literary magazines...

On BuzzFeed, Lincoln Michel gives you a guide to publishing in literary magazines.  And on Catapult, Tony Tulathimutte adds his advice: How to get a story or essay published if you’re not James Franco:

• Lincoln Michel: The Ultimate Guide To Getting Published In A Literary Magazine. Here's everything you need to know before submitting your work to the literary publication of your dreams.
• Tony Tulathimutte: Pitching and Moaning: A Guide to Submitting Your Writing. How to get a story or essay published if you’re not James Franco.

Guide to Kulchur Reopening

RA Washington's bookstore and 'zine-making co-op, Guide to Kulchur, closed last October.  But it is scheduled to rise again, at a new location: Lorain Avenue and W. 52nd Street.

Horray for Guide to Kulchur!

• See the article by Sam Allard in the June 14 Scene.
• GTK Press

WHERE TO SUBMIT: JUNE + JULY

written by Entropy June 1, 2017

I’ve been thinking about all that goes into these Where to Submit posts, and have been grateful for the kind words that I hear about it more and more these days. One fact you may have observed: I include only a few short story/essay/poetry contests in our literary magazine section. While full manuscript submissions are often organized around contests, I worry that having a “contest” mentality toward literary publications (particularly in the short form) can be discouraging, especially to newer writers. I like thinking of magazines and presses as living breathing organisms rather than as slot machines, and it makes me happy when our list can reflect that.

Here

https://entropymag.org/where-to-submit-june-july-3/

Hessler Street Fair Winners!

The 2017 Hessler Street Fair poetry contest reading was at the Happy Dog at the Euclid Tavern tonight.  Some great poems, and great performances.
Congrats to the winners of the 2017 Hessler Street Fair Poetry Contest:

• First place (tie):
• Vince Robinson, "Star Struck"
• Christine Howey, "I Was a Male Impersonator for 40 Years"
• Second place:
• Devlinbleu Chambers "Environmental Super Nova"
• Third Place:
• Keely Aaliyah, "I Am a Soldier"

The winning poets at Happy Dog: (left to right) Keely Aaliyah, Christine Howey, Devlinbleu Chambers, Vince Robinson (photo by GL)

The winners will perform on the main stage at the Hessler Street Fair June 3-4 2017 11 am to dusk (watch this space for details of the time), and simulcast live on WRUW-FM 91.1. The Hessler Street Fair Poetry Anthology (published by Writing Knights Press) with the winning poems as well as all the contributed poems for the contest, will be available at the Mac's Backs booth at the fair, or can be purchased for $14.00 from Mac's Backs Books on Coventry or from Writing Knights Press.

• Read Azriel Johnson's review of the reading in The Bard Newsletter

Two Writers at Macs Backs Saturday at 5:00

Larry Smith (The Thick of Thin: Memoirs of a Working-Class Writer) and Patrick Lawrence O'Keeffe (Cold Air Return: A Novel) will share their new books at Macs Backs this Saturday at 5:00
Both books have received Recommended ratings and fine reviews from US Review of Books.
Smith is the editor of Bottom Dog Press, and this is O'Keeffe's first novel. Both are set in working-class worlds. Please join us in this sharing event.

Erin O'Brien lists Cleveland's ten oddest oddities

She listed them originally for the Republican convention (remember the Republican convention?) last year, but the oddities are still odd. Now that spring is here, check out Erin O'Brien's

• Cleveland's 10 best oddities: the ultimate RNC scavenger hunt

What are your favorite Cleveland oddities?

Can You Slam Slam?

Don Hall thinks about slam poetry, and asks whether anger really is the only emotion worth slamming about:

• Is It Art or Is It Competitive Therapy? The Paradox of the Slam

Ray McNiece, Returning Haiku Master of Cleveland

Congratulation to Ray McNiece, who won back his title of Haiku Master of Cleveland by defeating second-place haikuist Cordelia Eddy at yesterday's Heights Arts' 5th Not-Exactly-Annual Haiku Death Match.
It was a great evening of haiku!

Winner Ray McNiece and second place Cordelia Eddy at the Haiku Deathmatch (photo by GL)

In addition, at the performance Dobama Theater also set a new record: best alcohol sales at a single performance at Dobama. Poets rock!

Haiku Warriors competing at the Deathmatch:

• Ray McNiece

• Dianne Borsenik

• Michael Ceraolo

• Cordelia Eddy

• Celeste McCarty
• Mary Turzillo
• Christine Donofrio
• Geoffrey Landis

center section of the audience at the Haiku deathmatch. (Photo by MT)