We only come out at night...

Vertigo Xi'an Xavier at Poets Haven is putting out a series of miniature chapbooks, small enough to carry in a shirt pocket. His latest, We Only Come Out at Night, features poetry and fiction about vampires and werewolves. If you're a vampire-fan, check it out-- it includes, among many others, some poems by me, and by Mary. --no sparkles, I don't think, though. Sorry!

•  Poets Haven Digest Series, We Only Come Out at Night.

Cleveland Collaborative Renga: Finished!

We have now finished the Cleveland  renga!  Congratulations to all who participated by contributing lines!
(to see the opening stanzas, click here for part one, click here for part two, and here for part three).
Anyone can join in!  To contribute, add your stanza to the comments!

---

                         a shred of light left to hold
                         -but inadequate; I fear for this anchor 

waves reflect gold, bronze,
or ash floating like soot
where her hopes burned, capsized, sank 

     frozen iron ore freighter
     begins to buoy free of ice

           buckled open
           listing to the right
           falling in love again 


               underneath the old-growth oak
               just breaking into spring's green


                    overcast sky
                    the potholes gather
                    cherry blossoms

                         scent of earth on gentle breezes
                         where Lakeview's carved stone reposes
  

---

---

Background info:

Let's do renku 

Do you know... renku?

Let's do renku (2)

Songs in the Key of Cleveland: the Best Cleveland Poems

Last May, some of the best poets in Cleveland were invited to compete in the Best Cleveland Poem contest, and the top poets were invited to perform their poems for an audience at Willoughby Brewing Company.

• "Poets Salute Cleveland in Verse" (Plain Dealer) 

Now, Crisis Chronicles Press has published Songs in the Key of Cleveland: An Anthology of the 2013 Best Cleveland Poem Competition, featuring the best poems from the contest.
The anthology has poems by by Catherine Criswell, Katie Daley, T.M. Göttl, Dianne Borsenik, Geoffrey Landis, Joshua Gage, Terry Provost, Jack McGuane, Ruth J. Coffey, Martin Snyder, Jeffrey Bowen, Mary A. Turzillo and Ray McNiece.

to get a copy: order directly from Crisis Chronicles Press, or ask at your local poetry-friendly indie bookstore (like maybe Guide to Kulchur, on the west side, or Mac's Backs, in Coventry)

The official book launch will be March 3rd reading at the "Mondays At Mahall's" reading series (first Monday of every month, 7:30 – 9:30pm, at Mahall's 20 Lanes, 13200 Madison Avenue, Lakewood).  See you there?

Russell Atkins

From Diane Kendig:
This year has been the best of times, it has been the worst of times for Cleveland poet Russell Atkins. The best is the new book on him by Pleiades Press, Russell Atkins: On the Life and Work of an American Master, ed. by former Clevelander Kevin Prufer and Michael Dumanis. Please consider ordering a copy from your favorite independent bookstore.

The worst was the forcible removal of Russell to a nursing home, without allowing him to take his possessions. Four of us have been visiting and assisting him in recovering from all this.

He has an 88th birthday coming up next week which we will be celebrating with his favorite cake on Thursday, Feb. 27th. If anyone would like to attend, please email Diane Kendig or Bob McDonough for the time and locale and so we have enough cake. If you can't attend but would like to wish him well, please send a card to

Russell Atkins
The Grande Pavilions
24613 Broadway Avenue
Oakwood Village, OH 44146


Diane Kendig
Web page: http://dianekendig.com/
Blog, Home Again: http://dianekendig.blogspot.com/

"This is an astounding tribute to one of the most innovative American artists, Russell Atkins, by a small, independent publisher, Pleiades Press. Prufer, a professor in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Houston , and Dumanis, a professor at Bennington College, put together this labor of love, paying homage to Atkins, this peerless yet largely unknown poet, composer, dramatist, theorist, and editor."

--Robert Fleming 

"Russell Atkins is an American original, representative of an often African-American or increasingly Hispanic American working class side of American culture and society which is at an ever increasing rate being dropped by the wayside. This is the down and out, every day underbelly of American cities. As Sean Singer argues, for Atkins “the urban environment is a vital source for [Atkins’] imagination. Urban life, and specifically black urban life, is important to his work. Cleveland, and the cultural imagination of Cleveland, are ‘main characters’ in most of Atkins’ work.” His writings are of a quirky, odd sort and there’s no easy “fit” for them, since there’s often nothing very fashionable happening in them—not now and not at the time he was writing. Born and raised in Cleveland, he’s never left. The majority of his published books come from small presses, with the possible exception of Paul Bremen’s Heritage Series published out of London in the 60s. In 1976, Cleveland State University brought out the largest selection of his poems entitled Here In The. There has been little attention given his work on any significant public level since. The inclusion of Russell Atkins’ work in the Unsung Masters series by Pleiades Press seems destined. He’s exactly of the sort whose work and life this project is meant to serve."

