Poet's Haven Halloween Jubilee

The Poet's Haven will be holding a Halloween Jubilee on Saturday, October 31st at Oak Knoll Park in Massillon! Doors will open at noon with poetry and music performances starting at 1:00. This will be an all-ages event featuring poetry and music performances from; Steve Brightman, Theresa Göttl Brightman, Nikann Charney, Joshua Gage, Marissa Hyde, Azriel Johnson, KnowEyePoetry Collective (CUPSI team from College of Wooster), Kristen Laine, Lennart Lundh, Nick Mayberry, Jen Pezzo, Vince Robinson, Dan Smith, J.E. Stanley, and The Stetson-Marlowe Project. J.E. Stanley's new book, The Persistence of Night, will be making its debut here. We will also be joined by our friends from Blood Pudding Press, Crisis Chronicles Press, and Writing Knights Press. Food and drinks will be available, with sales in support of the Lake Effect Poetry slam team!

More info on Facebook.

Deep Cleveland suspended in flight

Over on the Deep Cleveland Poetry Hour facebook page, Josh Gage announced that the reading series is suspended indefinitely.  It had been one of the longer-running monthly poetry readings in the area.  It had been slowly dwindling in attendance-- actually, in my opinion, it never was quite the same after Border's bookstore went out of business and the reading had to move, over to the Mugshotz coffee house, and it never really recovered its attendance. 
The event was founded by Mark Kuhar at the turn of the millennium, back in 2001, but for most of the last decade was hosted by Joshua Gage, who kept it running rain or shine, over good years and bad.
For years, this had been my "home" reading; the one reading that I attended almost every month, if I could, although sometimes other events got in my way.  Apparently there was a reading with an attendance of only one audience member (that was one I missed), and then the next time the coffeeshop was locked-- there wasn't enough business to keep the venue open late for the reading.
This is the end of an era, I guess.  Or maybe just a breathing space. 
The area is rich in poetry readings, though. John Burroughs just updated the poetry calendar (which you can find at the top of the page here) and I count 41 events coming up over the 30 days of August.  Not all of these are readings, of course.  Still, that's over one event a day.

Over on facebook, I posted this:

I wish I had a solution to the problem of attendance at poetry events, but I don't. On the one hand, the Cleveland & north Ohio area is amazingly fortunately with a huge selection of live poetry events, on the average one every day, sometimes more. On the other hand, that does have its down side as well as its good side-- can't attend them all; can't attend even a small percentage of them.
The people running local poetry events here are amazing people, putting in long hours and many miles with, for the most part, only the occasional "Thanks! Good show!" as recompense. I do want to see people at the events.

There have been some excellent readings at Deep Cleveland-- one time or another, all the great poets of the area have featured.  So, thanks for the good times.

Josh Gage as the MC of Deep Cleveland,
back at the Borders venue

Eye to the Telescope: Speculative Juxtapositions

Cleveland's Joshua Gage is the guest editor of SFPA's Eye to the Telescope web poetry-zine, for a theme issue "Juxtapositions in Speculative Poetry."  A half dozen poems, all in one way or another dealing with the theme of juxtaposition.
From Josh's introduction:

Juxtaposition is one of the basic and essential craft tools that every writer needs to master. It is also one of the most effective tools a writer can use because it forces the reader to contemplate new ideas and to place the familiar in new contexts. When used effectively, juxtaposition forces the reader to be complicit in the writing of the poem, forces them to participate in the logic and sense of the poem, creating a more fulfilling reading experience. Speculative literature thrives on juxtaposition, often asking readers to place the known and ordinary against the unfamiliar, the strange, and the fantastic. It is in these pairings, these juxtapositions, that the imagination flourishes and the reader is rewarded with new perspectives, new ideas and views on the world. The poems in this issue will, through juxtaposition, reward you in such a way.

Cleveland Collaborative Renga-- Start

autumn cemetery
what would the dead give to hear
leaves crumbling under feet?

       from the hilltop, through bare trees
     towers gleam in evening sun

          scarecrow 
          the chirrup of the squirrel's 
          silhouette 

              the rag-man's shadow
              echo of an old lover

                  jasmine incense
                  in a frost of moonlight
                  her discarded thong

                     cold, the smell of winter:
                     first snowflakes sparkle in the air

                          Public Square:
                          privatized
                          and empty

---

• Next verse: continued on part 2

---

Background info:

• Let's do renku 
• Do you know... renku?
• Let's do renku (2)

Let's do Renku (2): Ready to Start

Time to start our collaborative poem!  This one will be a Kasen renga, with the starting season autumn.

Here is how it works:
The poem will alternate three-line 5/7/5 stanzas ("haiku") and two-line 7-7 stanzas, until we reach a total of 36 stanzas (18 three line stanzas, and 18 two-line).

