Return of the Deep Cleveland Trio, March 20th in Lakewood

Art on Madison
13703 Madison Avenue
Lakewood, Ohio 44107
419.345.8980

Poetry+ Upcoming Readers: https://poetrypluscleveland.weebly.com/calendar.html

Monday at Mahall's schedule for the last third of 2014

For the past few years, the Monday at Mahall's Poetry & Prose series has featured some of the best literary talent from northeast Ohio and across the nation - along with one of our area's best open mics.  The trend continues with these four fabulous upcoming events:

Monday September 1st 2014 at 7:30 p.m.:  Featured poets Ray McNiece and Mary Weems (two of Cleveland's finest) will read, followed by an open mic.  We'll still be celebrating the release of Oct Tongue -1, a collaborative book by Mary Weems, John Swain, Steven Smith, Lady, Shelley Chernin, John Burroughs and Steve Brightman.

Monday October 6th 2014 at 7:30 p.m.: The official book release for the third annual Lipsmack anthology, published by NightBallet Press, will feature contributors including Jennifer Hambrick (Columbus), Andy Roberts (Columbus), Jason Baldinger (Pittsburgh), Jason Irwin (Pittsburgh) and Dan Smith (Cleveland), followed by an open mic.

Monday November 3rd 2014 at 7:30 p.m.: We'll feature the group Writer’s Root (whose authors include Lauren Parsons, Margaret Hnat, Amy Bue, Regina Geither, Kay Cosgriff and Elise Geither - all of northeast Ohio), followed by an open mic.  Crisis Chronicles Press plans to release poet/playwright Elise Geither's new chapbook at this event.
 
Monday December 1st 2014 at 7:30 p.m.: Featured poets will be Joey Nicoletti (Buffalo, NY), Juliet Cook (Medina, OH) and Baraka Noel (Wheaton, MD), followed by an open mic.

John Burroughs will be your emcee for these four events.  Stay tuned for more great lit performances - and more than a few fab surprises - in 2015.  Here's just one: Ray McNiece will be our special guest host in February, April, June and September.  Please join us the first Monday of every month at Mahall's 20 Lanes, 13200 Madison Avenue in Lakewood, Ohio.

Amazing Cleveland Poets Stories

Horray for dan smith and J.E. Stanley, whose recent chapbook collections of speculative poetry were just reviewed in Amazing Stories by Diane Severson. Says Diane:
"Today’s post brings you two poetry reviews of chapbooks by Cleveland poets, one each by J. E. Stanley and dan smith. The Greater Cleveland area is a little hotbed of genre poetry! It is lucky enough to count Mary A. Turzillo, Geoffrey A. Landis and Joshua Gage among its inhabitants. Those three are award-winning poets whose work I’ve reviewed and podcasted here and on Poetry Planet. With this post I bring you two more fine genre poets and introduce a lovely small press (NightBallet Press), edited by Dianne Borsenik, which produces saddle-stitching bound chapbooks and broadsides, attractively presented with heavy paper and color photographs gracing the covers and the interiors."

...(and, scroll down, and find some readings on MP3.)

• From Night Ballet Press:
• Selected Regions of the Moon, by J. E. Stanley, on Amazon for $8.00.
• The Liquid of Her Skin, the Suns of Her Eyes by dan smith: 5.00 plus $3.00 shipping direct from Nightballet, or on Amazon for $8.00.

Dwarf Stars at Mac's!

Mac's at night
photo by Geoffrey A. Landis

One of the longest-running poetry reading series in Cleveland is the Second-Wednesday poetry reading at Mac's Backs on Coventry.

The August show of the Second-Wednesday poetry reading-- coming up this Wednesday!--will feature the poets of Dwarf Stars, including me, not to mention local poets and Dwarf Stars contributors Holly Jensen, dan smith,  J.E. Stanley and Mary A. Turzillo.

We will celebrate haiku, scifaiku, cinquains, ghazals, and other forms of short-short poetry. Come on over and join us-- you are encouraged to bring your own dwarf poetry to read during open mic!