--Patrick James Dunagan

---

• Rediscovering Russell Atkins, from Belt Magazine

Snoetry is back!

60 poets in 11 hours-- plus you!  Yes, Snoetry is back, this time at Guide to Kulchur bookstore, in the Gordon Square district near the Capitol Theatre and Cleveland Public Theatre.

Courtesy of The Tao of Jesus Crisis:

FIRST TIME IN CLEVELAND!

Featuring writers from several states! Lix & Kix, clevelandpoetry.com and friends present the 4th almost annual Snoetry winter wordfest, Sunday 16 March from noon to 11 pm at Guide To Kulchur: Text, Art, and News in the Gordon Square arts district of Cleveland, Ohio.

Open mic from noon to 1 p.m. 60 featured poets from 1 to 11 p.m.

Potluck and BYOB. If you have any questions, please contact John on Facebook or at jc at crisischronicles.com.

Full [perhaps still evolving] schedule:

Noon: Open Mic
1pm: John Burroughs (Cleveland)
1:10 Mark Sebastian Jordan (Mansfield)
1:20 Heather Ann Schmidt with Marc Shepard (Michigan/Oberlin)
1:30 Clarissa Jakobsons (Aurora)
1:40 Barton D. Smock (Columbus)
1:50 Helen Shepard (Oberlin)
2 pm: Kathy Smith (Cleveland)
2:10 Steve Brightman (Kent)
2:20 Blaire Bommer (Cleveland)
2:30 Juliet Cook (Medina)
2:40 Steven Smith (Cleveland)
2:50 Suzanne Savickas (Cleveland)
3 pm: Marisa Moks-Unger (Erie)
3:10 Jeffrey Bowen (Cleveland)
3:20 Bree [a.k.a. Zlee Zlee] (Cleveland)
3:30 Marissa Hyde (Cleveland)
3:40 Chuck Joy (Erie)
3:50 James E. Stanley (Cleveland)
4 pm: Jennifer Hambrick (Columbus)
4:10 Rose M Smith (Columbus)
4:20 Dianne Borsenik (Elyria)
4:30 Eric Anderson (Elyria)
4:40 Claire McMahon (Cleveland)
4:50 Tracie Morell (Erie)
5 pm: Bradley K Meyer (Dayton)
5:10 Ellis E-matic Crockett (Erie)
5:20 Alex Nielsen (Cleveland)
5:30 Dan Smith (Cleveland)
5:40 Bridget Kriner (Cleveland)
5:50 Megan Collins (Erie)
6 pm: Gork (Cleveland)
6:10 Josh Romig (Ravenna)
6:20 Amanda Oaks (Pennsylvania)
6:30 Mary O'Malley (Cleveland)
6:40 elliot smith (Erie)
6:50 Adam Sagert (Lorain)
7 pm: Christine Howey (Cleveland)
7:10 Kelly Boyer Sagert (Lorain)
7:20 Andy Roberts (Columbus)
7:30 Ryan Sagert (Lorain)
7:40 Brian Fugett (Dayton)
7:50 Theresa Göttl (Cleveland)
8 pm: Steve Thomas (Cleveland)
8:10 Cee Williams (Erie)
8:20 Lennart Lundh (Illinois)
8:30 Mistress Rosie [a.k.a. Lisa Dabrowski] (Lorain)
8:40 mark s. kuhar [a.k.a. Mark Cueball] (Medina)
8:50 Catherine Criswell (Cleveland)
9 pm: Shelly Ann (Cleveland)
9:10 Jim Lang (Cleveland)
9:20 Christina M. Brooks (Detroit)
9:30 Gavin Corey (Boston)
9:40 Shelley Chernin (Cleveland)
9:50 Vladimir Swirynsky (Cleveland)
10 pm Christopher Franke (Cleveland)
10:10 Mark Cronin (Cleveland)
10:20 Cavana Faithwalker (Cleveland)
10:30 Steve Goldberg (Cleveland)
10:40 Julie Ursem Marchand (Elyria)
10:50 Ra Washington (Cleveland)

Peace, love and poetry....
John

Or check the Snoetry-4 facebook page.
...and, if you're suffering from withdrawal from not enough Snoetry: join the Snoetry Withdrawal support group.