Anybody is invited to contribute a stanza!  Just post it in the comments.  No anonymous contributions, though--this will be a signed poem.  You can contribute as many times as you want, but you can't write two stanzas in a row *.

We won't be strict about syllable count, though I will insist on  three lines alternating with two. 

Josh just wrote a post with some of the lore and the rules of renga, but you don't have to memorize the order of seasons: I will post a note which season is appropriate (I will be using the template of seasons according to Higginson, Ideal Order of the Seasons in a Kasen Renku).   Note that a reference to the season can be implied, it does not have to be explicit, and not every stanza has to have an reference to the season (many are no-season stanzas).

Since Ray McNiece is the winner of the most recent Cleveland Haiku shoot-out, he is officially the Haiku master of Cleveland, and so I have invited him to contribute the hokku (the first stanza).  As "host," I will contribute the second stanza (the "wakiku").  Josh Gage, the haiku guru, will contribute the third stanza (the "daisan").

Ready yet?  I'll post the first lines tomorrow.

After that, it's up to you!

---

*actually, in a couple of specific places one poet can write two stanzas in a row.  I will tell you when we reach those stanzas.

World Zombie Day

Voodoo Museum, New Orleans

Don't look behind you, but World Zombie Day is coming up on Saturday October 12. Do you have plans yet?

open grave

the moonlight glistens

on coffin splinters

--Joshua Gage

If you don't, here's a plan for you: hide away safe indoors with a good book.  Let me suggest Inhuman: Haiku from the Zombie Apocalypse, Joshua Gage's book of zombie haiku, out from Poet's Haven.

• World zombie day: survival tips.
• Examiner survival tips

Check in at World Zombie Day Headquarters on Facebook.

• Review by Diane Severson

---

"open grave," from Inhuman: Haiku from the Zombie Apocalypse, copyright Joshua Gage, used with permission

The Professor of Horror and Haiku

a rare photograph of Professor Gage
not wearing his trademark purple bathrobe

Cleveland's Joshua Gage, haiku-master and MC of the long-running Deep Cleveland Poetry Hour, will be presenting "Vampires, Zombies and Cannibals, Oh My!: An Exploration of Horror in Haiku Based on Intervals of Fear" at the Haiku North America conference this month. HNA is the largest and oldest gathering of haiku poets in the United States and Canada.

"Horror is directly related to the idea of time, either stretching out time, condensing time, containing time, etc.  Gage will discuss this, and then show clips from horror movies, and explore how directors use these images and condense or expand time. Once it is established that the manipulation of time can create moments of horror, participants will mine these clips for imagery that could then be used to develop strong horrorku.  The conference theme describes intervals as "where humanity slows, observes, absorbs"--and Gage's premise is that haiku can manipulate time to create a more haunting and/or horrorific experience."

Congrats, Josh!

---

Manipulating time:

moments of horror

moments of haiku

---

• Inhuman: Haiku from the Zombie Apocalypse by Joshua Gage

Clevelanders in the Eye's Body

You wouldn't know it, but Cleveland is seriously a hotbed of speculative poetry.  The Science Fiction Poetry Association has just came out with issue 9 of their online journal of speculative poetry, Eye to the Telescope. Each issue is a theme issue, and the latest, with guest editor Catherynne Valente, has a theme of "bodies:"

In science fiction and fantasy, the body is a battleground, a liminal space, a canvas, a friend, an enemy, an object, a subject, a transitory state, something to be left behind, something to be embraced, something to be denied, something to alter. All our experience begins in the body, and poetry, with its vivid, deep language, has always been uniquely situated to express the complicated relationship between the possessor of the body and the body itself. 

The issue has poetry by two local poets, with two poems by Marie Vibbert, and two more by Joshua Gage. Congrats to Marie and Josh!

The SFPA also publishes the anthology Dwarf Stars once a year, with the best short-short speculative poetry of the year (full disclosure: I edited it last year), where "short short" includes haiku, senryu, cinquains, scifaiku, and other miscellaneous poems of ten lines and under.  I just received this year's Dwarf Stars volume yesterday, and see poems by Mary A. Turzillo, dan smith, and me.

You want to hear what short-short speculative poetry is about?  You're in luck: next month five of the Dwarf-star poets will be doing a reading from Dwarf Stars (both the last issue, and this one) at the Second Wednesday Poetry Reading, August 14 at 7pm at Mac's Backs.  Come at 7 for the feature; but stay for the round-robin poetry that follows!

Or, if you can't wait, you can buy a copy for $5.00 (plus two dollars postage) from SFPA.

