April 21st thru 25th: 2026 Cleveland Poetry Festival

From our friends at Literary Cleveland:

For more information and to register, please visit https://www.litcleveland.org/events-programs/cleveland-poetry-festival-2026.

The Cleveland Poetry Scene, 1960s-1970s - Exhibit at Kent State

Just found out about this exhibit at Kent State. For more information, please visit: https://www.library.kent.edu/special-collections-and-archives/exhibitions. 

5/10: Philip Metres, John James, Zach Savich, Bridget Lowe, & Dave Lucas at Visible Voice

From our friends at Visible Voice Books:

Friday, May 10 @ 7:00 P.M.

An evening of readings from five excellent poets, hosted by Virginia Konchan.

Philip Metres has written twelve books, including Fugitive/Refuge (2024) and Shrapnel Maps (2020). Winner of three Arab American Book Awards, a Guggenheim, and two NEA fellowships, he is professor of English and director of the Peace, Justice, and Human Rights program at John Carroll University.

John James is the author of The Milk Hours (Milkweed, 2019), selected by Henri Cole for the Max Ritvo Poetry Prize. His poems appear in Boston Review, Kenyon Review, Gulf Coast, Best American Poetry, the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day, and elsewhere. He holds an MFA in poetry from Columbia and is completing a PhD in English at the University of California, Berkeley. 

Zach Savich‘s latest book is the poetry collection Momently (Black Ocean, 2024). He teaches at the Cleveland Institute of Art.

Dave Lucas’s first book of poems, Weather (VQR / Georgia, 2011), received the 2012 Ohioana Book Award for Poetry. He has also received a “Discovery/The Nation Prize and a Cleveland Arts Prize. In 2018, he was appointed the second Poet Laureate of the State of Ohio. A co-founder of Cleveland Book Week and Brews + Prose at Market Garden Brewery, he also teaches at the John Carroll Young Writers Workshop, the Oklahoma Arts Institute, and in the Medical Humanities program at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine.

Bridget Lowe is the author of the poetry collections My Second Work (2020) and At the Autopsy of Vaslav Nijinsky (2013), both from Carnegie Mellon University Press.  Her poems have appeared widely in publications including The New Yorker, Poetry, American Poetry Review, Best American Poetry, The New Republic, Parnassus, Boston Review, A Public Space, Plume, Ploughshares, and elsewhere. Her honors include the Emily Dickinson Award from the Poetry Society of America, a “Discovery”/Boston Review Prize, a fellowship to the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and the Rona Jaffe Foundation fellowship to the MacDowell Colony. She lives in Kansas City, where she was born.

Visible Voice Books
2258 Professor Avenue
Cleveland, OH 44113

CLE Poetry Festival: April 21-22

From our friends at Literary Cleveland:

Draft new poems, advance your craft, meet publishers, and celebrate poetry with the best poets and editors in the city.

Join Literary Cleveland, CWRU English Department, CSU Poetry Center, Grieveland, and Mac's Backs Books for the Cleveland Poetry Festival April 21-22.

Spots are limited. Register here.

A Gathering of Laurels: Six Poets Laureate, April 8th in South Euclid

This Sunday, 8 April at 2 pm, join us at the South Euclid-Lyndhurst branch of the Cuyahoga County Public Library for A Gathering of Laurels. Poets Laureate from around the area will read from their work, emceed by Doc Janning, the Poet Laureate of South Euclid. Books will be available for sale and signing, and we'll celebrate with light refreshments. This is a free event and there are seats still available.

Poets reading will include:

Doc Janning, Poet Laureate of South Euclid
Honey Bell-Bey, Poet Laureate of Cuyahoga County
Siaara Freeman, Poet Laureate of Cleveland Heights & University Heights
Mary Weems, Poet Laureate Emerita of Cleveland Heights
Jeremy Jusek, Poet Laureate of Parma
John Burroughs, U.S. Beat Poet Laureate

Please register here: https://attend.cuyahogalibrary.org/event/7644203.

Poem for Cleveland workshops strive to inspire Clevelanders with anthology release

Read the rest at https://www.cleveland.com/news/2023/01/poem-for-cleveland-workshops-strive-to-inspire-clevelanders-with-anthology-release.html.

Urbanshee / Siaara Freeman featured in Cleveland Magazine

Congratulations, Siaara Freeman! Urbanshee is quite the book.

Read the article by Annie Nickoloff at https://clevelandmagazine.com/entertainment/books/articles/cleveland-s-siaara-freeman-to-release-new-poetry-collection.

Pick up your own copy of Urbanshee at https://buttonpoetry.com/product/urbanshee/.

