New Location for Kent 3rd Friday Open Poetry Readings

Contact RC Wilson at rcwilsonii@gmail.com for more information.

Jawbone Open Poetry: May 1st thru 3rd in Kent, Ohio

Join us at the annual Jawbone poetry festival in Kent! Please note the new location and time for the Friday and Saturday evening readings. Contact RC Wilson at rcwilsonii@gmail.com for more information.

November 15th: Get Sharp! 2025 Ohio Poetry Publishing Conference

Join the Ohio Poetry Association on November 15th from 10 to 4:30 at the Cuyahoga County Public Library's South Euclid-Lyndhurst branch for an absolutely free Ohio Poetry Publishing Conference. Registration and more details at https://attend.cuyahogalibrary.org/event/13881294.

Get Sharp! will include an Ohio small press book fair and fab workshop presentations by Dianne Borsenik, Geoff Anderson, Michael Salinger, and Susan Grimm.

2023 Ohio Poetry Day Contests Now Open

[Cross-posted from the Ohio Poetry Association blog:]

Our friends at the Ohio Poetry Day Association have announced their annual contests! May 15, 2023, is the deadline (postmark) for nearly two dozen contest categories. Categories include humor, formal poems, parody and more. As always, a “Welcome Aboard” category for first-time submitters and an art category to design the cover art for the 2023 Best of Ohio Poetry Day anthology are also open to submissions. 

Below is a copy of the submission form, which provides full contest information. 

Ohio Poetry Day 2023 will take place in October. Stay up to date on OPD information, including the event date, location, and agenda, by getting your name and address on the OPD mailing list. To do so, contact:

Amy Jo Zook

3520 State Route 56

Mechanicsburg, OH 43044

Checks for all contest fees and purchases should be made payable to: Ohio Poetry Day. For questions, call (937) 834-2666.

Click and download the images below to view them at full size.

Poetry and Prose Contests for Ohio Writers

From our friends at the Gordon Square Review:

Gordon Square Review is pleased to announce two special contests to celebrate its tenth issue: the 2022 Poetry Contest for Ohio Writers, judged by Noor Hindi, and the 2022 Prose Contest for Ohio Writers, judged by Eman Quotah. This marks the first time Gordon Square Review has opened its contests to all writers who currently live in Ohio.

 

For the Poetry Contest, writers in Ohio may submit a single poem of any length. For the Prose Contest, writers in Ohio may submit a single piece of prose up to 3,000 words. The entry fee for each contest is $10 per entry. One winner in each category will receive a $500 prize and publication in Issue 10 of Gordon Square Review. One runner-up in each category will also be selected for publication.

 

Both contests open for entries on January 15, 2022, with a deadline of April 10, 2022. See full guidelines on Gordon Square Review’s website.

Anthology of Ohio's Appalachian Voices Seeks Submissions

Ohio Poet Laureate Kari Gunter-Seymour invites all poets with ties to Ohio and Appalachia (and so on - watch the video for details) to submit to the new anthology I Thought I Heard a Cardinal Sing. Deadline: October 30, 2021.

Video link: https://www.facebook.com/kari.gunter.seymour/videos/164094779131517.

More info: https://www.karigunterseymourpoet.com/submit.

Channel 5 Highlights 'Writers in Residence'

Read the whole article - 'Writers in Residence' gives voice to Ohio's juvenile detention youth, helping spark transformation and cut down recidivism - at news5cleveland.com.

And support Writers in Residence!
https://writersnresidence.org/

A Poet Laureate for Ohio

The State of Ohio just named its first poet laureate: Amit Majmudar, of Dublin, Ohio
Majmudar, who is a poet and a physician, grew up in the Cleveland area. He earned a BS at the University of Akron and an MD at Northeast Ohio Medical University. His poems have appeared in many places, including the New Yorker, The Antioch Review, Poetry, The Norton Introduction to Literature, and The Best of the Best American Poetry.
He's the author of two collections of poetry, 0′, 0′ in 2009 and Heaven and Earth in 2011, and his new collection Dothead will appear from Alfred A. Knopf in March, 2016.

• Check out some of his poems
• and more

Congrats to Amit Majudar!

Links:

• Greater Cleveland native Amit Majmudar named as Ohio's first poet laureate by Gov. John Kasich, Cleveland.com
• Dublin physician named first Ohio poet laureate, Columbus Dispatch
• Ohio's 1st poet laureate to build bridges among art forms, WHIO
• U of Akron grad named Ohio's first poet laureate, WKYC
• Amit Majmudar web page

It's all because of Joan Baez...

One of Northern Ohio's most celebrated writers is Bombay-born Thrity Umrigar, who just published her seventh novel, The Story Hour.

So, how did she end up in Ohio, anyway? Thrity Umrigar speaks.

"I was sitting in my living room in Bombay, checking off a list of American universities that offered a M.A. in journalism, when my eyes fell on 'Ohio State University.' There was a Joan Baez record playing on the turntable and right then, her song, Banks of the Ohio, came on. I looked up and thought, 'It's a sign,' and decided to apply there."

Ohio Senate Passes Bill Establishing Ohio Poet Laureate - House Next!

Steve Abbott testifying on behalf of S.B. 84 on May 21st
in Columbus [photo by Michael Salinger]

Click here to read about it on the Ohio Senate's minority caucus blog.  

Many thanks to the senators, including many from our area and from both political parties, who have stepped up and supported Senate Bill 84.  Letters from poets and other bill supporters from across the state, as well as great support from the Ohio Arts Council and Ohio Poetry Association have helped immensely.  But our work's not done yet.

