10/23: Dianne Borsenik presents In the Company of Angels

Mark your calendars for October 23 at Speak of the Devil Cocktail Bar in Lorain, Ohio, to catch performances by poets Christine Howey, Marcel Fable Price, and Ray McNiece, hosted by Dianne Borsenik. Exponential fabulousness!

 

October 5th & 6th: Great Lakes African American Writers Conference

9/17: R.A. Washington and company at Mac's Backs

September 17th at Mac's Backs Books on Coventry:

September 19 thru 21: The Wick Poetry Center Celebrating 40 Years

From our friends at the Wick Poetry Center in Kent:

In honor of the Wick Poetry Center’s 40th anniversary, we invite you to join us for a celebration at Kent State University. Over two days and three nights of festivities, our keynote speakers, Padraig Ó Tuama, Naomi Shihab Nye, Jane Hirshfield, and Adrian Matejka will give readings and host engaging panels. As we celebrate four decades of creativity and community, we are also delighted to feature poet and founding director Maggie Anderson, along with our accomplished Wick prize-winning authors.

Register by September 13th at WickPoetry.com.

 

Jeanne Bryner Reading

 Join us for a fine reading by one of 

Ohio's premiere poets--Jeanne Bryner

Drive on out. It's beautiful out here.

Cleveland Inkubator - a free writing conference - begins soon!

Hosted by our friends at Literary Cleveland. Click the pic for more information.

Russell Atkins
Memorial Service

Friday, September 13, 2024
2:00 p.m.

Nesbitt Funeral Home 
6415 Quincy Avenue
Cleveland, OH 44104

The short memorial service will include displays of Russell's books and final papers. Following the service, attendants may, if they wish, proceed to the cemetery and give brief remarks.

Obituary:
https://www.nesbittfh.com/obituary/Russell-Atkins

Cleveland Scene story:
https://www.clevescene.com/news/russell-atkins-cleveland-poet-who-made-strides-in-avant-garde-scene-dead-at-98-45062475

New Unhoused Clevelanders Poetry Anthology

For more about this new anthology, These Words are Not My Home: Poems, Stories and Essays from The Unhoused (edited by R.A. Washington), please read: 

Unseen voices: How a shelter program, new poetry anthology channel thoughts of unhoused Clevelanders by Collin Cunningham in The Land.

Copies of the book are available from Mac's Backs Books on Coventry.  

August 15th: Open Air Poets in Cleveland Heights

People Love Poetry: Every Other Tuesday at Afrika in South Euclid

People Love Poetry happens every other Tuesday (August 8th, August 22nd, September 5th, September 19th, October 3rd, and so on) at Afrika Taste and Lounge, 4483 Mayfield Road in South Euclid, Ohio.

Follow People Love Poetry on Facebook. Or contact them at peoplelovepoetry@gmail.com.

August 17th: See Paula J. Lambert in Sandusky

 Paula J. Lambert comes north to Sandusky August 17th at 2:00

Join us. Open Mic to Follow

Vermilion City Council Appoints Joette McDonald as City’s First Poet Laureate

Congratulations to Joette McDonald! 

From the press release:

At the July 8th Vermilion City Council meeting Mayor Jim Forthofer put forth the name of Joette McDonald to be named Vermilion and the surrounding area’s first Poet Laureate. In his recommendation to council members he highlighted why Mrs. McDonald was such a deserving person for this honor. Vermilion City Council approved this appointment unanimously.

You might be asking yourself “What is a Poet Laureate and what do they do?”. This is not an uncommon question. A poet laureate is “ a poet officially appointed by a government or conferring institution as an honorary representative of a particular region”. The state of Ohio’s Poet Laureate is Kari Gunther Seymour, appointed by Governor DeWine in January 2024. There are numerous cities or counties who have appointed a Poet Laureate.

So now you ask, “What does a Poet Laureate do?”. The person appointed is a poet who has written poems, books or other literary pieces that have been published. The Poet Laureate might be asked to read a poem at a ceremonial event that the city holds such as a building dedication or be an advocate for not only poetry, but for any form of the literature. They might help kick of the library summer reading program or a school’s Right to Read campaign.

