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.

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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) 

For the love of Pho

I am currently reading two non-fiction books. One called Sapiens about the development and success of Homo Sapiens and another called I Contain Multitudes about the relationship between people and microorganisms.  I am also thinking about a poem I am going to write about Vietnamese soup.

So how do these three seemingly disparate texts relate to one and another? Surprisingly well if one squints a little. There are a couple points that I hope to mesh together when I finally write this poem (This little bit of prose here is to get some of the ideas straightened around in my head as to what I am going to end up with.)  I’ve made a couple starts on the piece – the whole idea started as a challenge from a 5^th grader in Tanzania. I’ve had two false starts so far. Not really false starts though – just paths that I am not going to go down – writing a poem can be like playing Let’s Make a Deal – choosing what is behind door number one two three – etc. except there are innumerable doors and they keep appearing throughout the process. So, what I’ve managed to do is close off two doors – and complete whole bunch of pointless surfing of the web.

Like most (here I am assuming) readers I find something I have an affinity to in a piece of writing – especially non-fiction – and I run with it a little too hard. Sometimes I stretch the idea thanks to a confirmation bias on my part – other times I conveniently ignore contradictory ideas – sometimes my conclusions are merely an echo of a forgone belief. For example – me assuming that most readers do this as well – anyways…

The two things I have gleaned from my reading so far: I Contain Multitudes – that once you’ve entered the realm of the microorganism the laws of probability are thrown out the window because of the sheer insanity of the numbers you are now working with.   A million in one shot is going to happen thousands of time amongst a colony of bacteria for instance – of course I just pulled that number out of the air – but the gist is true and that gist is enough to have derailed the piece I was working on about Vietnamese soup – because that concept was too good not to use somewhere – so I got that going on now.

Sapiens revolves around the notion – as I see it, and I think I’m pretty close to being on  - that the reason the Homo Sapiens species was so successful – surpassing what might have been accomplished by ordinary evolutionary progress of adaptation and opportunism – was by developing the ability to believe in fictions en masse. I.e. currency, religion, monarchies etc. etc. – this allows colossal shifts of belief and distribution of intelligence, experience, wealth and labor. I.e. just the fact that a hundred thousand folks might gather in a communal spot to watch men run into each other on a Sunday afternoon – that’s an accomplishment that cannot be recreated by other complex animals such as chimpanzees – whose functional society breaks down over a hundred or so individuals. Now bees and insects gather in great numbers – but they are running on instinct not that they all believe in the same fictions – such as who winds the Super Bowl is something that really matters (at least that we know of.)

But what if they did? What kind of craziness is going on at that microbial level – power structures, religious fanaticism leading to bacterial infections – viral marketing on the actual viral level? All based on fictions – or in other words lies agreed to be believed.

So, this brings us to Pho – that delicious Vietnamese staple – my favorite food on the planet – my go-to comfort bowl of noodly warmth in any stormy port upon this globe. How does this fit in with microorganisms and shared fiction? I’m not sure but I think it has to do with the fact that the traditional method of cooking the stuff is in a giant cauldron of a iron pot and rather than ever emptying the vessel – the bone broth is simply added to – it is a veritable sourdough approach – it is quite possible that an atom – or a microorganism has remained in that pot from the very beginning – from the first day it was started – a microscopic witness to all time as far as that consommé universe was concerned.

So these are the things I’m rolling around – and this little bit of writing you’re reading right now is just a way for me to think about it. Now I’ve stretched some of these ideas I’m sure – and I’m most likely less than half right on what I’ve posited. I’m not even sure about the idea of the soup never being totally emptied from the pot – I’m petty sure I heard of it – but it fits my narrative so I’m going with it –  please don’t correct me on any of this.

It’s a fiction I need in order to move ahead.

I Contain Multitudes

https://www.amazon.com/Contain-Multitudes-Microbes-Within-Grander/dp/0062368591

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

https://www.amazon.com/Sapiens-Humankind-Yuval-Noah-Harari/dp/0062316095/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1491502449&sr=1-1

Haiku! Geoffrey A. Landis

The 5th Not-Exactly-Annual Haiku Death Match is only 5 days away! To celebrate the countdown to the haiku contest, for the las two weeks I have featured a haiku (or senryu) from each of the deathmatch contestents.
Here is the last of the eight haiku warriors: Geoffrey Landis (... that would be me):

Photo by GL

Carved stone gods
no one worships now
Still they watch and wait

--Geoffrey A. Landis

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And don't forget that for just a few dollars you can sponsor a haiku warrior team! 

Geoffrey Landis

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The Haiku deathmatch is coming up this weekend! Saturday, April 8 at 7 pm at Dobama Theatre. You can get tickets to the haiku deathmatch at the Heights Arts gallery, 2175 Lee Road, via phone at 216-371-3457, or online:
ORDER HAIKU DEATH MATCH TICKETS
$15 General public  | $10 Heights Arts members  | $15 at the door

Sponsor a haiku warrior team!