Dwarf Stars. Cover Art: "Elephant" by neisbeis.deviantart.com

Some Amazing reviews

A couple of Cleveland poets who write poetry toward the speculative direction in the geography of poetry have recently gotten reviews from Diane Severson in Amazing Stories.

Cleveland's haiku master Joshua Gage's new chapbook, Inhuman: Haiku from the Zombie Apocalypse (OR Inhuman: Zombie Haiku in Four Acts) (just out from The Poet’s Haven, as No. 18 in the Poet’s Haven Author Series) was reviewed in the most recent issue.  Diane writes:
"This is a volume to enjoy as a brief diversion on a stormy night and also to pull out each October in preparation for Hallowe’en."

At six dollars for a copy, it's a bargain for any poetry fans with an interest in haiku, or in horror.  And it's not too early to start thinking of gifts to give your friends and family for World Zombie day!

And Mary Turzillo's book Lovers and Killers (which has been mentioned here before) also rated a good review from Diane in the April Amazing: 
"I really like Mary Turzillo’s writing style. It’s less formal than many poets in her syntax and word choices, which makes it easy to read.  It’s a book that could be ripped through, it’s so easy to read, but its many-layered nature benefits from a bit more leisure."

The book of cats: "On Velvet Feet"

On Velvet Feet, available from Poet's Haven

Our cat
sprawls on the rug
like ink scrawled on parchment
composing a poem I'm too human to read.
 --Joshua Gage

There's just something about poets and cats.
Sure, there are the odd poets that love their dogs (and write about them), but from ol' possum Tommy Eliot through to Marge Piercy and on, there's been something about the mystique of the feline--simultaneously a purring ball of fur sleeping in a patch of sunshine, and a sleek and efficient predator hunting in the night shadows--that brings out the poet.
Well, for cat lovers, Poet's Haven has just published a mini-book of cat poems, featuring a number of Cleveland poets: check out "On Velvet Feet" edited by Vertigo X. Xavier (part of the "Poet's Haven Digest" series).
OK, in the spirit of full disclosure, I have to admit that yes, I have a handful of haiku here. Still, this is a great little book, small in size, but well worth the minor price of $6.00-- go buy copies for all your poetry-loving and cat-loving friends!

Thick-whiskered Buddha,

rolling belly of the world,

your mantra is purr.

--"Cat on a Zafu"

Melissa Studdard 

"Tyrael"
Photo by Geoffrey A. Landis

Deep Cleveland features the Dwarf Stars: Friday

This Friday, Feb. 8, the long-running Deep Cleveland Poetry Hour reading series will be featuring editors and authors of Dwarf Stars, an anthology of the best short-short speculative poetry of the year.  Every year, the Science Fiction Poetry Association awards the "Dwarf Stars" award to the best short speculative poetry of the year, where "short" is defined as "ten lines or fewer," and "speculative" means poems of science-fiction, fantasy, horror, surrealistic, or similar content.  The Dwarf Stars volume, which just came out, reprints the fifty best such short speculative poems of last year.

Cover Art: "Once Beyond a Time"
by overseer.deviantart.com

• Facebook event page for the reading

But, what does this have to do with Cleveland poetics, you might ask?  Well, as it turns out, this year the Dwarf Stars anthology was edited by two Cleveland poets: myself and Joshua Gage.  And the book contains, among others, poems by two Cleveland poets, J.E. Stanley and dan smith.  So the Deep Cleveland Poetry Hour is perfect for the debut of the anthology!

Should be a great night with some science fiction and fantasy poetry!
--anybody else out there write SF and fantasy?  Come on over!  We'll have an open mike!


Deep Cleveland is held on the second Friday of every month at the MugShotz Coffee Shop, 6556 Royalton Road North Royalton, Ohio; the event starts at 8, with the feature reading starting at 8:30 p.m.


Looking for a collection of scifaiku and other one-breath short-shorts that are science-fictional in the way of poetry?  The anthology will be for sale at the reading, or if you can't make it, it can be purchased from the SFPA for $8.00 plus $2.00 shipping (in the US).

Poetry in the Woods on Thursday

At the risk of too much tooting, I'd like to point out the Poetry Back in the Woods reading, at the Shaker Heights Library, Bertram Woods Branch, coming up this Thursday at 7pm.

Shaker Heights Library Events

It'll be featuring some fine poets, namely Joshua Gage, J.E. Stanley, Mary Turzillo, and dan smith. Plus possibly a surprise reader as well.

Uh, I might point out that the reading is not actually in the middle of a forest (not that there's anything wrong with that.) It will be at:

Shaker Heights Public Library,

Bertram Woods Branch

20600 Fayette Road, Shaker Heights, Ohio

(that's off Warrensville Center Road, just south of Shaker Boulevard-- just to the south of the Rapid station at Warrensville, if you're car-free)

Check out the Facebook page.