Now Senate Bill 84 is moving on to the Ohio House for consideration and this is the perfect time for us to write to our state representatives and express our support for the establishment of a Poet Laureate position in Ohio.  It doesn't seem right that Ohio, the home of so many fine poets statewide, is one of only five or six United States not to have such a position.

So please write to your state representative and urge him or her to pass this bill.

Click here to find your representative.
Click here to read Senate Bill 84, the Ohio Poet Laureate bill.
Click here to read Michael Salinger's testimony before the Senate in support of S.B. 84.
Click here to read John Burroughs' testimony before the Senate in support of S.B. 84.
Click here to read a statement by Steve Abbott on the O.P.A. blog in support of S.B. 84.

Phil Metres riffs on Ohio

Phil Metres ses:

“Tin soldiers and Nixon coming, we’re finally on our own.”
 While I was in utero, the caterwauling of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young was a lament for the four students shot dead at Kent State University—just down the road from where I now live and teach. In a state called Ohio. Basically, to me, this state is a fiction. Nothing unites Cincinnati, Columbus, and Cleveland—and the sundry towns between and around—except that every four years, this humble and homely flyover becomes the prom queen, as presidential hopefuls crisscross the state, promising the moon. 
“America is just a word but I use it,” Fugazi once sang. And “language keeps me/locked and repeating. Language keeps me/locked and repeating.”
When I wrote a poem based on the signs and voices I read and heard as I traveled down its spine, I gather that Ohio is afraid of its mortal soul, and everyone wants you to obey the God of their imaginings. Either Ohioans are very pious and like their radio religious, or they are very rebellious and many preachers are afraid of where we are all heading. Either way, there will be long drives down our very spine to find out the answers.

Ohio Poetry Presses

For a long time I've wanted to compile a somewhat comprehensive listing of active Ohio poetry publishers.  For now I'm focusing on print (rather than purely online) publishing, and admittedly some of the following are more active than others. But here's what I've come up with off the top of my head. The list is woefully incomplete, I know, and I'm certain I'll think of a few more to add as soon as I hit the "Publish" button, but I hope you'll help me fill in as many of the missing Ohio poetry presses as possible.  Thank you!

Ashland Poetry Press
Bird Dog Publishing
Blood Pudding Press
Bottom Dog Press
Buffalo ZEF
The City Poetry Press
Cleveland State University Press
Crisis Chronicles Press
deep cleveland press
Dos Madres Press
Etruscan Press
Green Panda Press
Guide to Kulchur Press
HobGob Press
Hydeout Press
Kattywompus Press
Kent State University Press
Kenyon Review
Le Pink-Elephant Press
Masked Man Media 
New Luna Bisonte Prods
NightBallet Press
Oberlin College Press

Ohio State University Press
Ohio University Press & Swallow Press
P2B Press
Pale Horse Press
Pavement Saw Press
Pig Iron Press
Poehemian Press
The Poet's Haven 
Porkbelly Press
Pudding House Publications
recycled karma press
Small Victories Press
Silenced Press
Standing Rock Cultural Arts 
True Colors Press
Two Dollar Radio Books
University of Akron Press
University of Toledo Press
vanZeno Press
Walleyed Press
What's In The Bag Press
Writing Knights Press
Zygote in My Coffee Press

Tickling Ohio's Ivories

Ohio is a piano.

This phenomenon was uncovered by Andy Woodruff, a cartographer (who lives in Massachusetts, damn fur’ner). Woodruff was driving through our state when he suddenly realized that Ohio has 88 counties, a piano has 88 keys, and, well, the next step is obvious..............create a musical map of our state on which each county is assigned one of the 88 piano notes. Woodruff’s map can play you through the drive from Cleveland to Cincinnati or through a variety of data-based organizations of the counties, from average family size to number of farms.

But wait. Does this have anything to do with poetry? I think that any symbolization or substitution of one thing for another that transforms the original is poetic, but I’d like to know what you think.

But wait again. Before you tell me what you think, I’ve borrowed Woodruff’s idea of using Ohio’s counties to create something else, but I’ve done it with words rather than musical notes. Is it poetry? Again, I’d like your feedback.

In my first pass at it, I found a poem with 88 words, including the title. Disappointment, by August Kleinzahler (a poet I highly recommend reading). I assigned each word of the poem to each of Ohio’s counties – the words of the poem in the order of the poem, starting with the title, and the counties in alphabetical order. Then I made what I’m going to call poems.

Here is a trip along the shore of Lake Erie, east to west:

smell leaking
the shoulders
and mouth
bequeathing

Or perhaps you’d prefer to follow the Ohio River:

eyelids big
that disappointment close
out growing
pang of look
then embroidering whole
give

I’ll let you read bottom up to enjoy the poems of the return trips.

Next, I made a poem using words found within the names of the counties. This gave me more word choices. Again, the trip along the lake shore:

bush lake guy
in ire
tow us

The river journey:

bum offer
melt more
wish
then I lag anew
too mad
won no man

Lastly, sound poems. Trying reading them aloud and attending to how you feel as you do it before you dismiss them.

The Lake: Ash-La-Cu-Lo-Er-Ot-Luc

The River: Co-Je-Bel-Mo-Wash-At-Me-Ga-La-Sci-Ad-Bro-Cler-Ha

So, poetry?

What I’m getting at here are really questions about creativity (What is it? Does it serve a purpose and if so, what?) and meaning (Must creative work have meaning? Must it have the same meaning for everyone? Since humans are meaning-creating machines, can a poet leave it to others to create the meaning in a poem?).

As a reward for reading through this post and thinking about these questions, please enjoy this rendition of She Blinded Me With Science, sung by online dictionaries.