DONATE TO THE CAUSE

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Previous Haiku warriors featured:

• Ray McNiece

• Dianne Borsenik

• Michael Ceraolo

• Cordelia Eddy

• Celeste McCarty

• Mary Turzillo
• Christine Donofrio

National Poetry Month!

Once again, it's National Poetry month, so if you want poems to read and prompts to write poetry, this is the month! There's a wide smörgåsbord available.

Over at the Cuyahoga library, check out

• Read Write: Thirty Days of Poetry has a poem every day, and a writing prompt inspired by the poetry
• Start with their April 1 post, featuring "Fold,” by Cleveland poet Ali McClain, and go on from there
• Sign up for their e-mail list
• or check out their twitter feed #readwritepoetry

Meanwhile, Writing Knights is featuring a daily poetry prompt on the subject of contronyms: words with two or more opposite meanings:

• National Poetry Month posts
• Start with quiddity and puzzle
• like & follow their Facebook page for updates

And, moving away from Northeast Ohio, Robert Lee Brewer's Poetic Asides is doing his annual April Poem a Day challenge:

• Ignore the ads, and start at Poem A Day, Day One: reminiscing poem
• Challenge Guidelines

--and April is a great month to attend live poetry events. 

• Check out what's happening at any of the 65 readings, poetry workshops, and other writing-related events going on in April, listed on the Clevelandpoetics Calendar.
• And don't miss this Saturday's Heights Arts Haiku Deathmatch at Dobama (OK, I guess I've mentioned this before).

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• More ways to celebrate National poetry month

Haiku on the radio tonight!

Heights Arts says: Happy National Poetry Month! 

For a little haiku preview, tune in to Weekend Radio with Robert Conrad on WCLV 104.9 today, Saturday, April 1 at 10pm, when haiku from the Haiku Death Match contestants will be featured

WR 1713
BROADCAST WEEKEND 04/01/17April is Poetry Month, and we observe it with participants in Cleveland’s Haiku Death Match reading their poems, and we hear verse from Ken Nordine, Alastair Reid, Shel Silverstein and Bob and Ray.

...and then on WCLV again Wednesday, April 5 at 2:30pm when poets Christine Howey and Ray McNiece will be interviewed on the air.

• Don't have a radio? Listen live online or by MP3. 

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Have you ordered your tickets for the Haiku Death Match? We're looking forward to a rollicking night of poetry, entertainment, and audience interaction. 

Haiku! Christine Donofrio

The 5th Not-Exactly-Annual Haiku Death Match is only 8 days away! To celebrate the countdown to the haiku contest, over the next two weeks I'll be featuring a haiku (or senryu) from each of the deathmatch contestents.
Here's Christine Donofrio:

Cleveland astounds thee
Stadium mustard taste
My heart lives by the lake

--Christine Donofrio 

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And don't forget that for just a few dollars you can sponsor a haiku warrior team! 

SPONSOR A HAIKU WARRIOR

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The Haiku deathmatch will be April 8 at 7 pm at Dobama Theatre. You can get tickets to the haiku deathmatch at the Heights Arts gallery, 2175 Lee Road, via phone at 216-371-3457, or online:
ORDER HAIKU DEATH MATCH TICKETS
$15 General public  | $10 Heights Arts members  | $15 at the door

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Previous Haiku warriors featured:

• Ray McNiece

• Dianne Borsenik

• Michael Ceraolo

• Cordelia Eddy

• Celeste McCarty

• Mary Turzillo

Haiku! Mary Turzillo

The 5th Not-Exactly-Annual Haiku Death Match is only 10 days away! To celebrate the countdown to the haiku contest, over the last two weeks I've been featuring a haiku (or senryu) from each of the deathmatch contestents.
Here's Mary Turzillo:

mind dark as your fur
green eyes, crimson tongue, white fangs
thanks for the dead bird

--Mary Turzillo

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And don't forget that for just a few dollars you can sponsor a haiku warrior team! To sponsor Mary, click here:

Mary Turzillo

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The Haiku deathmatch will be April 8 at 7 pm at Dobama Theatre. You can get tickets to the haiku deathmatch at the Heights Arts gallery, 2175 Lee Road, via phone at 216-371-3457, or online:
ORDER HAIKU DEATH MATCH TICKETS
$15 General public  | $10 Heights Arts members  | $15 at the door

Sponsor a haiku warrior team!

DONATE TO THE CAUSE

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Previous Haiku warriors featured:

• Ray McNiece

• Dianne Borsenik

• Michael Ceraolo

• Cordelia Eddy

• Celeste McCarty