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

Remembering Ben Rader (1947-2021)

I met Ben Rader for the first time at a reading Larry Smith hosted at Joe Sundae's in Sandusky in 2008. I immediately liked him. Since then, I've run into him at probably a hundred open mic venues across the state including right here in Cleveland, where he was born, and it was always good to hear and talk with and learn from him. Ben was known as a master of the haiku form, but was accomplished in a wide array of other poetic forms as well. And he was always generous with his time and knowledge. 

Here is a brief clip I recorded of Ben on the occasion of our first meeting:

https://youtu.be/hnk5j2r1IHk

Sadly, Ben passed away near the end of February following a battle with Covid-19. Our deepest condolences go out to his wife Willa and the rest of his family and everyone who loved him.

A celebration of Ben's life will be held from 2 to 4 p.m. on Sunday, March 7, 2021 at the Norwalk Masonic Hall, 319 E. Main St, Norwalk, OH 44857.

Read his obituary in the Norwalk Reflector: https://norwalkreflector.com/news/306098/bennett-james-rader/.

And here's one more short clip from that day in Sandusky:

https://youtu.be/6Y4-oe4PRaw

Twelve Literary Arts Plays Instrumental Role in Development of E. 66th St. Project

Daniel Gray-Kontar

"...Twelve Literary Arts serves as a nurturing ecosystem for young writers of color, helping develop their creative writing skills from age 14 until mid-career. Open mic poetry events, writing workshops, poetry slams and internships are among the offerings...."

Read the whole story in The Land:
https://www.thelandcle.org/stories/twelve-literary-arts-plays-instrumental-role-in-development-of-e-66th-st-project.

Kleft Crisis 2018 and Steven Smith Book Launch

Where Never Was Already Is by Smith
(2018, Crisis Chronicles Press)

This weekend, Crisis Chronicles Press (out of Cleveland) and Kleft Jaw Press (out of Denver) celebrate National Poetry Month by presenting a Friday/Saturday litfest you won't want to miss featuring authors from across the United States at three of the best bookstores in Ohio. Then Ray McNiece will follow it up on Sunday with a Tongue-in-Groove Poetry Jam featuring Cleveland art/poetry legend Steven Smith, whose new book, Where Never Was Already Is, was just published this month by Crisis Chronicles.

Friday 4/20, 7pm till ? at Guide to Kulchur Books
5222 Lorain Ave., Cleveland, OH 44102
featuring readings by
Iris Appelquist (Kansas City, MO)
Steve Brightman (Akron, OH)
John Burroughs (Cleveland, OH)
Ryder Collins (Milwaukee, WI)
Azriel Johnson (Canton, OH)
Mark S Kuhar (Medina, OH)
Frankie Metro (Denver, CO)
Jeanette Powers (Kansas City, MO)
Austin Price (New York, NY)
Gabriel Ricard (East Northport, NY)
Margie Shaheed (Memphis, TN)
Nathanael Stolte (Buffalo, NY)
RA Washington (Cleveland, OH)

Saturday 4/21, 2pm to 4pm at Main Street Books
104 N. Main St,, Mansfield, OH 44902
emcee: Mark Sebastian Jordan
featuring readings by
Iris Appelquist (Kansas City, MO)
Frankie Metro (Denver, CO)
Jeanette Powers (Kansas City, MO)
Gabriel Ricard (East Northport, NY)
plus open mic

Saturday 4/21, 7pm to 10pm at Mac's Backs
1820 Coventry Rd., Cleveland Heights, OH 44118
featuring readings by
Dianne Borsenik (Elyria, OH)
Theresa Brightman (Akron, OH)
Christina Brooks (Detroit, MI)
Shelley Chernin (Novelty, OH)
Ryder Collins (Milwaukee, WI)
Juliet Cook (Medina, OH)
Steve Goldberg (Cleveland, OH)
Clarissa Jakobsons (Aurora, OH)
Alynn Mahle (Mentor, OH)
Austin Price (New York, NY)
Heather Ann Schmidt (Oberlin, OH)
Margie Shaheed (Memphis, TN)
Kathy Smith (Cleveland, OH)
Steven Smith (Cleveland, OH)
Nathanael Stolte (Buffalo, NY)

Sunday 4/22, 6pm at the Millard Fillmore Presidential Library
15617 Waterloo Rd., Cleveland, Ohio 44110
Tongue-in-Groove Poetry Jam
emceed by Ray McNiece
featuring a performance by Steven Smith
plus open mic (your chance to perform with the band)

Please come celebrate with us!

LITERARY TOURISM: CLEVELAND, OHIO

Jennifer Marer gives us a quick guide to LITERARY TOURISM: CLEVELAND, OHIO, stopping at some of the high points of Cleveland: Horizontal Books in Ohio City, Mac's Backs in Coventry, Appletree book at Cedar Fairmont, and the Writer's Center Stage at Maltz Performing Arts Center.

