Poetry, when it’s happening, is like sex (Nin Andrews Interviewed by Grace Cavalieri)

Nin Andrews

Poet Nin Andrews (Why God is a Woman,  Southern Comfort, The Book of Orgasms) is interviewed by Grace Cavalieri.

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When you write a poem, what do you realize about yourself that you didn’t know before?

NA:   Maybe what I realize has a lot to do with how I experience poetry, the writing of it anyhow. Poetry, when it’s happening, is like sex. It totally suffuses me. (I like the word, suffuse.) Afterwards I always forget how it worked.

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 but for me, it begins by chance. It usually begins in a moment when imagination meets reality.

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Language, whatever else it is, is a mystery when you examine it. The way it pretends or attempts to replicate the world and what is in the mind or heart or soul. As a poet, I am forever leaning closer to it, trying to see or hear what needs to be said. And how. And each time I lean in, I try my best to get even closer to the fire, to the truth, to whatever it is that is inside the words and that moves me. Or whatever makes magic happen on the page. Sometimes the language is resistant—it’s hard and cold like the surface of a shell. Other times, it opens easily and lets me in, lets me flow. But it’s never predictable. I can’t guarantee when the heart will speak. Or if the journey will begin or end well. 

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Rules for Living

On a long drive past half-harvested cornfields, poet Karen Craigo writes "100 rules for living (give or take)."

58.          Each life needs a great adventure.

24.          Be attuned to patterns—even rows of corn stubble, a line of Corvettes on the highway. There’s meaning in patterns.

67.          Some people belief ridiculous things. There’s no way you’re not one of them.

81.          Live a life that can’t be summarized in a bumper sticker.

Ohio Poetry Day Poet of the Year selection

Ohio Poet of the Year Maggie Smith

The Ohio Poetry Day Association has selected Maggie Smith as the Ohio Poet of the Year for her book The Well Speaks of Its Own Poison.

Smith says her book “...was largely inspired by fairy tales and folklore, but it blends those influences with my Ohio roots.
“Many of the poems are set in or reference places that are important to me, including my childhood home in Westerville, Alum Creek, and Schiller Park in German Village."

In a blog post, the Ohio Poetry Association explains how the Ohio Poet of the Year is selected.

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• To hear Maggie Smith’s Ohio Poet of the Year luncheon reading and speech, come join Ohio Poetry Day at Heidelberg University on October 15 for the award ceremony.

Kent's Wick Poetry Center is kicking off the 2016-2017 poetry season this evening with a reading by Stuart Friebert, followed by a series of poetry events coming up through May.