So who is Joette McDonald? Mrs. McDonald has been a teacher of 1st and 4th grade since she was 19 years of age until she retired from Vermilion Local Schools in 1996. She taught at South Street School and Vermilion Intermediate School and has taught many Vermilion residents during her tenure as a teacher. Joette has an undergraduate degree from Kent State

University where she graduated Cum Laude and later earned a Master’s degree from Ashland University.

Joette’s poetry has won numerous awards, has been read on the radio and been published in several periodicals and anthologies. Her poetry books include Seasons of the Soul (2013), It Seems Like Happiness Is Just a Thing Called Joe (2007) and Waiting for the Bus at Protemus (2005). Mrs. McDonald has also published a book on how to write poetry titled I Feel Like a Poem Coming On-Now What (2007). Composer Dr. H. Leslie Adams has used her poems as art songs, many of which have been performed in concerts and recorded. Joette has also penned two books for young adolescents about Vermilion -The Lighthouse Mystery and The Haunted Hall, a story of Vermilion’s Old Town Hall (now Harbourtown Fine Arts Center).

The Vermilion Poetry Society, who encouraged the Mayor and City Council to establish a Poet Laureate for Vermilion and the Surrounding Areas, will honor Joette McDonald as our first Poet Laureate with a reception on Thursday, August 8th from 7:00-9:00 pm at Harbourtown Fine Arts Center, 736 Main Street. Those interested in attending should email Dr. Jim Chapple at chappjw@aol.com or call him at 440.225.1547 to attend this reception.

Also read in Lorain's Morning Journal.

July 13th: Jeremy Jusek, Dianne Borsenik & Alissa Sammarco in South Euclid

See poets Dianne Borsenik, Jeremy Jusek and Alissa Sammarco on Saturday the 13th, 2 p.m. at the South Euclid-Lyndhurst branch of the Cuyahoga County Public Library.

Register at https://attend.cuyahogalibrary.org/event/10323147. 

About the authors:

Dianne Borsenik is active in the northern and mid-Ohio poetry communities. Recent work has appeared in I Thought I Heard a Cardinal Sing: Ohio’s Appalachian Voices, Songs of Wild Ohio , and Poem for Cleveland. Raga for What Comes Next, a full-length collection of Borsenik’s poems, was studied as part of the Modern & Contemporary American Poetry course at Muskingum University. Flight of Honey, another full-length collection, was published in May, 2023. Actor Jonathan Frid used three of her poems in his one-man tour Genesis of Evil, Speak of the Devil (Lorain, Ohio) named a cocktail after her, and Lit Youngstown printed her poem “Disco” on their t-shirts, all of which makes her feel like a rock star. Borsenik lives in Elyria, Ohio. Find her on Facebook and at www.dianneborsenik.com.

Once when I was little and very frightened, I was handed a jar of honey and a spoon. I closed my eyes and tasted beams of sun. Dianne Borsenik’s Flight of Honey reveals the bitter sweetness we discover in dark moments and closes its eyes to taste the moments of love we return to comfort in. There’s a new discovery in each taste from this collection. From the stark “Up the Mountain” through the inquisitive romp of the title poem to the introspection of “Knotted Together,” Borsenik sets us on a beeline path through her gracious mind with all of the wry humor and thoughtfulness we expect from this poetic trailblazer. In life, “blood doesn’t always call to blood” but this collection, like honey, beads warm amber and asks you simply to slow and savor.
—Jonie McIntire, Lucas County Poet Laureate, author of Semidomesticated (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions, 2022), winner of Red Flag Poetry’s 2020 Chapbook Contest

 

Jeremy Jusek is the poet laureate of Parma, Ohio. He earned his MFA in Creative Writing from Arcadia University and chemistry/theatre degrees from Marietta College. He has authored more than a half-dozen plays and three poetry collections: We Grow Tomatoes in Tiny Towns, The Less-Traveled Street, and The Details Will Be Gone Soon. He hosts the Ohio Poetry Association's podcast Poetry Spotlight, runs the West Side Poetry Workshop, teaches through Literary Cleveland, and founded the Flamingo Writers’ Guild. To learn more, please visit www.jeremyjusek.com.