• Bookriot.com: Literary Tourism: Cleveland Ohio 

Erin O'Brien lists Cleveland's ten oddest oddities

She listed them originally for the Republican convention (remember the Republican convention?) last year, but the oddities are still odd. Now that spring is here, check out Erin O'Brien's

• Cleveland's 10 best oddities: the ultimate RNC scavenger hunt

What are your favorite Cleveland oddities?

2016- Year of the Slam

AKeem Jamal Rollins (photo from cleveland.com)

Nikki Delamotte of Cleveland.com says, How 2016 became the year of Cleveland's slam poetry revival. Horray to Akeemjamal and Cleveland's slam team!

And you can join them at Happy Dog at the Euclid Tavern (11625 Euclid Ave) Thursday, Dec. 15; 9 p.m.

Vertigo Xavier adds that he has not stepped down as the slamministrator of Lake Effect Poetry (the Cleveland area slam team)-- but Lake Effect Poetry has passed its status as a PSI Certified Slam Venue on to AKeemjamal Rollins’ new The People Slam.  The People Slam takes place on the second and fourth Thursday of each month at the Happy Dog Euclid.  Follow the series on Facebook.

Or check out:

• OneMicOpen
• OneMicOpen Facebook page

Cleveland: A Premier Literary Destination

Poets from all over hear (or already know) about the lively Cleveland area literary scene and look forward to coming (and coming back) as soon and as often as possible.  This week is no exception, as several well-regarded out-of-state poets will be here to share their literary wares. Two of the more notable events will happen Saturday 2/27 at Mac's Backs and Sunday 2/28 at Guide to Kulchur.  So whether you're an east-sider, a west-sider, or the more adventurous sort who enjoys the best of both, you have something to look forward to. It won't be the same reading twice, but it will be supremely worth your while both times.  The visiting poets will include: 

Jason Ryberg is the author of nine books of poetry, six screenplays, a few short stories, a box full of folders, notebooks and scraps of paper that could one day be (loosely) construed as a novel, and, a couple of angry letters to various magazine and newspaper editors. He is currently an artist-in residence at The Prospero Institute of Disquieted P/o/e/t/i/c/s and an aspiring b-movie actor. His latest collections of poems are Motel, Diner, Liquor (co-authored with John Dorsey, Jason Hardung and Seth Elkins, Spartan Press, 2014) and Beauty Parlors,Train Yards and Everything In Between (co-authored with George Wallace, David Smith and Charly Fasano, Spartan Press, 2014). He lives in Kansas City, Missouri with a rooster named Little Red and a billy goat named Giuseppe.

Shawn Pavey has delivered newspapers, mowed lawns, bagged groceries, cut meat, laid sewer pipe, bussed tables, washed dishes, roofed houses, crunched numbers, rented cars, worked in hotels, worn an apron at Kinko's, and been paid to write everything from résumés to music reviews. Currently, he earns a living as a Technical Recruiter in Mission, KS where he lives with his fiancée and three worthless but adorable cats. He is the author of Talking to Shadows (Main Street Rag Press, 2008) and Nobody Steals the Towels From a Motel 6 (2015, Spartan Press), Co-founder and former Associate Editor of The Main Street Rag Literary Journal, and a former board member and officer of The Writers Place, a Kansas City-based literary non-profit. His poems, essays, and journalism appear in a variety of national and regional publications. He's hosted poetry readings in bars, coffee shops, haunted houses, bookstores, libraries, front porches, and abandoned warehouses. A graduate of the University of North Carolina's Undergraduate Honors Creative Writing Program, he likes his Tom Waits loud, his bourbon single barrel, and his basketball Carolina Blue.

Jameson Bayles: A side effect of the military industrial complex, Jameson Bayles was born at the hospital at Forbes Field AFB just south of Topeka, KS. By the age of eighteen, Jameson had participated in a refueling mission with F-16s over the skies in South Dakota, stood atop of an active missle silo, and was the bait in a counter terrorism exercise with Air Force Special Forces at Whiteman AFB. After watching Krist Novoselic obtaining a head injury at the 1992 MTV music awards, Jameson decided to pursue the path of becoming a poet and eventually crawled into a dimly lit coffeeshop in dowtown Topeka in 1997 participating in his first open mic. Jameson Bayles is the senior editor of Asinimali Publications based in Kansas City, MO and the curator of The Cellar Poetry Series at the Weston Wine Company in Weston, MO. Jameson has been published in numerous literary journals and magazines and currently, his work can be found in three books. “The Cataman Years”, published by Mistop Publications, “The Artistic Muses” published by True Color Press and the collaborative reader "A Case For Ascension" by Asinimali Publications. Jameson resides in Kansas City, Missouri and can be reached at jamesonbayles@gmail.com.

