April 27: Fireside Poetry Festival in Chagrin Falls

From our friends at Fireside Book Shop:

More info: https://www.firesidebookshop.com/events/2024/4/27/fireside-book-shop-poetry-festival.

Fireside Book Shop
29 North Franklin Street
Chagrin Falls, OH, 44022

Celebrate National Poetry Month with Ohio Center for the Book

From our friends at Ohio Center for the Book:

Celebrate National Poetry Month With Us

This April, celebrate National Poetry Month with the Ohio Center for the Book as four acclaimed Ohio poets representing Cleveland, Cincinnati, and Dayton visit us at Cleveland Public Library for two weekend poetry readings. These events are free and open to the public. Sat., April 20: Lindsay Turner and Noah Falck Sat., April 27: Stephanie Ginese and Taylor Byas For location information, check out our host library's Calendar of Events.

Get Details on our National Poetry Month Events At Our Website

 Once again, it's National Poetry Month, and that means that the Cuyahoga Public Library is doing its tenth annual Read+Write: 30 days of Poetry. Sign up, and get a poetry prompt, and a new poem by an Ohio writer in your box every day!

Post your poem in the comments, and read what others post.

How to sign up for the daily poetry emails:

1. Go to this page, Email Preferences - Cuyahoga County Public Library (cuyahogalibrary.org)
2. Fill in first name, last name, email address.
3. Scroll to the bottom to “Read + Write: 30 Days of Poetry” and click Yes.
4. Click the yellow subscribe button right below it.

Sign up for daily poetry in April!

From our friends at the Cuyahoga County Public Library:

Daily poetry delivered to you

In celebration of National Poetry Month in April, we're bringing you READ + WRITE: 30 Days of Poetry. Each day, we'll present the works of Ohio's best poets, highlight poetry books and give you fun writing prompts to spark your own inner poet! Subscribe to get READ + WRITE: 30 Days of Poetry delivered to your inbox daily in April.

Subscribe now

Poetry month, featuring 30 Days of Poetry!

 

Once again, it's April with his shoures soote (in this case, snow showers). And that means once again it's National Poetry Month. And, once again, Laurie Kincer of the Cuyahoga County Public library has put together Thirty Days of Poetry, featuring a poem from a Northeastern Ohio Poet, and a poetry prompt, delivered right into your inbox every day this month.

Laurie writes:

Hello, poets!

 

I hope you’re signed up to receive Read + Write: 30 Days of Poetry, Cuyahoga County Public Library’s National Poetry Month blog. Every day in April, you’ll receive a poem by a poet who lives, works, or has some important tie to northeast Ohio; a poetry writing prompt to try; and a poetry book to check out of the library. Here’s a sample of the daily blog and the link to sign up for it. 

 

You’re also invited to these special poetry workshops:

• Now We’re Cookin’: Recipes for Revising Half-Baked Poems - Cuyahoga County Public Library (cuyahogalibrary.org) Thursday, April 1, 7-8:30 p.m.
• Practical Principles of Writing Poetry - Cuyahoga County Public Library (cuyahogalibrary.org) Saturday, May 1, 10 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.

 

And, of course, these regular, monthly gatherings of poets:

• Second Sunday Poets - Cuyahoga County Public Library (cuyahogalibrary.org) Sunday, April 11, 3-4:30 p.m. Featured reader: Toledo poet Jonie McIntire, host of Uncloistered Poetry.
• West Side Poetry Writing Workshop - Cuyahoga County Public Library (cuyahogalibrary.org) Thursday, April 22, 6:30-8:30 p.m.

 

Happy National Poetry Month to you and yours!

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...and if that's not enough for you, check out Michelle R. Smith's blog, "Forcing Bulbs", where she is posting a poetry prompt every day in celebration of NaPoWriMo.  Start with Day One.

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•  Read + Write: 30 Days of Poetry
• Forcing Bulbs

Not too late to catch up on A POEM A DAY!

It's April, and you know what that means... yes: 30 day of Poetry from the Cuyahoga County Public Library, featuring a new poem every day from a Northeastern Ohio poet, and a poetry prompt for you to write your own.
You're a week behind, but it's not too late to catch up: sign up for the daily e-mail.

We are one week into our #readwritepoetry 30 Days of Poetry Month. Click the link below to get caught up on our featured poetry blog posts and our daily "Write a Poem" exercises. View the blog posts Thank you for joining our Read + Write: 30 Days of Poetry mailing list. Follow #readwritepoetry on Twitter  ‌  ‌  ‌  ‌  ‌

Cuyahoga County Public Library | 2111 Snow Road, Parma, OH 44134 Privacy Policy

Or check out what's gone down:

• 1 April, 2020: The Trace of Hope From Lock 29
• 2 April, 2020: After Picking Up
• 3 April, 2020: Toady Tells Me, Over Tea And Tabnabs
• 4 April, 2020: The Rave at the End of Days
• 5 April, 2020: Poet
• 6 April, 2020: The World Is Waiting For a Repairman
• 7 April, 2020: Orange Dripping Summer
• 8 April: Sonnet 4 / A Prayer For Our Son
• 9 April: Buzzard
• 10 April: Drawing Death
• 11 April: Lost Pond
• 12 April: The Only Technology Worth Saving
• 13 April: Rapture-Benjamin Moore #CC-66
• 14 April: Beyond Cana 
• 15 April: Cave Drawings
• 16 April: Ubi Sunt
• 17 April: Melodious Thunk
• 18 April: You Are Standing In—
• 19 April: Untitled haiku
• 20 April: At a Polling Station Somewhere in Ukraine
• 21 April: Something About the Pink Sky
• 22 April: Riding a Dead Horse
• 23 April: Untitled haiku
• 24 April: Love Amoeba
• 25 April: Woodstove
• 26 April: A Gnashing of Teeth
• 27 April: Flash Flood
• 28 April: Mile 31
• 29 April: A Deer in Cleveland Heights
• 30 April: If My Home Were an Album, Would You Listen?