Cleveland Collaborative Renga: Part 3!

Contribute to the Cleveland Collaborative Renga!
We are now halfway through the renga
(to see the opening stanzas, click here for part one, and click here for part two).
Anyone can join in!  To contribute, add your stanza to the comments!

---

                          eleven roses -- heart pierced
                          by thorns of the absent stem

a sidewalk crevice
in the cracked city concrete:
a purple thistle

     feeble is the gardener
     who tends to our pavement fields

          whispered words fall blind
          pavement ends where waves begin
          Erie's shore purring

               the lake's syntax -- like driftwood,
               baring its truth in silence

                    steam rises
                    from the wet sidewalk
                    her broken English 

                         freejazz punk noise rock music
                         blasts out of the clubs and bars

modern dancers spin
Pirate's Cove weaves siroccos
bright Pere Ubu night

     freighter glides silently;
     radio plays blue velvet

          the night's ballet--
          adagio of river and bridges
          sailors delight

                wind scuds leaf-sail galleons
                stars drown: chilly ecstasy

                     one ship left, seeking
                     the safe harbor of the moon
                     before it, too, dies

                         a shred of light left to hold
                         -but inadequate; I fear for this anchor 

waves reflect gold, bronze,
or ash floating like soot
where her hopes burned, capsized, sank
 
     exploded like the helm
     of the Titanic on ice
 
           slashed open
           listing to the right
           falling in love again

---

• Renga are poems which alternate three line verses in haiku format (5-7-5) with two line verses (7-7).  
• Each verse links to the previous verse, but not to verses before that.

Join the fun!
To add a stanza, go on to part 4

---

Background info:

Let's do renku 

Do you know... renku?

Let's do renku (2)

 

Slices from a Silver Blade

The most recent issue of  Silver Blade Magazine has Mary A. Turzillo and me as the featured poets, including a couple of poems from each of us, and an interview with both of us by editor John C. Mannone.
And he says flattering things about us, too!

• Introduction
• Interview
• Silver Blade home page

The Literary Industrial Complex...

Michael Lista, in the (Canadian) National Post, warns of the "literary industrial complex". His advice: publish less.
Ouch!  I think I like this guy.

"...like the munitions factory whose only enemy is an armistice, the Literary Industrial Complex in this country requires an unbroken draught of verbiage, regardless of the quality, for its continued solvency. It dovetails nicely with the post-Humanist aesthetic that presently predominates English-language verse, which values the elliptical, the runic, the evasively verbose, in which questions of aesthetic merit dissolve in a sociological and stylistic bath, poems that buy into what Ange Mlinko has called “the sense that the lid has been ripped off any consensual definition of poetry, and that for a new generation it has been a test of one’s authenticity to write poems that evade all criteria for a ‘good poem.’ ” And the more of it the better."

And he has advice for literary magazines, too (or at least, Canadian literary magazines): Why literary magazines should fold

• Publish less
• Why literary magazines should fold

Alex Bevan and Rachel Brown

Songwriting is a form of poetry, too.

"I have no wings... I have no wheels…
only these dreams I fasten to my heels…
I have no wings… I have no road…
only these songs to sing before I go…"

--Alex Bevan

 

Alex Bevan and Rachel Brown: 2 of Cleveland's best storytelling singers unite for a songwriters night

• Alex Bevan
• Rachel Brown

Miser

Miser, a Cleveland 'zine put out by Nicole Hennessy and Lauren Dulay, just got a nice call-out by Nikki Delamotte in Cellar Door Cleveland.

...Miser’s duality is more than the sum of its creators; it’s the duality of the role of the publisher and artist and the strange ways a community can become intertwined without ever meeting (Miser accepts submissions internationally but is primarily Northeast Ohio-based), it’s the disparity between artistic institutions that are funded and those just trying to stay afloat. Miser currently operates under $35-a-year subscriptions and various personal donations often from appearances at events.“No one has ever seen or known what our printers really are. They’re mysteriously almost falling through the ceiling upstairs right now,” Hennessy says...

---

• check out the interview with Lauren and Nicole on Cleveland.com
• or the article about Miser Magazine at Cool Cleveland
• Like them out on Facebook at MiserMagazine
• Buy an issue, or a subscription 

Bilgere Reviewed

George Bilgere's new collection of poetry, Imperial, just got a review by John Freeman in the Plain Dealer.