The Details Will Be Gone Soon is a close investigation of the primordial underpinnings behind Alzheimer’s disease and the emotional wreckage left in its wake. This poetry collection follows the speaker and his grandmother, Nana, and the various memories shared between the two. At times, the collection seeks to illustrate the loose word associations, frustrations, and existential cloud cover that darkens dementia’s horizons. Other poems steer toward youth and hope, extolling love, lessons learned, and shared experiences. This dichotomy allows the collection to successfully walk that critical line that families of Alzheimer’s patients often experience: one that straddles between the unfairly diminished, barely-present caricature versus the vibrant, vigor-filled past-selves that close friends and family spent a lifetime loving.

 

Alissa Sammarco uses cinematic imagery to freeze those moments in time and evoke the feeling of revisiting them.  She examines the common in life and relationships to find the extraordinary. Her work has appeared in Sheila-Na-Gig, Black Moon Magazine, Change Seven, Quiet Diamonds, The Main Street Rag, Stone Canoe, VIA: Voices in Italian Americana, Rat’s Ass Review, the 2021 and 2022 Lexington Poetry Month Anthologies, and elsewhere. She is the author of two chapbooks, Beyond the Dawn and I See Them Now.  Alissa lives and practices law in Cincinnati, Ohio. www.AlissaSammarco.com.

Moon Landing Day navigates the trajectories of relationships blasted off course by miscalculations, unmet expectations, abuse, and addiction.  In cinematic imagery, these poems reveal the difficult truths of a young woman, the harm that is passed from generation to generation, and the painful journey of acceptance to forgiveness.  From the total loss of control to the emergent spark of self-awareness, this young woman grapples to break the pattern.  She unravels her life and knits it back together in these poems.  They will hold you in their grip and bring you in for a safe landing.

July 18th: Open Air Poets in Cleveland Heights

From our friends at Mac's Backs and the Cleveland Heights-University Heights Public Library:

Join us in the PEACE Park as Coventry Branch and Mac’s Backs Bookstore present an outdoor summer poetry series. Thursday July 18th, 2024, at 7 p.m.

July's reading features poets: Miles Budimir, Steve Goldberg, Jason Harris and Kevin Latimer.

 

Coventry Village Library

1925 Coventry Road
Cleveland Heights, OH 44118

There's Always This Year: Grace Harper interviews Hanif Abdurraqib

Grace Harper of Mac's Backs Books on Coventry has a wonderful monthly book blog called Grace Notes, and I was especially excited to see that for July's edition she has interviewed acclaimed Ohio author Hanif Abdurraqib, whose latest book is There's Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension [Penguin Random House].

Read this enlightening interview at www.macsbacks.com/grace-notes-july-2024.

June 29th: M.J. Arcangelini & Friends and Ground & Sky Poetry

Saturday, June 29, 2024 from 5:00pm to 7:30pm at Mac's Backs Books on Coventry

Mac's will host a gathering of poets with readings by MJ Arcangelini and Joel Lesses on Saturday, June 29th at 5 p.m. The event is also a book release celebration for Journeys of Sacred Community: A Collection Anthology of Ground and Sky Poetry

MJ Arcangelini, born in Pennsylvania in 1952, has resided in northern California since 1979. He has published in many magazines, online journals & over a dozen anthologies.  He is the author of six published collections, including  Pawning My Sins publlished in 2022 by Luchador Press.

Ground and Sky Poetry is a reading series in Buffalo and Rochester, NY and was inspired by the late poet Maj Ragain from Kent. 

Joel David Lesses is a counselor and the founder of Education Training Center in Buffalo, dedicated to reframing mental health distress as a potential spiritual marker and existential opportunity. He also does the Unraveling Religion podcast which focuses on spirituality, world religion, meditation and poetry.

Other poets scheduled to read include Dianne Borsenik, Chris Franke, Russ Vidrick, Steven Smith, Kathy “Lady” Smith, John Burroughs, Shelley Chernin, Ben Gulyas, Adam Brodsky, Steve Goldberg, Steve Thomas, Scott Silsbe and  Chandra "Peggy Honeydew" Alderman.

Mac's Backs
1820 Coventry Rd.
Cleveland Heights, OH 44118
https://www.macsbacks.com

July 12: Poet Laureate Ada Limón comes to Cuyahoga Valley National Park

On July 12 at 6 pm, Cuyahoga Valley National Park will host the 24th U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón for a special event. Please join us for the unveiling of the "You Are Here" poetry project at the Ledges Shelter.

