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

Celebrate Cleveland Legend Russell Atkins Nov. 19th

Diane Kendig writes:

Nov. 19th: BE In the Company of Russell Atkins

Book Launch  Party!

Saturday, November 19, 2016, 2:00-3:30 p.m.*

for In the Company of Russell Atkins:  A celebration...

Please join us for some tributes and poems from the book read by Yaseen Assami, John Donoghue, Dawn Lundy-Martin, M A Shaheed, Joan Nicholl, Okantah, P K Saha, Leonard Trawick, Ra Washington and editors Diane Kendig and Bob McDonough and others.

The poet Robert Creeley often pointed to "the company of poets," how it fuels our life and our work, and certainly those of us who have been fueled by the life and work of Russell Atkins-- which includes his work as poet, editor, composer, teacher, colleague, and friend--will want to be there in person or in spirit to salute him in his 90th year. 

The book was the brainchild of two of the "Friends of Atkins," Assami and Shaheed who asked Bob McDonough and myself to edit it. Assisted by Russell himself, we contacted many poets who knew of Russell's work, with a request that they send their thoughts on him and a few of their own poems. Twenty-seven responded, including Russell, who has written a new poem that will be in the book along with others by him. Then, George Bilgere graciously wrote an introduction to the resulting collection, which is being published by Red Giant. It will be available at Mac's Backs in Cleveland Heights and can be ordered by any bookstore and online at Amazon. But don't wait: join us on Saturday and get the first copies there. 

Russell Atkins plans to be there, and there will be time to greet him or meet him, if you never have met him before, to buy and sign books and eat cake in the reception to follow. Long live our company!

*at South Euclid-Lyndhurst Public Library

1876 S. Green Road, between Mayfield & Cedar Road

South Euclid, OH 44121

• Event notice on Diane's blog Home Again
• Belt Magazine: "Rediscovering Russell Atkins"

November is for-- poetry!

Diane Kendig

Diane Kendig has declared November-- notionally the National Novel Writing Month-- to be a month for poetry instead!

• Why not write poems in November?

She had written thirty poetry prompts for the "Read + Write: 30 Days of Poetry" feature of national poetry month last April... but had been to busy to actually write poems in April. So, now she's doing prompts for November.

Prompts, News, and a Poet Who Did It:

• Week One: Prompts and Cat Russell interview
• Week Two: Prompts and Julie Ursem Marchand interview
• Week Three: Prompts and Chuck Salmons interview
• Week Four: Prompts and Laurie Kincer interview
• Week Five: Prompts and Kerry Trautman interview

Follow along on Diane Kendig's blog, Home Again.

Poetry-- it's not a contest

Ohio Poetry Day is coming up, and I've been thinking a little about poetry contests.
Is poetry about competition?
Diane Kendig criticizes competitions, and I can see her point: really, poetry is not a contest.  "Winning" is not what poetry is about!
But I have contradictory feelings about this: I have to admit, I love contests. I have fun entering them, and I have fun watching contests. There's nothing more fun than watching a good poetry slam, and competition is absolutely essential to a slam-- that's what makes slam exciting; that's it's all about.
Or is it?
Isn't it really about a good poem? Isn't a good performance something worthwhile on its own; you don't have to "beat" somebody else to be admirable?

Writers and the Libraries of Northeast Ohio

Northeast Ohio has one thing to be proud of: we have one of the best library systems in the nation.  Diane Kendig loves libraries, and takes us on a tour of her Favorite Northeast Ohio Libraries for Writers:

• Introduction
• Skirball Writers Center at the Cuyahoga County Public Library
• Contemporary Poetry & Ohio Center for the Book at Cleveland Public Library
• Greg L Reese Performing Arts Center and More at East Cleveland Public Library
• Teen Writing Group and other services at Canal Fulton Public Library
• Writers' Series and Writers' website at Stark County District Library

Canal Fulton Public Library

Thirty Days of Poetry Starts on Friday!

Diane Kendig writes:

Dear Poets:

The CCPL project which you all helped me pioneer for National Poetry Month is in its third year, starting this Friday. What some said would "never go" because "no one reads poetry" registered 400 readers the first day, which came up to 600 for the first year and now is up to 1200 registered readers with an extremely high rate of email openings. A book is coming out with an article by CCPL librarian Laurie Kincer on the success of the endeavor. Here are three updates for you on the project:

1) With the new Writers Center in the South Euclid Library, there has been shuffling of the web. If you thought your page had been disappeared, take heart. The library has remounted the 2014 and 2015 sites, where you can find your poem and continue to link/share it:

http://www.cuyahogalibrary.org/Services/William-N-Skirball-Writers-Center/Poetry.aspx#30days

2) Registration is now open to receive daily emails for this year's 30 poets/poems/prompts. If you registered in previous years, you are still registered. If not, or if you have new friends, classes, or relatives who would be interested, please share the link to get registered:

• Sign up for the E-mail!
• Visit the site!

3) Finally, you are invited to attend the two live events associated with this year's project:

• Saturday, April 2nd at 2:00 p.m. - A reading by Cleveland's own Amit Majmudar, the new Poet Laureate of the State of Ohio and our April 1st email. Details for registering here: http://www.cuyahogalibrary.org/Events/Event-Results/Event-Detail.aspx?id=83562 

• Saturday, April 30 at 2:00 p.m. - An open mic to punctuate the end of National Poetry Month. Details here: http://www.cuyahogalibrary.org/Events/Event-Results/Event-Detail.aspx?id=81740&et=Writing

If you have any questions about the month's events, feel free to contact me or our terrific librarian Laurie Kincer.

