Traveling Stanzas / Lakewood Public Library Poetry Contest

 

Poetry Contest

Submissions accepted between Monday, March 4, 2019 and Monday, April 22, 2019 at 9:00 p.m. To submit a poem, visit the Traveling Stanzas exhibit and use the theme, Immigrant Voices, to compose your work. Poems will be judged by local poets. Winners and two runners up will be selected from the following age groups: K-8 grade, 9-12 grade and over 18. The contest will culminate with a poetry reading by the winners. Submissions accepted at any Library service desk or can be emailed to events@lakewoodpubliclibrary.org. Please include your name, contact information and age group.

Daniel Thompson: One Tough Poet

Documentary - Daniel Thompson: One Tough Poet (2019)

Daniel Thompson at Cafe Noir, 2003
foto © Steven B. Smith, agentofchaos.com

This new film, directed by Jim Wolpaw, is the culmination of a twelve-year effort to document the life of a cultural hero. Daniel Thompson was a fearless poet and social activist. In 1992, he was proclaimed the first poet laureate of Cuyahoga County. The resolution states, “Daniel Thompson has distinguished himself as one of Cuyahoga County’s most colorful, talented and concerned citizens.” Well-known for his humorous, playful and poignant work, Thompson’s legacy lives on in the Northeast Ohio poetry community. 

Two showings:

Tuesday, March 26, 2019 at 7 p.m.

Cleveland Heights-University Heights Public Library

2345 Lee Road
Cleveland Heights, OH 44118
(216) 932-3600

Wednesday, March 27, 2019 at 6:30 p.m.

Lakewood Public Library

Main Library Auditorium

15425 Detroit Avenue

Lakewood, Ohio 44107

(216) 226-8275

Coming Up at the Lakewood Public Library

This spring Lakewood Public Library and Wick Poetry Center will be presenting an interactive poetry exhibit with a plethora of supporting programs focusing on poetry and the immigrant experience. Here are a few highlights:

Exhibit ─ Traveling Stanzas: Immigrant Voices

Presented by The Wick Poetry Center at Kent State University

Main Library Second Floor Gallery  

Lakewood Public Library and Wick Poetry Center present Traveling Stanzas: Immigrant Voices, an interactive exhibit including creative writing tools and activities. Acknowledging the unique experiences of immigrants in our community, this public display engages a dialogue through the intimate and inclusive voice of poetry. The exhibit is open to visitors from March 1, 2019 through April 30, 2019, with supporting programs throughout the spring and summer.

Poetry ContestSubmissions accepted between Monday, March 4, 2019 and Monday, April 22, 2019 at 9:00 p.m. To submit a poem, visit the Traveling Stanzas exhibit and use the theme, Immigrant Voices, to compose your work. Poems will be judged by local poets. Winners and two runners up will be selected from the following age groups: K-8 grade, 9-12 grade and over 18. The contest will culminate with a poetry reading by the winners. Submissions accepted at any Library service desk or can be emailed to events@lakewoodpubliclibrary.org. Please include your name, contact information and age group.

Traveling Stanzas: Immigrant Voices Opening Gala

Featuring: David Hassler, Director Wick Poetry Center; Katie Daley, Teaching Artist Wick Poetry Center and a performance by Global Connections

Friday, March 8, 2019 music starts at 6:30 p.m., opening remarks begin at 7:00 p.m.

Main Library Grand Reading Room

We invite you to celebrate the opening of Traveling Stanzas: Immigrant Voices. David Hassler will speak about the history and impact of the Traveling Stanzas exhibits, and Katie Daley will speak about leading workshops in our community to create poetry featured in our exhibit. The poetry created in these workshops is directly reflected in this public display. There will also be a performance by Global Connections and a poetry reading.    

Poetry Workshops

Led by Leanne Hoppe

Thursdays: March 14, 2019; March 28, 2019; April 11, 2019 and April 25, 2019 at 7:00 p.m.

Tuesdays: March 19, 2019 (18 and younger only); April 2, 2019 and April 16, 2019 at 7:00 p.m.

Main Library Second Floor Gallery

From the Italian, stanza means a room—a place to pause. Indeed, Traveling Stanzas offers individuals moments of pause, with which to reflect on their lives, their city and a shared experience of their community. Leanne Hoppe, local teacher, editor and translator will lead workshops in the Traveling Stanzas Exhibit to give attendees a structured moment to explore the interactive tools. Tuesday, March 19, 2019 is reserved for individuals 18 and under.  

WordStage- Give Me Your Tired: Expressions of Immigration

Sunday, April 28, 2019 at 2:00 p.m.

Main Library Auditorium

Poet Emma Lazarus wrote, “The New Colossus”. Its most iconic line reads, “Give me your tired, your poor, / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free”. Join us for this performance featuring immigrant stories through the poetic voice. The poems featured will come from community members and influential poets. WordStage is a chamber music reader’s theater dedicated to the presentation of works with special literary, historical and musical merit.

Traveling Stanzas: Immigrant Voices Poetry Contest Reading

Tuesday, April 30, 2019 at 7:00 p.m.