"Bilgere, who teaches at John Carroll University, is a companionable guide to what he calls, a little obviously, 'the shared mystery / of being human.' His lines possess the easy, colloquial rhythm of prose and the imagist glint of good poetry.
He recalls 'the dark mouths of garages' in his childhood St. Louis, lobsters’ 'steaming vaults / ready to be plundered.'"
...

• Imperial (University of Pittsburgh Press)

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.

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 Cinquain

photo by Geoffrey Landis

Michael Ceraolo is one of our most widely-published poets, but seems to be yet one of the lesser known ones.  This one was published in the January 2014 issue of Long Story Short.

CLEVELAND CINQUAIN

by Michael Ceraolo

Mounds of

plowed snow remain

after inches of rain,

held together by the debris

from streets

Chapbook Review: Tangled Shadows--senryu and haiku by Eliot Nicely

 

 

     Elliot Nicely lives in Amherst, Ohio where his boys are teaching him to giggle and dance again. His poems have been published in Acorn, Atlas Poetica, Mayfly, Paper Wasp Acorn, frogpond, bottle rockets, Kokako, Modern Haiku, Notes From the Gean, moonset, and White Lotus. His book, Tangled Shadows, is available on Rosenberry books. The book itself is hand bound, with a heavy Somerset cotton cover, and stab bound with a linen cord--a very elegant thing to behold.

 

     The senryu in this book are quite striking and poignant. They work as commentary on the human condition, displaying a wry sense of humor that is the hallmark of good senryu, and that is often lost in modern attempts at the form.

                           first date

                           no fortune cookies

                           with the bill

     The haiku in this collection are more subtle, and very successful. They juxtapose the natural world against the human, often with surprising results. Despite their understanding of haiku and its history, they still read as quite contemporary.

                                                        indian summer

                                                        ...the rest of 

                                                        our argument

     While the bulk of these poems are quite successful, Nicely occasionally gets heavy handed with his juxtapositions, and the poems read as clever, lacking in the the elegance and natural ease that a haiku should contain.

                                         the promise
                                         it won’t happen again
                                         black-eyed susans

     Overall this is a strong collection. It is visually stunning, and the haiku and senryu contained within will draw readers back to them again and again.

Geoffrey A. Landis is the 2014 winner of the Robert A. Heinlein Award

 Geoffrey A. Landis to Receive 2014 Robert A. Heinlein Award

Geoffrey A. Landis, science fiction author and scientist working for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), is the 2014 winner of the Robert A. Heinlein Award. The award is bestowed for outstanding published works in science fiction and technical writings that inspire the human exploration of space. This award is in recognition of Mr. Landis’ body of work including five books, 83 short stories and 76 poems in the SF field as well as over 353 science fact publications.

The award will be presented on Friday, May 23, 2014 at opening ceremonies during Balticon 48, the Maryland Regional Science Fiction Convention. Balticon and the Robert A. Heinlein Award are both managed and sponsored by The Baltimore Science Fiction Society.

The Robert A. Heinlein Award is a sterling silver medallion bearing the image of Robert A. Heinlein, as depicted by artist Arlin Robbins. The medallion is matched with a red-white-blue lanyard. In addition, the winner receives two lapel pins for use when a large medallion is impractical, and a plaque describing the award, suitable for home or office wall display.

Winners of the Robert A. Heinlein Award:

• 2014 Geoffrey A. Landis
• 2013 Allen Steele and Yoji Kondo
• 2012 Stanley Schmidt
• 2011 Connie Willis
• 2009 Joe Haldeman and John Varley
• 2008 Ben Bova and Spider Robinson
• 2007 Elizabeth Moon and Anne McCaffrey
• 2006 Greg Bear and Jack Williamson
• 2005 Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven
• 2004 Arthur C. Clarke
• 2003 Michael Flynn and Virginia Heinlein

More information on the Robert A. Heinlein Award, including past winners, can be found at http://www.bsfs.org/bsfsheinlein.htm

More information on Geoffrey A. Landis can be found at http://www.geoffreylandis.com/
More information on Balticon can be found at www.balticon.org

Best Poets in Cleveland

CBS Cleveland lists their choices for the best poets in Cleveland.