And they will be joined by two Cleveland favorites:

Dianne Borsenik is active in the northern Ohio poetry scene and regional reading circuit. Her poems have appeared in Great Lakes Review, Slipstream, Rosebud, and many others; upcoming publications include Pittsburgh Poetry Review, Dirty Chai, and The Stars Look Very Different Today: A David Bowie Tribute (Poems-For-All). Her poem "Disco" was chosen to be printed on the 2015 Youngstown Summer Festival of the Arts tote bags and on Lit Youngstown tee shirts. In 2011 she founded NightBallet Press, and in September 2015 produced BeatStreet Cleveland as part of the International Beat Poetry Festival. She lives in Elyria with husband James and dog-sons Bodhisattva and Michel-Angelo. Find her at www.dianneborsenik.com.

John Burroughs was born in West Virginia, raised in Elyria, Ohio, and now lives and works in Cleveland. Along the way, he won the first poetry competition he entered as a high school student, served for several years as playwright-in-residence at Marion Correctional Institution, became a number one blogger on MySpace, won his first-ever poetry slam in his 40s, has hosted several esteemed reading series, and co-founded the annual Snoetry: A Winter Wordfest. John's poetry volumes include Beat Attitude [2015, NightBallet Press], It Takes More Than Chance to Make Change [2013, The Poet's Haven], The Eater of the Absurd [2012, NightBallet], Barry Merry Baloney [2012, Spare Change Press] and the collaborative book Oct Tongue -1 (with Weems, Swain, Smith, Lady, Chernin and Brightman). Since 2008, Burroughs has run Crisis Chronicles Press, publishing fine indie writers from around the world.

So please join us this weekend and give our visiting artists a warm Cleveland welcome!

February 27th at 7 pm - KC & CLE: A Case for Ascension at Mac's Backs
Mac's Backs - Books on Coventry
1820 Coventry Road
Cleveland, Heights, Ohio
(216) 321-2665

February 28th at 7 pm - Guide to Kulchur Red Room Reading Series
Guide to Kulchur: Text, Art & News
5900 Detroit Avenue
Cleveland, Ohio
(216) 314-4644

Poetry Matters

POETRY SLAM!!!
#PoetryMatters
$$$ CASH PRIZE $$$
Sunday, October 25th, 2015
Sign-ups 5p-6p

Callaloo Cafe & Bar
15601 Waterloo Rd.
Cleveland, Ohio
More info: poetrymatterscle@gmail.com

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.

CSU Poetry Center Presents New Reading Series!

• CSU Poetry Center
• Upcoming Readings

Cleveland, by Diane Vogel Ferri

a celebration of Cleveland from Diane Vogel Ferri:

photo by Diane Vogel Ferri

Cleveland

I see Cleveland as a time not yet come,
a book we haven’t read, the tenacious hope 
of next year tangled in its bridges and highways,
beaming off the silvery water of a Great Lake.

A place where Christmas memories and food memories
are built into our bones, where you can step into a diamond
and hear an orchestra, or on any given day view a Rembrandt,
a Van Gogh, or hear poetry in a courtyard.

I believe in the Native Americans who named 
our crooked river, the Traffic Guardians 
welcoming you across the great divide of east and west,
into multicultural streets and towns.

In the jowls and crags of tumultuous industry
I no longer see smoke and filth - its former fame.
I see a place where Grandpa delivered ice, and
dad played catch with a Cleveland Indian on the streets of the Heights.

God’s good creation surrounds and envelops us
in the glorious greenery of the Emerald Necklace
that we wear so well, with the fearless changing 
of the seasons flowing in our lifeblood.

-- Diane Vogel Ferri

 

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• Link to poem at original site
• Diane's poems
• Link to Diane's blog Coexist

Bree's first novel Pigskin In a Blanket

Green Panda Press announces its first work of full-length fiction. Pigskin in a Blanket is an existential-buddhist-romantic-comedy written by the formerly Cleveland poet Bree (now Kentuckian) in a period of six weeks that followed a string of curses. the novel is set in Cleveland, OH. it features Anya, who marries her twice-senior plastic surgeon and schemes to become the woman people take most seriously, and former Browns player Harry who might just be some kind of poet; he battles an obscure liver disease while slinging meats and cheeses for a local purveyor. 260 pgs TP.

the book plus shipping is $12 via paypal to greenpandapress@gmail.com and comes with a copy of Bree's latest paperback poetry Some Hiatus: Tucky Poems.

or order thru amazon or the link below. thanks! read and pass along.....
https://www.createspace.com/5091426

luv and hugs, Bree