Main Library Auditorium

The Traveling Stanzas: Immigrant Voices Poetry contest will culminate in a poetry reading featuring the winners and two runners up from each of the three age categories. The winners will be selected by a panel of local poets. Each submission is inspired by the Traveling Stanzas Exhibit, exploring the theme of immigrant voices and reflecting on the impact of immigration in our community. Join us to hear from the winners as well as from a local poet.

For details on these and additional programs, visit lakewoodpubliclibrary.org.

Lakewood Public Library

15425 Detroit Avenue

Lakewood, Ohio 44107

(216) 226-8275

National Poetry Month coming up at the Lakewood Public Library

Lakewood Public Library will present the following 2018 National Poetry Month programs at their Main Library, located at 15425 Detroit Avenue, Lakewood Ohio, 44107.

Poetry Workshops

Tuesdays: April 3, April 10, April 17, April 24 at 7:00 p.m. in the Main Library Multipurpose Room

Writing poetry is about the journey, not the destination. Part of that journey is seeing what you’ll discover, surprising yourself and enjoying the bumps in the road. Leanne Hoppe will be your poet tour guide on this adventure—all abilities and experience levels are welcome. Hoppe, who teaches at Lorain County Community College, received her master’s degree in creative writing from Boston University, and her work appears or is forthcoming in Bayou Magazine, Gravel and Driftwood Press. Her translations of the Italian poet Michela Zanarella were published in 2017 by Bordighera Press. More details.

Coast Line: April Reading

Wednesday, April 4 at 7:00 p.m. in the Main Library Auditorium 

Coast Line: Poetry Reading Series is Lakewood Public Library's showcase of our community's poetic talent. Readings by Robert Miltner, D.L. Ware and Catherine Wing. More details.

Documentary: Louder than a Bomb

Tuesday, April 10 at 6:30 p.m. in the Main Library Auditorium

Every year, students across Chicago compete in the largest youth poetry slam in the world. From junior high to college age, this event showcases voices from all walks of life in their most honest form. The tournament features an individual poem from each team member and then a group piece performed by four students. Follow the teams and individuals as they prepare and perform original pieces, and tell their stories drawn from experience and hardship. Their poems reveal perspectives to the audience and each other that might otherwise never be heard. This annual event allows young people from all over Chicago to share themselves through spoken art. More details.

Meet the Author: Clouds Pile Up in the North: New & Selected Poems by Major 'Maj' Ragain 

Thursday, April 12 at 7:00 p.m. in the Main Library Auditorium

Maj Ragain is the author of seven chapbooks of poetry and five book-length collections, all of which contribute to Clouds Pile Up in the North: New & Selected Poems. Lisa Coffman, author of Less Obvious Gods says, “These poems hold so lightly what can’t be held—old queen asleep in her milkweed chamber, the full Hunter’s moon, Secondhand Rose and February dusk, the dragon’s egg nestled against the breastbone, the lost silver earring among the flowers. You will find in this book thirst and burning air, songs in the key of High Lonesome, truths maybe we were afraid to want, and a top-down fast-ride in the convertible of Delight. Friend, Fellow Traveler, if you wished to know whether there was a place set for you at the banquet, let me point you toward Maj Ragain’s poems. They are sustenance. They are sweet mortal joy.” Ragain has served for more than thirty years as host to open poetry readings, currently at Last Exit Books. Books will be available for sale and signing at this event.

WordStage: d.a. levy

Sunday, April 15 at 2:00 p.m. in the Main Library Auditorium

In 1960s Cleveland, poets haunted coffee shops, printed zines with mimeographs and frequently ran into trouble with the law. There were many talented yet troubled writers in Cleveland, but none more infamous than d.a. levy. Though charged with distributing obscene writing in 1966, levy was a strong believer in Buddhism and a champion of justice. levy continued to document Cleveland’s gritty charm and rough interior through his poetry, founding Cleveland’s first underground newspaper, the Buddhist Third-Class Junkmail Oracle. Through that medium, he published scores of powerful poetic voices of the decade. He was a force to be reckoned with in the creative community of the time, and continues to inspire artists from Northeast Ohio and beyond. WordStage is a chamber music reader’s theater, dedicated to the presentation of works with special literary, historical and musical merit.

Poetry in Person continues at the Lakewood Public Library

Don’t Laugh! (Out Loud)
The Poetry of Joe Toner and Dan Rourke
Being pretentious, dreary and inscrutable—all at the same time—is a lot of hard work. These two local poets take the easy way out. Despite their education, these veteran schoolteachers prefer to write sweet, breezy verses that can be appreciated by anyone with an ear for a well-turned phrase and a feeling for the beautiful little twists and turns of life. Joe, who claims to have roller-skated from Minneapolis to Cleveland, also claims to have read poetry with Dan at the Shaker Library’s Poetry in the Woods program for the last ten years. “We’d like to bring our poetry to Lakewood so that our west side friends can scratch their heads with the same vigor as our east side friends.” Dan, a former English teacher, former magazine editor and former employee of a surprising number of defunct bookstores, is the proud author of a series of breathtaking, unpublished novels. While both are known for making even the hardest-hearted critics of poetry crack a smile, Dan specializes in the linguistically astonishing as Joe gives himself over to the absurd. Bobbleheads of Ovid will be given away to the first fifty audience members who realize that this is a joke and that there will be no free giveaways.
Tuesday, April 15 at 7:00 p.m. in the Main Library Auditorium