Seven national parks, including Cuyahoga Valley, were selected by Limón to be part of her signature project “You are Here: Poetry in Parks.” In each park, a picnic table transformed into a work of public art will be unveiled. At the Ledges Shelter, Limón will unveil a picnic table inscribed with Jean Valentine’s poem, “The Valley”.

• The event starts at 6 pm; doors open at 5 pm.
• Please bring a lawn chair or blanket if you’re able.
• Additional parking is available at Kendall Lake (1000 Truxell Road in Peninsula) with a shuttle provided to the event.
• Limón's anthology will be available for purchase at the event.

Poetry in Parks is a partnership between the National Park Service, Library of Congress, U.S. National Poet Laureate, and Poetry Society of America. The initiative is one half of Ada Limón’s signature project titled, “You Are Here.” The project also includes an anthology of original poems by 50 contemporary American poets. Learn more about Poetry in Parks.

Make reservation of register at www.eventbrite.com/e/poetry-in-cuyahoga-valley-national-park-with-ada-limon-tickets-923717222077. 

Last Exit Poetry in Kent - Late 2024

From host RC Wilson:

Here is the Last Exit Open Poetry schedule through December. Please note that all readings are on the 3rd Friday EXCEPT July.

For the latest, follow https://www.facebook.com/groups/275521006684052.
 

5/17: Embracing Wetlands reading in Kent

From RC Wilson:

Please consider coming out for this poetry reading next Friday. Poets from around Ohio and beyond. An important event!

5/10: Philip Metres, John James, Zach Savich, Bridget Lowe, & Dave Lucas at Visible Voice

From our friends at Visible Voice Books:

Friday, May 10 @ 7:00 P.M.

An evening of readings from five excellent poets, hosted by Virginia Konchan.

Philip Metres has written twelve books, including Fugitive/Refuge (2024) and Shrapnel Maps (2020). Winner of three Arab American Book Awards, a Guggenheim, and two NEA fellowships, he is professor of English and director of the Peace, Justice, and Human Rights program at John Carroll University.

John James is the author of The Milk Hours (Milkweed, 2019), selected by Henri Cole for the Max Ritvo Poetry Prize. His poems appear in Boston Review, Kenyon Review, Gulf Coast, Best American Poetry, the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day, and elsewhere. He holds an MFA in poetry from Columbia and is completing a PhD in English at the University of California, Berkeley. 

Zach Savich‘s latest book is the poetry collection Momently (Black Ocean, 2024). He teaches at the Cleveland Institute of Art.

Dave Lucas’s first book of poems, Weather (VQR / Georgia, 2011), received the 2012 Ohioana Book Award for Poetry. He has also received a “Discovery/The Nation Prize and a Cleveland Arts Prize. In 2018, he was appointed the second Poet Laureate of the State of Ohio. A co-founder of Cleveland Book Week and Brews + Prose at Market Garden Brewery, he also teaches at the John Carroll Young Writers Workshop, the Oklahoma Arts Institute, and in the Medical Humanities program at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine.

Bridget Lowe is the author of the poetry collections My Second Work (2020) and At the Autopsy of Vaslav Nijinsky (2013), both from Carnegie Mellon University Press.  Her poems have appeared widely in publications including The New Yorker, Poetry, American Poetry Review, Best American Poetry, The New Republic, Parnassus, Boston Review, A Public Space, Plume, Ploughshares, and elsewhere. Her honors include the Emily Dickinson Award from the Poetry Society of America, a “Discovery”/Boston Review Prize, a fellowship to the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and the Rona Jaffe Foundation fellowship to the MacDowell Colony. She lives in Kansas City, where she was born.

Visible Voice Books
2258 Professor Avenue
Cleveland, OH 44113

5/8: John Burroughs, Jeremy Jusek and Barbara Marie Minney at Mac's Backs

I look forward to reading with Jeremy Jusek and Barbara Marie Minney on May 8th, 7 p.m. at Mac's Backs-Books On Coventry in Cleveland Heights.