30 Poems & 30 Poets from Northeast Ohio

Cuyahoga Public library's 30 Days of Poetry has published 30 Poems & 30 Poets from Northeast Ohio!

Here are the poems:

Mary Turzillo, Road Kill

Larry Smith, Where I Am Going/Where I Have Been

Sarah Gridley, Poetry Makes Nothing Happen

Mwatabu S. Okantah, driving while black

Gail Bellamy, Spice Rub

Gina Tabasso, Speaking Honestly

Mark Kuhar, citytalk

P.K. Saha, The Power of Instinct

Kevin Prufer, What I Gave the 20th Century

Theresa Göttl Brightman, In Doubt

Nancy Boutilier, The Idea of a Body

Terry Provost, Cleveland, to what shall I lichen thee?

Dianne Borsenik, Pools of —

Mary Quade, Air Show: F-16s above Cleveland

Jack McGuane, Particles

Ted Lardner, Paintbrush Left Overnight on the Ground Asana

John Burroughs, Disciples

Jeanne Bryner, Blue Collar

Caryl Pagel, Vision #5

Catherine Criswell, Spring Tease

Nina Freedlander Gibans, From The Bridges That Hart Crane Left

Chris Franke, Logo- machy

RA Washington, Invalide

Joshua Gage, Three Haiku from “Spring”

Tim Joyce, Stone Mad

Meridith Holmes, Staying Behind

Rita Grabowski, My Mother and I, Together

Ben Gulyas, It is a poem's own dirty breath

Sara Holbrook, Canvassing for the School Levy

Diane Gilliam L’Inglese

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If you want to hear some poetry, April's 30 days of Poetry will end with a reading.  They're celebrating with Poetry Open Mic @ the Library tomorrow.

•  What: Poetry Open Mic @ the Library 
• When: Thursday, April 30, 6:30pm – 8:30 pm 
• Where: Parma Snow Branch of Cuyahoga County Public Library, 2121 Snow Road, Parma, OH 44134

This open mic is for everyone who writes poetry - and especially those who have been writing this April in response to the Library's daily Read + Write: 30 Days of Poetry. Come read your poem! Sign up to read starts at 6:30 p.m. Please make sure your poem is under five minutes in length and appropriate for a public audience of all ages.

Stark poetry

Are you having a great national poetry month?  Are you following the Cuyahoga Public library's 30 Days of Poetry series, featuring 30 poems by 30 Northeast Ohio poets (today's poet: Jack McGuane), and challenging you to write your own 30 days of poetry?

Meanwhile, the Stark county library is also celebrating Ohio poets:

To celebrate National Library Week, we asked seven Stark County authors to loan the library a passage of a previously published work that touched somehow on the theme of libraries, librarians, books, and/or reading. We also asked each of them to tell us what libraries have meant to them. Each day this week we are featuring the response of one of those writers among whom are a historian, a journalist, three poets, and two fiction writers. You can come here daily to read their offerings.

Keep watching all week, and don't miss some of the writers featured:

Bonnie Jacobson

• April 18: Vancy Voyle
• April 17: Robert Miltner
• April 16: Richard McElroy
• April 15: Bonnie Jacobson
• April 14: Charita Goshay
• April 13: John Estes.
• April 12: Tom Barlow

30 days of Poetry!

Today the Cuyahoga County Public Library starts their celebration of National Poetry Month with "30 days of Poetry"!
They'll feature a poem from a different Northeast Ohio poet every day this month:

30 Days of Poetry

along with poetry writing prompts.
Or, sign up for to get their daily e-mail: to date, 1249 people have signed up to get the daily page! (That's even more than last year, when prizes were given away for signing up).
And, last year they didn't have a place for readers to post. This year you can comment on the day’s post, as well as tweet #readwritepoetry

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• Cuyahoga County Public Library Facebook page
• Last year's 30 days of poetry
• AND there’s going to be a 30-days-of-poetry Open Mic at the Parma-Snow branch the last day, April 30th.

Many thanks to 

Diane Kendig 

for organizing it all!

Heights Arts presents Ekphrastacy: Artists Talk + Poets Respond

Cleveland Heights, OH - On Thursday, April 2 at 7:00 p.m., the community is invited to join an evening of conversation with Daniel Levin, associate professor of photographer at Cuyahoga Community College and guest curator of Impermanence, on view at Heights Arts through April 18.  Showcasing the works of 11 Cleveland photographers, Impermanence celebrates Cleveland’s changing urban landscape—from Tremont to the Heights inner ring suburbs—through pairs of photographs showing the same view of a site at different historical times.  Levin and exhibition photographers will discuss “rephotographic survey,” the concept and process behind Impermanence, as well as the stories behind the creation of their images.

Image: "The Vogue Beauty of Lola," 1995 Beverly Conley / 2015 Mark Holz

In an interesting twist to the standard curator’s talk, Heights Arts also invites regional poets to respond to the works on view as part of the evening. Hear from Cleveland Heights’ incoming Poet Laureate Meredith Holmes, plus poets Bunny Breslin, Diane Kendig, Robert McDonough, Jill Sell and Catherine Wing, who will read original poems created in response to these photographs of our city. A reception is held prior to the talk; all are encouraged to come early and enjoy refreshments while viewing the exhibition.

2175 Lee Road
Cleveland Heights, OH 44118

216.371.3457  

www.heightsarts.org