Poetry in the Woods, I might point out, has been a long-running series at the Shaker Libraries:

the series was started eleven years ago by poet, college teacher, and environmental activist Barry Zucker. After starting the readings at the Bertram Woods library--"Poetry in the Woods"-- the series also included readings at Horseshoe Lake Park ("Poetry Really in the Woods") and readings at the Main Library ("Poetry Not in the Woods.") The series is funded by the Friends of the Shaker Library and, now that it's back at Bertram Woods, it's (what else?) "Poetry Back in the Woods."

Anyway-- be there!

Joshua Gage wins Flip Kelly Poetry Prize 2010

Cleveland poet Joshua Gage was just announced as the winner of the Amsterdam Press Flip Kelly Poetry Prize 2010 for his chapbook Bedtime Stories. Congrats to Josh!

His poem "A Mother Speaks," from the book, can be found on the page with the announcement.

Ohio Poetry Day: October 15-16 2010

The 2010 Ohio Poetry Day will be celebrated on October 15 and 16 at Heidelberg University, in Tiffin, Ohio.

Ohio Poetry Day is celebrated on the third Friday and Saturday of October. From the page, I see that "Ohio Poetry Day was the first government sanctioned Poetry Day in the United States. It was through this day that other states began to celebrate a poetry Day and eventually National Poetry Month came to be."

The poetry day celebration includes the Friday evening "poets meet and greet," followed by the poets heading to Carmie's for an open mike and other amusements, but the main event on Saturday (October 15), with readings from the Ohio poet of the year, awards to the poets who won the Ohio Poetry Day contests (followed by readings), and various other readings and poetry events; not to mention the book room. The events finish up at 5, except for the after party.

Check the website at ohiopoetryday.org for more, and read the Ohio Poetry Day forum if you want to comment, ask questions, or get the most up-to-date information.

If you're on Facebook, check out the Ohio Poetry Association group.

--by the way, this year's winners of the 2010 Ohio Poetry Day contest includes a good sampling of area poets. Just noticing the names who contribute to clevelandpoetics, I see T.M. Gottl, Mary A. Turzillo, Geoffrey A. Landis (um, that would be me), Dianne Borsenik, and Joshua Gage. Congrats, poets!

Intrinsic Cinquains

Some of the Cleveland-area speculative poets have been experimenting with the cinquain, a short poetic form similar in some ways to the haiku.

Prominent among these cinquainistas have been Joshua Gage and J. E. Stanley, and now they've collaborated on a book of cinquains, Intrinsic Night, just out from Sam's Dot (available here, or look for it at Mac's Backs).

The cinquain (sometimes called the "American cinquain," to distinguish it as a definite form, distinct from other five-line forms) is a verse form invented by Imagist poet Adelaide Crapsey (1878-1914). She was one of the very early admirers of Japanese poetry forms, and came up with the cinquain partly as an American analogue of these haiku and tanka forms. Like Japanese forms, it's distinguished by a pattern of syllables: the five lines consisting of a line of two syllables, four, six, eight, and then back to two.

More complicated cinquain forms, like the mirror cinquain, butterfly cinquain, and so on (which Jim and Josh also use), build on the basic 2-4-6-8-2 structure.

As the poems in Intrinsic Night demonstrate, the cinquian builds up momentum and complexity of imagery as the length of the lines build up, and then detonates in a short final line. There's a lot that can be said, stories told and whole worlds built, in just 22 syllables!

Of the poems in Intrinsic Night, in the Simmons' Voice reviewer Stefanie Maclin wrote:

"Part science, part science-fiction, heavy on the folklore, the unexpected, and the odd shapes, findings, and beauty of everyday life, Intrinsic Night fits into no clear genre. But it also doesn't need to. Its unexpectedness defines the collection's true character."

Check it out.

Some links:

• 28 cinquains from Adelaide Crapsey's Verse
• Amaze, the Cinquain Journal
• Intrinsic Night

--

The poems from Intrinsic Night, with image layout by Joshua Gage, are used here with permission of the authors

Scifaiku: the Universe in Three Lines

"Scifaiku" is a poetic form codified by Tom Brinck with his 1995 Scifaiku Manifesto. Cleveland's notable haikuist Joshua Gage* just put together a little flyer, "The Universe in Three Lines," a sampler of scifaiku that was handed out at both the recent Haiku North America conference in Ottowa and also the recent Science Fiction world convention on Montreal.
If you're interested, check it out. Josh notes "It's a neat little tri-fold sampler with some cool 1950's graphics and really excellent scifaiku."

Or check out the scifaiku.com website.

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*who posts here under his nom d' net pottygok)