On the Flyleaf: Herbert Woodward Martin
Celebrates Poetry and Song
Poems are nothing more than songs. Songs are simply poems sung. These simple truths form the essence of Herbert Woodward Martin’s beliefs and craft. Martin is perhaps best known as a scholar and performer of the pioneering African American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar’s works— performances that he’s taken as far west as Chaminade University in Hawaii and as far east as The Alexandrine Library in Egypt. He's also the celebrated author of eight volumes of poetry. In this program, Martin will both demystify verse and praise its virtues. First, he will give an impromptu demonstration of how to write a poem using words supplied by the audience. Then he will discuss the legacy of the Dayton born Paul Laurence Dunbar. Dunbar only lived thirty-three short years, barely glimpsing the dawn of the twentieth century, but his verses have proved enormously influential. Martin will perform some of these pieces, blurring the line between recitation and full-throated song. Any skeptics who might be in the audience will have the dust blown off their preconceptions when they are confronted by the power, rhythm and humanity contained in a sequence of mere words, read with conviction and unabashed reverence. This is a program that you simply must witness. Books will be available for sale and signing at the event.
Thursday, April 17 at 7:00 p.m. in the Main Library Auditorium

Water’s Footfall: The Poetry of Sohrab Sepehri
Presented by Dr. Mohammad Jafar Mahallati
Sohrab Sepehri was born in 1928 on a journey between Kashan, his family's home, and Qum. An acclaimed painter, Sepehri published eight books of poetry during his lifetime and traveled widely throughout the world, including Europe, South Asia, the Middle East, China and Japan, the United States and South America. Many of his poems were influenced by his relationship with nature and his studies of Eastern philosophy and visual arts. They were often composed in a cadence similar to spoken language, considered a radical innovation at the time. Sepehri died in 1980 and in Iran is considered to be one of the most important poets of the twentieth century. Pierre Joris described Sepheri as, “a modernist Muslim for whom the black stone of the Kaaba was the sunlight in the flowers. He tried to invent a world in poetry and a poetry in the world as had not been seen since the Nishapur of Omar Khayyam. He made it new, indeed—writing a poetry that is a geometry of breath from which music grows, with its cargo of light.” Mohammad Jafar Mahallati, one of Sepheri’s English translators, is currently Presidential Scholar in Islamic Studies at Oberlin College. He served as Iran's ambassador to the United Nations from 1987 to 1989 and successfully negotiated a peace agreement to end the war between Iran and Iraq. His scholarship has focused on Islamic and Sufi poetry and most recently on the philosophy of friendship. Books will be available for sale and signing at the event.
Wednesday, April 23 at 7:00 p.m. in the Main Library Auditorium




Weather by Dave Lucas
In this debut collection, named winner of the Ohioana Book Prize in 2012, Dave Lucas turns and returns to Cleveland. The weather he writes about arises from the lush light of the natural world and the hard rain of industry. Poem by poem, Lucas surveys the majesty and ruin of landscape and lakefront, paying tribute to the shifting seasons of a city, of a terrain, and of those who dwell there. “I love our weather. There's always a moment in the winter when I'm sick of it and a moment sooner in the summer. But I love the steel look to the sky in winter. It makes our few days of crystal blue in spring and fall all the more worthwhile. I use the word weather as a verb. This city is weathering the storm. The town has been beaten down, but many Clevelanders take that as a point of pride. Like the coffee mugs say, ‘Cleveland: You gotta be tough.’” Books will be available for sale and signing at the event.
Wednesday, April 30 at 7:00 p.m. in the Main Library Auditorium



 
A Lyrical Life: Reflections on Life-Journeys through Poetry and Song
Presented by Rabbi Enid Lader
Explore your own life journey through poetry in this four-week program presented by Case Western Reserve University. The roads upon which you've traveled are marked by steps still to be taken. Rabbi Enid Lader will lead a discussion of poetry and song that beckons us to reflect on what it means to think of our lives as a journey and how the text of our lives reflects our values. We will explore the questions of what we want to pass on to the next generation and what is in store for us in the future. Rabbi Enid C. Lader has served the Beth Israel -The West Temple congregation since August, 2012. Active in the Educational Director's Network, Enid also served in various capacities on the regional board for the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (now the Union for Reform Judaism) and has taught the west side Taste of Judaism and Feast of Judaism classes for the Jewish Education Center of Cleveland for over twelve years.
Thursdays at 7:00 p.m. in the Main Library AuditoriumApril 24, May 1, May 8, May 15

Lakewood Public Library
15425 Detroit Avenue
Lakewood, Ohio
(216) 226-8275
www.lakewoodpubliclibrary.org