We are excited to announce the Wick Poetry Center’s 2016-2017 Reading Series lineup. Mark your calendars and join us to meet these award-winning authors.   Stuart Friebert  Poetry Reading WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2016 Sponsored by the Department of Modern & Classical Language Studies and the Institute for Applied Linguistics 7:30 pm | Kent State Student Center, Room 306 AB Stuart Friebert is the author of fourteen collections of poetry, including Floating Heart, recipient of the Ohioana 2015 Poetry Award. He has published ten volumes of translations, including Puppets in the Wind: Selected Poems of Karl Krolow, and Be Quiet: Selected Poems by Kuno Raeber. He founded the writing program at Oberlin College and co-founded FIELD and the Oberlin College Press. Friebert has won many awards for his poems and translations, including an NEA Fellowship. Kent Creativity Festival SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2016 Presented by the City of Kent in collaboration with Kent State University 11:00 am – 5:00 pm | Lester A. Lefton Esplanade outside of the May Prentice House The Kent community invites you to join us for the inaugural Kent Creativity Festival! This will be an opportunity for people of all ages and skill levels to come together to create, share, and explore the creation of all kinds of art. The event will take place on Saturday, September 24, 2016, from 11 am to 5 pm on the Lester A. Lefton Esplanade outside of the May Prentice House and the Wick Poetry Center. The Stan and Tom Wick Poetry Prize Reading with Adrian Matejka & Leah Osowski   WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2016 7:30 pm | College of Architecture & Environmental Design, Room 120 Adrian Matejka was born in Nuremberg, Germany and grew up in California and Indiana. He is a graduate of Indiana University and the MFA program at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. His first collection of poems, The Devil’s Garden, won the 2002 New York / New England Award from Alice James Books. His second collection, Mixology, was a winner of the 2008 National Poetry Series and was published by Penguin Books in 2009. Mixology was a finalist for a NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literature – Poetry. His most recent book, The Big Smoke, was awarded the 2014 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award. The Big Smoke was also finalist for the 2013 National Book Award and for the 2014 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry. He is a winner of the Julia Peterkin Award and recipient of two Illinois Arts Council Literary Awards and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the Lannan Foundation. His work has appeared in American Poetry Review, The Best American Poetry 2010, Gulf Coast, Ploughshares, Poetry, and Prairie Schooner among other journals and anthologies. He teaches in the MFA program at Indiana University in Bloomington and is currently working on a new collection of poems and a graphic novel. Leah Poole Osowski is from Massachusetts. She received an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of North Carolina Wilmington where she was a reader for Ecotone magazine. Her first book hover over her won the 2015 Wick Poetry Prize, chosen by Adrian Matejka. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Black Warrior Review, The Cincinnati Review, Hotel Amerika, The Journal, Mid-American Review, Salamander, and Third Coast, among others. World Poetry Reading - Traveling Stanzas TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 2016 Co-Sponsored by the Office of Global Education 7:30 pm  | College of Architecture & Environmental Design, Room 120 Kent State international students from eleven different countries will share poems they love from their own cultures facilitating a global conversation through the intimate and inclusive voice of poetry. P. Scott Cunningham and Frank Báez Poetry Reading WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2016 7:30 pm  | College of Architecture & Environmental Design, Room 120   P. Scott Cunningham is the founder and director of O, Miami, a poetry festival with the goal of every single person in Miami-Dade County encountering a poem. O, Miami events and projects have been featured in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Washington Post, National Public Radio, ESPN, Time, The Guardian, and many others, and the organization was named by Fast Company as one of 51 “brilliant urban ideas that are changing America.” Cunningham is also the co-founder and editor of Jai-Alai Books, a regional literary publishing imprint, and the poetry editor of The Miami Rail. His poems, essays, and translations have appeared in Harvard Review, The Awl, A Public Space, RHINO, Los Angeles Review of Books, Tupelo Quarterly, Monocle, and The Guardian, among others. A graduate of Wesleyan University, he lives in Miami with his wife Christina. Frank Báez is a Dominican poet and writer. He has published three books of poetry, one of short stories and three books of chronicles. Postales was edited in five countries and was awarded the National Prize for Poetry Salome Ureña in 2009. In 2014 Jai Alai books published an anthology in english of his poetry