Book swap Monday (and poetry, too)

Monday, September 12, 2016

Public Square, Downtown Cleveland – 2:30-7 p.m.: 
Gather on Cleveland Foundation Centennial Plaza in Cleveland Public Square for a book swap and afternoon of entertainment (including the poetry performance group "Distinguished Gentlemen of the Spoken Word") in honor of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards and the inaugural Cleveland Book Week. Bring a book or find one there, then mingle with other readers and swap books! 

Books for youth and adults will be available for free from the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards and the Cleveland Kids' Book Bank until quantities run out! 

Throughout the Swap, connect with local reading and literacy-focused nonprofit organizations, and peruse your new book while enjoying live music from the Roots of American Music and Cleveland Foundation Uptown Saturday Nights Festival artists SpYder Stompers and Sugar Pie and Eric Seddon’s Hot Club.

Mitchell's Homemade Ice Cream will be on the plaza to give away free scoops to the first 500 people who present their library card. If attendees don’t have a library card, Cleveland Public Library and Cuyahoga County Public Library will be registering for new cards on-site. In case of inclement weather, the event will be held on Tuesday, September 13.

Join us for this all-ages book party on Cleveland Foundation Centennial Plaza at Public Square!

SCHEDULE
2:30 Book Swap Opens
2:30 - 4 p.m. Music from SpYder Stompers and Sugar Pie
3 p.m. Cleveland Association of Black Storytellers
4 p.m. The Distinguished Gentlemen of Spoken Word
4:30 - 7 p.m. Music from Eric Seddon’s Hot Club
4:30 p.m. Happy Hour Cash Bar Opens
6 p.m. Cleveland Association of Black Storytellers
7 p.m. Event End

• Facebook Event Page
• Story at Cleveland.com

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...and if a book swap doesn't do it for you, how about poetry underneath planetarium stars?

Friday, September 16, 2016

Rowan Ricardo Phillips (2016 Poetry Winner, Heaven)

Shafran Planetarium, Cleveland Museum of Natural History – 3:30 p.m.

FREE EVENT – REGISTER

Escape the confines of Earth and travel to an otherworldly state of mind with 2016 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award recipient Rowan Ricardo Phillips. The author will read from his poetry collection, Heaven, under stars and imagery in Shafran Planetarium. Brief introduction by Museum Astronomer Jason Davis. Advance registration is required. Copies of Heaven will be on sale in the Museum Store, and Phillips will sign autographs before the reading, starting at 3pm. Phillips, a translator, critic and poet, splits his time between Barcelona and New York City, and also writes about basketball and soccer for The New Yorker.

• Cleveland Book Week

A Whitman Sampler - Poetry Contest and Performance

The Singers' Club of Cleveland is a 123-year-old men's chorus.  Their concert in March ("A Whitman Sampler") will feature songs inspired by American poetry. Their guest performing group for that concert will be Distinguished Gentlemen of Spoken Word.

In conjunction with that concert, The Singers' Club is sponsoring a poetry contest with $250 cash prizes for the winners and a $100 prize for the best submission from Cuyahoga County.

For more about the Singers, please visit www.singersclub.org.

Distinguished Gentlemen of the Spoken Word: in France

The Distinguished Gentlemen of the Spoken Word are bringing Cleveland poetry to France!  And getting some serious kudos from doing it, too.

The Distinguished Gentlemen of Spoken Word is a group of African-American males ages 8-18 who study the art of performance poetry. These gentlemen take classic poetry pieces, movement poetry (mime/breaking/ flexing) and combine it with the art of spoken word.
Poetry has become the living tool that they use to help keep them focused and on the right path in school, at home, and within the community.

--(from their website)

 They've had some setbacks on their way-- attacks, losing money to a tailor who takes the money but doesn't deliver, working against social and institutional barriers... not even to mention the work it takes to raise $10,000 to get to France. (But they did!)  Now they're lionized in Lyon.
The Cleveland-based performance troupe was founded more than 12 years ago by poet, teacher and youth-advocate Honey Bell-Bey.
Can poetry change the world?  I don't know. But here are some young poets who are going to try.

• Article and photos from the Plain Dealer.
• Check their website at http://thedistinguishedgentlemenofspokenword.com/
• Or their Facebook page.