2025 Cleveland Poetry Festival on April 25-27

From our friends at Literary Cleveland: 

For complete info and to register, please visit https://www.litcleveland.org/events-programs/cleveland-poetry-festival-2025. 

March 15th: Of Poetry at Visible Voice Books

From our friends at Visible Voice Books in Tremont: 

An evening of readings from volumes of poetry titled Of.

Kai Ihns is the author of two books of poems, most recently Of (The Elephants, 2024). She lives in Chicago.

Ossian Foley is the author of OF: Vol I (UDP) and works for the government.

Justin Cox is the author of Stock Pond (Bench Editions, 2025). His writing has appeared in Annulet, Chicago Review, Fence, Tagvverk, and elsewhere. Justin teaches at the University of Iowa and has been a fellow at the International Institute of Modern Letters in Wellington, New Zealand.

David James Miller is the author of CANT and the chapbooks FOLD, As Sequence, and Facts & Other Objects. He is founding editor of Elis Press and SET, a journal of innovative writing that comes out once in a while.

Caryl Pagel’s most recent book is Free Clean Fill Dirt (University of Akron Press), named for a sign seen at Lakeview Cemetery. She teaches and makes books with her friends.

Zach Peckham is a writer, editor, and educator. He is the author of the poetry collection As If And, forthcoming from New Mundo Press in 2026, and his work has recently appeared in Full Stop, Mercury Firs, Landfill, APARTMENT, and Tilted House. He is the managing editor at the CSU Poetry Center, an editor at large at the Cleveland Review of Books, and he teaches at Cleveland State and the Cleveland Institute of Art. He also runs a small press called Community Mausoleum and a journal called Coma.

Alyssa Perry is the author of Oily Doily (Bench Editions, 2024). Her writing appears with Annulet, Coma, Fence, Mercury Firs, and elsewhere. Perry is poetry editor at the Cleveland Review of Books and an editor at Rescue Press. She teaches at the Cleveland Institute of Art.

Lindsay Turner is the author of The Upstate (University of Chicago Press, 2023) and Songs & Ballads (Prelude Books, 2018). She's also a French-to-English translator of poetry and philosophy. Originally from northeast Tennessee, she lives in Cleveland, where she is Associate Professor of English and Creative Writing at Case Western Reserve University.

2/13: Ekphrastacy at Heights Arts

From our friends at Heights Arts:

Artists Talk and Poets Respond to Emerge and Spotlight Gallery artist Frank Hadzima. Join Heights Poet Laureate Siaara Freeman, along with guest poets Barbara Marie Minney, Caira Lee, and Conor Bracken, for an evening of poetry inspired by the current exhibitions at Heights Arts' gallery.

 

Reserve A Spot at eventbrite.com/e/ekphrastacy-artists-talk-and-poets-respond-tickets-1104908714709.

Peace Poems Anthology Seeks Submissions

From our friends at the National Federation of State Poetry Societies:

1/11: Ohio Poetry Association Workshop featuring Yalie Saweda Kamara

In my new role as 2nd vice president of the Ohio Poetry Association, I would like to invite you to join us virtually on Saturday 11 January at 1 p.m. for a fantastic workshop with Yalie Saweda Kamara.

OPA Workshop featuring Yalie Saweda Kamara

For our first poetry workshop of 2025, we are thrilled to welcome the current Poet Laureate of the City of Cincinnati, Yalie Saweda Kamara. Kamara is a Sierra Leonean-American writer, educator, and researcher originally from Oakland, California, and the 2022–2024 Cincinnati and Mercantile Library Poet Laureate. Invited for a third year of poet laureate service, her tenure will conclude in 2025. She is an assistant professor of English at Xavier University, where she specializes in creative writing and global and diasporic literature. Winner of the 2022–2023 Jake Adam York Prize, Kamara’s debut full-length poetry collection is Besaydoo (Milkweed Editions, 2024).