titled Last Night I Dreamt I was a DJ. In 2015 he  was part of the anthology El canon abierto (última poesía en español) that brings together the most relevant Spanish-language poets born after 1970. It is member of the group El Hombrecito, with whom he has released two albums and a DVD. Terrance Hayes Poetry Reading TUESDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2016 In collaboration with the NEOMFA Consortium 7:00 pm  | The Kiva Auditorium Terrance Hayes is the author of How to Be Drawn; Lighthead, which won the 2010 National Book Award for poetry; Muscular Music, which won the Kate Tufts Discovery Award; Hip Logic, winner of the 2001 National Poetry Series, and Wind in a Box. He is a professor of English at the University of Pittsburgh, in Pennsylvania. Lesley Jenike Poetry Reading THURSDAY, MARCH 9, 2017 7:30 pm | Kent State Student Center, Room 306 AB Lesley Jenike's poems have appeared in Poetry, The Gettysburg Review, The Southern Review, Smartish Pace, Rattle, and many other journals, and her second collection, Holy Island, was published by Gold Wake Press in 2014. She's been the recipient of fellowships and scholarships from the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the Vermont Studio Center, the Sewanee Writers' Conference, and the Ohio Arts Council. She teaches writing and literature at the Columbus College of Art and Design. Celebrating Our Own Poetry Reading featuring the Poetry Scholarship Winners WEDNESDAY, MARCH 22, 2017 7:30 pm | Fashion Building, Rockwell Auditorium Celebrating Our Own is the Wick Poetry Center’s annual undergraduate and high school scholarship poetry reading. Selected by poet Matthew Minicucci, the winners of the 2016 undergraduate scholarships are Lydia Leclerc, Victoria Bracher, and Ben Baumgardner. The 2016 high school scholarship winners are Molly Davidson and Taylor Patterson. 6th Annual U.S. Poet Laureate Reading with Juan Felipe Herrera Question & Answer SessionTUESDAY, APRIL 4, 2017 Co-Sponsored by the University Libraries and the Honors College 1:00 pm  | University Library Quiet Study Area Poetry ReadingTUESDAY, APRIL 4, 2017   Co-Sponsored by the University Libraries and the Honors College 7:30 pm | The Kiva Auditorium   Juan Felipe Herrera is the 21st Poet Laureate of the United States (2015-2016) and is the first Latino to hold the position. From 2012-2014, Herrera served as California State Poet Laureate. Herrera’s many collections of poetry include Notes on the Assemblage; Senegal Taxi; Half of the World in Light: New and Selected Poems, a recipient of the PEN/Beyond Margins Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award; and 187 Reasons Mexicanos Can’t Cross The Border: Undocuments 1971-2007. He is also the author of Crashboomlove: A Novel in Verse, which received the Americas Award. His books of prose for children include: SkateFate, Calling The Doves, which won the Ezra Jack Keats Award; Upside Down Boy, which was adapted into a musical for young audiences in New York City; and Cinnamon Girl: Letters Found Inside a Cereal Box. Herrera is also a performance artist and activist on behalf of migrant and indigenous communities and at-risk youth. 16th Annual Giving Voice WEDNESDAY, MAY 3, 2017 6:30 pm | Kent Student Center Ballroom The 16th annual performance of Giving Voice features local students (grades 3-12), international students, and families from Akron and Kent. All material is created in Wick outreach programs, including workshops funded by the Knight Foundation, and workshops led by Kent State University undergraduates enrolled in the service-learning course “Teaching Poetry in the Schools.” In peace and poetry,  David Hassler Director Wick Poetry Center

Wick Poetry Center 330-672-2067 | wickpoetry@kent.edu | P.O. Box 5190 | Kent, OH 44240

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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

Requesting Support for Russell Atkins

Requesting Support for Russell Atkins 

M. A. Shaheed, with the support of Yaseen AsSami, Diane Kending and Robert E. McDonough, is attempting to convince the city of Cleveland and the East Cleveland Public Library to honor Cleveland poet, composer, editor, librettist, and literary and musical theorist Russell Atkins by naming the street on which he lived (in Cleveland) and perhaps a room in the East Cleveland Public Library after him. We are asking you to assist this effort by making a signed statement about the importance of his achievement; because this statement will be showed to more than one person, it is probably best not to make it a letter but instead one page or so, headed with something like “On Russell Atkins” and finishing with your signature and perhaps a brief bio indicating your position in the arts. If you would like to refresh your familiarity with Russell’s poetry, a good place is ; clicking on his name in the author list will bring you to all the poetry Russell Atkins had collected by 2000.

It will be very helpful if you can send this statement as an email attachment to M. A. Shaheed at <naamtaib@yahoo.com> as soon as possible, ideally within a week. By honoring Russell Atkins’ lifelong commitment to art and tremendous achievement, we also honor art itself.         

Robert E. McDonough