 

ABOUT BARBARA MARIE MINNEY

Barbara Marie Minney is a transgender woman, award winning poet, writer, speaker, teaching artist, and quiet activist. Her poetry and essays have appeared in numerous publications, including Politico, The Buckeye Flame, The Gasconade Review, Gargoyle Magazine, The Pine Cone Review, Women Speak: Women of Appalachia Project, Woman Scream: The International Poetry Anthology of Female Voices, and I Thought I Heard A Cardinal Sing, Ohio’s Appalachian Voices. Barbara’s poetry has also been translated into Spanish. She is the author of If There’s No Heaven, the winner of the 2020 Poetry Is Life Book Award and an Akron Beacon Journal Best Northeast Ohio Book in 2020; the "Poetic Memoir Chapbook Challenge;" "Dance Naked With God;" and "A Woman in Progress." Barbara is a retired attorney and a seventh generation Appalachian and lives in Tallmadge, Ohio, with her wife of over 42 years and a menagerie of stuffed animals. You can follow Barbara at https://www.barbaramarieminneypoetry.com.

ABOUT JEREMY JUSEK

Jeremy is the poet laureate of Parma, Ohio. He earned his MFA in Creative Writing from Arcadia University and chemistry/theatre degrees from Marietta College. He has authored more than a half-dozen plays and three poetry collections: We Grow Tomatoes in Tiny Towns (Unsolicited Press, 2019), The Less-Traveled Street (Maverick Duck Press, 2022), and The Details Will Be Gone Soon (ELJ Editions, 2023). He hosts the Ohio Poetry Association's podcast Poetry Spotlight, runs the West Side Poetry Workshop, teaches through Literary Cleveland, and founded the Flamingo Writers’ Guild. To learn more, please visit www.jeremyjusek.com.

Mac's Backs
1820 Coventry Road
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
216-321-2665
www.macsbacks.com

May 3rd thru 5th: Jawbone in Kent

Join us at the annual Jawbone poetry festival in Kent! Contact RC Wilson at rcwilsonii@gmail.com for more information.

April 27: Fireside Poetry Festival in Chagrin Falls

From our friends at Fireside Book Shop:

More info: https://www.firesidebookshop.com/events/2024/4/27/fireside-book-shop-poetry-festival.

Fireside Book Shop
29 North Franklin Street
Chagrin Falls, OH, 44022

April 15th: Pádraig Ó Tuama comes to John Carroll University

Reposted from our friend Philip Metres:

NOT TO BE MISSED! On April 15th at 6pm, in JCU’s Donahue Auditorium (Dolan Science Center) at John Carroll University, join us for a talk and reading of poems by celebrated Irish poet, theologian, and podcaster Pádraig Ó Tuama.

Ó Tuama is a poet, theologian, conflict resolution mediator, and the author of Being Here: Prayers for Curiosity, Justice, and Love (2024), Poetry Unbound (2022), Feed the Beast (2022), Daily Prayer with the Corrymeela Community (2017), In the Shelter (2015), Sorry for Your Troubles (2013), and Readings from the Books of Exile (2012). About his most recent collection of poems, Feed the Beast, Jericho Brown says, “This book is unashamed about poetry’s relationship to the spirit. I would go as far as saying this book is one way we know poetry is prayer.” His memoir, In the Shelter, interweaves everyday stories with narrative theology, gospel reflections with mindfulness, and Celtic spirituality with poetry for a memoir that relates ideas of shelter and welcome to journeys of life.

For those who don’t know Pádraig, he is a man of many talents—a poet, theologian, mediator, podcaster (one of the best podcasts on poetry, and another on peacebuilding for Corrymeela). He’s wise, engaging, and deeply moving, and NOT TO BE MISSED!

All are welcome! Free and open to the public. Books for sale by Mac’s Backs.

John Carroll University
1 John Carroll Boulevard
University Heights, OH 44118

April 18th: Ekphrastacy at Heights Arts

Ekphrastacy: Artists Talk and Poets Respond

Thursday, April 18th at 7:00 p.m.

Join Heights Poet Laureate Siaara Freeman and guest poets Beks Freeman, Carrie George, and Philip Metres for a night of surrealism and the unconventional. For this Ekphrastacy, poets respond to the current exhibition on view in Heights Art's gallery, Irrational Objects: Backwards Into the Future. Their live poetry will undoubtedly respond to and interrogate surrealist themes of the unexpected and uncanny. Artists in the exhibition will also speak about their work. Reserve your spot today!

Heights Arts
2175 Lee Road
Cleveland Heights, OH 44118
heightsarts.org