About the Workshop: “i am running into a new year”

In this workshop, whose title is based on the famed Lucille Clifton poem, poets will reflect on the gifts, struggles, and revelation of 2024 and engage in creative activity that considers world making in 2025. Through a multimedia exploration of surrender, embrace, confession, and celebration, we will endeavor to investigate the following query: How do the vestiges and blossoms from the previous year inform our understanding of and proximity
to "possibility" in the newest year?

This hybrid workshop will take place following the 10 a.m. OPA quarterly business meeting at the Mercantile Library in Cincinnati and also via Zoom. 

To attend, please register at www.ohiopoetryassn.org/events. 

To learn more about Yalie Saweda Kamara, visit her website at www.yaylala.com.

1/11 in East Cleveland: Second Saturday Stanzas will feature Caira Lee

From our friends at the East Cleveland Public Library:

4 p.m. January 11th 2025 at:

East Cleveland Public Library
14101 Euclid Avenue
East Cleveland, OH
eastclevelandpubliclibrary.org

1/16: Poetry Unplugged Turns 3!

Check this!

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Cleveland Open Mic Experience (@poetry.unplugged)

Thrive on, Doc Janning!

A nice feature on our friend (and Cuyahoga County Poet Laureate) Doc Janning appears in the Winter 2024/25 issue of Thrive: South Euclid Magazine.

 

Find Doc online at facebook.com/drmikej1008. His book Before Today ∞ Beyond Tomorrow [2023, Venetian Spider Press] is available from Mac's Backs and other great booksellers.

The Big Book of Daniel [Thompson]

 

"Daniel's last gift to us, his life's work, what he gathered in his sixty-nine years, over three hundred pages of poems, is this book, this big jug of honey, which you have in your hands. Taste and see." - from the "Foreword" by Maj Ragain

This fine book by one of Cleveland's finest poets 

 Daniel Thompson

is available at Bottom Dog Press
http://smithdocs.net

and at Mac's Backs
https://www.macsbacks.com

Last Exit Open Poetry Readings Announced - Early 2025 in Kent

 From our friend RC Wilson:

Kevin Prufer remembers Russell Atkins in this month's issue of Poetry Magazine

Kevin Prufer says: "I think Russell Atkins is one of the most fascinating, unique, and brilliant poets of the 2nd half of the 20th century. He's also one of the most under-appreciated. He died earlier this year. Here's a piece I wrote about him for the Poetry Foundation and Poetry Magazine."

 

 

Permalink: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/1637023/a-syntax-of-his-own-remembering-russell-atkins.

Heights Arts Seeks Applications for 12th Heights Poet Laureate

From our friends at Heights Arts in Cleveland Heights:

Heights Arts, a multidisciplinary arts organization in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, is excited to announce the selection process for the cities’ 12th Poet Laureate for a two-year term beginning April 2025 through March 2027. This upcoming term coincides with Heights Arts’ 25th anniversary. 

The Heights Poet Laureate will receive a yearly stipend and participate in civic and community events, as well as manage Heights Arts’ popular Ekphrastacy – Artists Talk and Poets Respond series throughout their tenure. 

History: The Cleveland Heights Poet Laureateship, established in 2000 by Heights Arts to celebrate and elevate poetry as an essential art form for the community, is the first and longest-running laureateship in the state of Ohio. In 2023, with the endorsement of both Cleveland Heights and University Heights, the laureateship expanded to become the Heights Poet Laureateship. Every two years, Heights Arts’ staff along with the Heights Writes Community Team of volunteers with expertise in the literary arts and the Heights community solicit applications to select a poet from the Cleveland area for this honor. 

“We were thrilled to join Cleveland Heights in the Heights Poet Laureate program,” says University Heights Mayor Michael Dylan Brennan, “... and I look forward to our participating in the program going forward. University Heights is committed to supporting the arts. Adding poetry to our city events has been inspirational and has helped bring residents together.” 