Poetry Month!

Once again, the calendar has rolled around to April, and tomorrow will be the start of National Poetry Month. And that means that the Cuyahoga Public Library is celebrating with their month-long Read+Write: Thirty Days of Poetry. For every day of the National Poetry month, you can expect a new poem by a Northeastern Ohio poet, along with a poetry prompt, and a daily challenge. Sign up now!  

• Read+Write: 30 Days of Poetry: 
• First Post, April 1
• Archive of posts to date
• Sign up for Read+Write: 30 Days of Poetry
• Cuyahoga County Library: Listing of Poetry Month Events
• Poetry Foundation: Celebrate National Poetry Month

A Dozen Ways To Revel In Poetry

image by xXRavenSongXx

For National Poetry Month, Laura Grace Weldon gives us A Dozen Ways To Revel In Poetry:

Leave poems where they’ll be discovered... Pull a poem from a hat... Dine with poetry...

April and the City

Easter Lake by Smith (from the City poetry Winter Spring 2018

Today is April Fool's Day, Easter, and the first day of National Poetry Month, and in celebration, the City Poetry 'zine has their Winter Spring 2018 issue out.

Cleveland Public Library also has the first day of their "Read+Write: 30 Days of Poetry" posted, with the poem "Tall Skeleton" (by South Euclid poet Patrick Culliton), along with the first of thirty poem-writing prompts.  It's not too late to sign up for their 30 Days of Poetry mailing list, and get a link to a poem and a prompt every day in April.

And the Writing Knights has their own poetry challenge (and poetry prompts) for April: not a poem a day, but ten poems in thirty days. Azriel invites you to join their roundtable on Facebook to write and discuss.

• Follow ReadWritePoetry on Twitter

National Poetry Month Coming Up at Cuyahoga County LIbrary

The William N. Skirball Writers' Center at the Cuyahoga County Public Library will also, once again, be celebrating National Poetry Month in April with their Read +Write: 30 Days of Poetry feature. Each day in April will have a poem and info on a different North Eastern Ohio poet, plus a poem-writing prompt every day of the month.
If you have not yet signed up to receive Read+Write Poetry daily in your email during April... why not?  Just click here!

...and don't miss Poetry Month events at the branch libraries:

Poetry Bootcamp

Monday, April 2, 9, 16, 23, 30

Parma Branch

7-8:30 p.m.

Friday the 13^th Poets “No Fear!” Open Mic

Friday, April 13

South Euclid-Lyndhurst Branch

7-8:30 p.m.

Foolin’ Around with Poetry

Sunday, April 15

South Euclid-Lyndhurst Branch

2-4 p.m.

Favorite Poem Reading

Sunday, April 22

South Euclid-Lyndhurst Branch

2-3:30 p.m.

Cyril A. Dostal Poetry Writing Workshop

Thursday, April 19
(and the third Thursday of every month)

South Euclid-Lyndhurst Branch

6:30-8:30 p.m.

West Side Poetry Writing Workshop

Thursday, April 26

(and the third Thursday of every month)
Parma Branch

6:30-8:30 p.m.

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• Archive of Read+Write Poetry from earlier years
• #NationalPoetryMonth on Twitter
• #readwritepoetry on Twitter

--know of any other National Poetry Month events?  Tell us!

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.

National Poetry Month coming up at the Cleveland Public Library

Once again, the Cleveland Public Library & Ohio Center for the Book is setting up their events for National Poetry Month, with workshops and a Monday open mike.
Check out their National Poetry Month events listing

--know of any other National Poetry Month events?  Tell us!

National Poetry Month!

Once again, it's National Poetry month, so if you want poems to read and prompts to write poetry, this is the month! There's a wide smörgåsbord available.

Over at the Cuyahoga library, check out

• Read Write: Thirty Days of Poetry has a poem every day, and a writing prompt inspired by the poetry
• Start with their April 1 post, featuring "Fold,” by Cleveland poet Ali McClain, and go on from there
• Sign up for their e-mail list
• or check out their twitter feed #readwritepoetry

Meanwhile, Writing Knights is featuring a daily poetry prompt on the subject of contronyms: words with two or more opposite meanings:

• National Poetry Month posts
• Start with quiddity and puzzle
• like & follow their Facebook page for updates

And, moving away from Northeast Ohio, Robert Lee Brewer's Poetic Asides is doing his annual April Poem a Day challenge:

• Ignore the ads, and start at Poem A Day, Day One: reminiscing poem
• Challenge Guidelines

--and April is a great month to attend live poetry events. 

• Check out what's happening at any of the 65 readings, poetry workshops, and other writing-related events going on in April, listed on the Clevelandpoetics Calendar.
• And don't miss this Saturday's Heights Arts Haiku Deathmatch at Dobama (OK, I guess I've mentioned this before).

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• More ways to celebrate National poetry month