Silly, serious, manic, inspired, poignant-- short poems can hit hard!

Dwarf Stars 2012.  Cover Art: "Once Beyond a Time" by overseer.deviantart.com

Dwarf Stars 2013. Cover Art: "Elephant"
by neisbeis.deviantart.com

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!

New Sunday Afternoon Poetry Series in Elyria

Click flyer for larger version

As many of you know, I'm John Burroughs, a.k.a. Jesus Crisis, of the monthly Lix and Kix Poetry Extravaganza in Lakewood. Though that series is still going strong, I'm thrilled to announce that beginning on Sunday November 7th I will also be hosting an open mic and featured poet series in my hometown of Elyria, Ohio (the Lorain County seat).

This new series will take place every Sunday afternoon from 1 to 3 p.m. at the newly reopened Jim's Coffeehouse and Diner, located at 2 Kerstetter Way (formerly known as Lake Avenue) in downtown Elyria, just doors away from the gorgeous East Falls Riverwalk. The current plan is that each session will begin promptly at 1 with an open mic before the features. When the weather's nice we may continue outdoors near the falls with a poetry free-for-all after the coffeehouse closes at 3.

Featured poets/authors/performers lined-up already include:

Nov. 7 - Eric Anderson and Stacie Leatherman
Nov. 14 - J.E. Stanley and dan smith
Nov. 21 - Sammy Greenspan and Tom Adams
Nov. 28 - Elise Geither and Lady K Smith
Dec. 5 - Claire McMahon and Lou Suarez
Dec. 12 - Dianne Borsenik and Mary Turzillo
Dec. 19 - Steven Smith and Courtenay Roberts
Dec. 26 - Cameron Conaway and Clarissa Jakobsons
Jan. 2 - Shelley Chernin and Anne McMillen
Jan. 9 - Andrew Rihn and Christina Brooks
Jan. 16 - Wendy Shaffer and Eric Odum
Jan. 23 - Michael Bernstein and Michael Grover
Jan. 30 - Yuyutsu Sharma, Geoffrey Landis and Bonné de Blas
Feb. 2nd thru 8th - Snoetry: A World Record Winter Wordfest
Feb. 13 - Everyone's a feature - open mic free-for-all
Feb. 20 - Dawn Shimp and a very special guest
Feb. 27 - Paula Lambert and Louise Robertson

I will add more features to the list in the very near future as soon as I have time to sort things out and get back to everybody who's inquired. Feel free to contact me at jc@crisischronicles.com for more information/details.

http://www.facebook.com/loraincountypoets
http://twitter.com/elyriapoetry

Just one set of falls on the Black River in Elyria, Ohio

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Congratulations to the 2009 Hessler Street Fair Poetry Contest Winners!

footage and editing by Ken Kitt, courtesy of PoetryVidz
Wednesday, May 13th, I had the pleasure of reading (and seeing my work included in the Hessler Street Fair 2009 Poetry Anthology) with some mighty fine poets from across northern Ohio (and even from Michigan) at Mac's Backs Books on Coventry. Thanks to Suzanne DeGaetano of Mac's for hosting, to Joshua Gage for editing the anthology and emceeing, to the judges (Suzanne, Josh and Gail Bellamy), to the Hessler Street Fair organization, and especially to all the fine poets who participated. Congratulations to you all!

Winners include:
1st Place - "Grace" by Dan Smith
2nd Place - "Five pounds of sunlight" by Geoffrey A. Landis
3rd Place (tie) - "Autonomic" by J.E. Stanley and "The Sleeping Town" by Jill Riga

I'd also like to let folks know about Ken Kitt's PoetryVidz You Tube channel. Ken films a lot of readings/performances across northeast Ohio and graciously shares the best of his footage online. He's a tireless promoter of our local poetry scene(s) and provides an immeasurably valuable historical record of what makes Cleveland poetry so special. Ken recorded last night's event at Mac's and has already posted several clips, including videos of the four winners reading their poems, at http://www.youtube.com/user/poetryvidz.

Thanks, Ken! You're a winner, too.