The current Poet Laureate, Siaara Freeman, is a dynamic voice in the Cleveland poetry scene, a 2023 Room in the House fellow with Karamu Theater. Freeman is also a 2022 Catapult fellow with Cleveland Public Theater. Her accolades include the 2021 Premier Playwright fellowship with Cleveland Public Theater, the 2020 WateringHole Manuscript fellowship, and being a four-time nominee for the Pushcart Prize. Freeman’s work has appeared in The Journal, Josephine Quarterly, Cleveland Magazine, and other notable publications. She has gained recognition for her viral poems and has toured both nationally and internationally. 

The meeting will be posted on the Heights Arts website for those who cannot attend. Applicants for the laureateship must commit to serving the full 24-month term if selected and must either be residents of Cleveland Heights or have a significant connection to the communities. Applications will be accepted from November 1, 2024, to December 31, 2024. Detailed information and the application can be found at Heights Arts Poet Laureate.

December 14th: Open Mic Sharing in Sandusky

You're invited to this sharing on poetry's relevance in your and our lives.

Sandusky is 55 minutes west and worth the drive. 

December 3rd: Think Forum - An Evening with Billy Collins in Cleveland

Tuesday 3 December 2024 at 7:30 p.m., see former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins at the Milton and Tamar Maltz Performing Arts Center, 1855 Ansel Rd, Cleveland, OH 44106.

Billy Collins is an American phenomenon. No poet since Robert Frost has combined high critical acclaim with such broad popular appeal. His work has appeared in a variety of periodicals including The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and The American Scholar. Collins has published twelve collections of poetry that have led to numerous awards including the Mark Twain Award for Humor in Poetry. Collins was named New York State Poet Laureate from 2004 to 2006 after serving as the Poet Laureate of the United States from 2001-2003. Collins’ newest book, Water, Water: Poems, will be released in November 2024.

Book signing immediately following the lecture.

Get your FREE tickets at https://case.edu/maltzcenter/calendar-events/concerts-events-silver-hall/think-forum-evening-billy-collins.

Barbara Sabol and Erica Reid named 2024 Ohio Poets of the Year

The Ohio Poetry Day Association has selected Barbara Sabol and Erica Reid as our 2024 Ohio Poets of the Year. Congratulations to these two amazing writers!

Barbara Sabol was selected for her book of poems, WATERMARK: Poems of the Great Johnstown Flood of 1889 (Alternating Current Press, 2023). The poems in WATERMARK follow the path of the “great flood,” from the time prior to the perfect storm of events resulting in the disaster to the devastating aftermath and the reclamation of a bustling industrial city. The book is a poetic testimony of the great flood story through voices of the unidentified victims; their circumstances and lives imagined from morgue entries. The narrative also paints the backdrop of recovery and renewal, in the voices of survivors, telegraphers, aid workers, and historical figures such as Clara Barton. Watermark is a lyric narrative of this country’s largest and most dramatic flood of the 19th century, told from the perspective of those whose lives it claimed and those who lived to tell the tale. 

For more about the book, visit: https://altcurrentpress.com/2023/10/11/watermark/. 

Sabol is the author of six poetry collections, including WATERMARK. Her book, Imagine a Town, won the 2019 poetry manuscript contest by Sheila-Na-Gig Editions. She went on to become the associate editor of the journal, Sheila-Na-Gig online and edited the anthology, Sharing This Delicate Bread, featuring selected poems from the journal. Barbara co-authored a book of Japanese short-form poems with Larry Smith (Bottom Dog Press, 2023.) Her awards include an Individual Excellence Award from the Ohio Arts Council, and she was named the Arts Alive 2024 Literary Artist. Barbara’s work has been nominated for the Pushcart, Best of the Net, and her haibun was short-listed for a Touchstone award. She conducts poetry workshops through Literary Cleveland and the Cuyahoga Falls Library. Barbara lives in Akron, Ohio with her bird artist husband and wonder dog.

Erica Reid was selected for her book of poems, Ghost Man on Second (2024, Autumn House Press), which traces a daughter’s search for her place in the world after estrangement from her parents. Reid writes, “It’s hard to feel at home unless I’m aching.” Growing from this sense of isolation, Reid’s stories create new homes in nature, in mythology, and in poetic forms—including sestinas, sonnets, and golden shovels—containers that create and hold new realizations and vantage points. Reid stands up to members of her family, asking for healing amid dissolving bonds. These poems move through emotional registers, embodying nostalgia, hurt, and hope. Throughout Ghost Man on Second, the poems portray Reid’s active grappling with home and confrontation with the ghosts she finds there. 

For more about the book, visit https://www.autumnhouse.org/books/ghost-man-on-second/.

Erica Reid, M.F.A., is an award-winning writer now based in Colorado. Her debut collection Ghost Man on Second won the 2023 Donald Justice Poetry Prize and was published by Autumn House Press in 2024. Erica’s poems appear in Rattle, Cherry Tree, Colorado Review, and more. Learn more at ericareidpoet.com.

 

 

 

 

As Ohio Poets of the Year, Sabol and Reid join the likes of Mary Oliver, David Baker, Kari Gunter-Seymour, and Maggie Smith.

This year's Ohio Poetry Day celebration will occur on October 18–19 in Springfield, Ohio.

 

OHIO POETRY DAY AGENDA

Friday, October 18, 7–9 PM: Meet and greet, overnight poetry contest prompt, et cetera.

Saturday, October 19, 10 AM–4 PM: Includes a morning workshop, open mic featuring Ohio Poetry Day contest winners, reading by Honorable Mention Neil Carpathios, and keynote reading by Ohio Poet of the Year Barbara Sabol. Registration opens at 9 a.m.

Where:   Christ Church Springfield,
                  409 E. High Street
                  Springfield, OH 45505

Previous Ohio Poets of the Year

1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994	Hallie Cramer Muriel de Chambrun Virginia Moran Evans Cecil Hale Hartzell Celia Dimmette Novella Humphrey Davis Daisy Lee Donaldson Mary Oliver James Magner, Jr. James C. Kilgore no award given Charlotte Mann Richard Hague Michael J. Rosen J. A. Totts Timothy Russell Amy Jo Schoonover Robert Wallace Bonnie Jacobson David Baker Debra Allbery Grace Butcher Frankie Paino David Citino Tom Andrews Michael J. Bugeja	A Sprig of Bittersweet Sudden Soring To Seek the Sun Song on the Anvil Ocean Carry Us Far There Was This Place Surface Fragments Twelve Moons Till No Light Leaps African Violet     --- Grape Pitcher Ripening A Drink at the Mirage Outside the Dream The Possibility of Turning to Salt New & Used Poems The Common Summer Stopping for Time Sweet Home, Saturday Night Walking Distance Child, House, World The Rapture of Matter The Discipline The Hemophiliac's Motorcycle After Oz
1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020   2021 2022 2023	Alberta Turner Lou Suarez William Matthews James Cummins Susan Grimm Miriam Vermilya Myrna Stone Pauletta Hansel Deanna Packard Elton Glaser Cathryn Essinger Herbert W. Martin David Hassler Martha Collins William Heyen Stephen Haven Terry Hermsen Will Wells George Looney Linda Ann Schofield Lianne Spidel Dzvinia Orlowsky David Lee Garrison Jeff Gundy Maggie Smith Kathy Fagan Susan Glassmeyer Laura Grace Weldon Kari Gunter-Seymour Quartez Harris Erica Manto Paulson Rikki Santer	Beginning With And Losses of Moment Time & Money Portrait in a Spoon Almost Home Heartwood The Art of Loss Divining ln Dreams We Kiss Ourselves Goodbye Pelican Talks My Dog Does Not Read Plato Escape to the Promised Land Red Kimono, Yellow Barn Blue Front The Confessions of Doc Williams Dust and Bread The River's Daughter Unsettled Accounts Open Between Us Psalms of the Hood What to Tell Joseme Silvertone Playing Bach in the D.C. Metro Somewhere Near Defiance The Well Speaks of Its Own Poison Sycamore Invisible Fish Blackbird A Place So Deep Inside America It Can't Be Seen We Made It to School Alive Hunger Resurrection Letter: Leonora, Her Tarot, and Me

 

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.