Ray McNiece
www.raymcniece.com

George Bilgere
www.georgebilgere.com

Susan Grimm
www.thewhitespaceinsidethepoem.blogspot.com

Sarah Gridley
www.case.edu/artsci/engl/Gridley/Gridley.html

Phil Metres

www.philipmetres.com

Agree?  Disagree?

• Best Local Poets In Cleveland

Cleveland Collaborative Renga- part 2!

the Cleveland Collaborative Renga!
We have now finished the opening six verses (the "jo"), and now we're in the main part (the "ha").
(to see the opening stanzas, click here, to continue to part 3, click here).

---

Public Square:
privatized
and empty

      cars roll past the monument,
      bronze soldiers from long ago

          statues of soldiers--
          their cast iron eyes downcast--
          retreat from my love. 

              the abandoned Siamese
              blue eyes dim in winter light

                   ghosts of the city
                   shadows beneath parked cars
                   silent, waiting, watching

                        eidolons of burnt rivers
                        histories of bone and ash

ancient children dance
rose blown wind rings water songs
insubstantial Moon

      our paths always circle back
      how well our feet know these roads

           Euclid Avenue 
           red, green, blue line, trolley stops 
           time leaves us baggage.

                tactical assault backpacks
                to carry childhood sorrows

                     blue sky morning
                     your pink hair-rollers
                     on the floor 

                          eleven roses -- heart pierced
                          by thorns of the absent stem

---

Renga are poems which alternate three line verses in haiku format (5-7-5) with two line verses (7-7).  

Each verse links to the previous verse, but not to verses before that.

Join the fun!
To add a stanza, continue to part 3!

---

Background info:

• Let's do renku 
• Do you know... renku?
• Let's do renku (2)
• Collaborative Renga: start

Panda in the Pigg Penn

Happy New Year's, all.

Cleveland Heights poet Bree, the panda of Green Panda Press, was interviewed by Catfish McDaris in the blog Pigg Penn.

How long have you been writing? When i was 4 or 5 i wrote little satirical comic strips. When i was 9 i wrote stuff that would disturb anybodywith a heart. By 12 i wrote poetry, and by 14 i understood that it was poetry. i have never written a short story, however a few months ago a wrote a novel---it took me seven weeks, and i really like it. it will be the first piece of writing i actually peddle in the market. Its humor, love triangle, clevelandish. Stay tuned for that.

Poetry of Ohio brings more poets to Ohio

The Poetry of Ohio series continues:

from Joshua Ware...
After a successful inaugural year for the Poets of Ohio course and reading series--which brought Mary Biddinger, Frank Giampietro, Sarah Gridley, Cathy Wagner, and Dana Ward to CWRU's campus--we have another wonderful line-up scheduled for the upcoming semester. I would encourage you to attend as many events as possible and spread the word to anyone in the northeast Ohio area that might have an interest in poetry, literature, or cultural events.
All readings--which are followed by lively Q-an-A sessions--will run from 6:00pm to 7:15pm on Thursday evenings (with the exception of the Lucas reading).
Please note that events will take place in one of two different locations this year: the readings on 06 Feb, 18 Mar, and 27 Mar will take place in the Guilford Hall Parlor; while the readings on 30 Jan, 13 Feb, and 10 Apr will be held in Room 206 of Clarke Hall:

• Thursday, January 30: Catherine Wing 
• Thursday, February 06: Matt Hart 
• Thursday, February 13: Heather Christle
• Tuesday, March 18: Dave Lucas 
• Thursday, March 27: Tyrone Williams 
• Thursday April 10: Larissa Szporluk 

A dedicated link to the reading schedule and poet bios can be found at the reading series/course website: http://ussy289eware.blogspot.com/2013/12/2014-reading-series-schedule.html

Poet Catherine Wing was born in Louisville, Kentucky, and attended Brown University before earning her MFA from the University of Washington. Her collections of poetry include Enter Invisible (2005), nominated for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and Gin & Bleach (2012). Her poetry has appeared in such journals as Poetry, the Nation, and the Chicago Review and has been featured in a number of anthologies, including Best American Poetry (2010). Wing has received fellowships and residencies from Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony, and the Sewanee Writers’ Conference and teaches poetry at Kent State.

Matt Hart is the author of five books of poems, Who's Who Vivid (Slope Editions, 2006), Wolf Face (H_NGM_N Books, 2010), Light-Headed (BlazeVOX, 2011), Sermons and Lectures Both Blank and Relentless (Typecast Publishing, 2012), and Debacle Debacle (H_NGM_N Books, 2013), as well as several chapbooks. Additionally, his poems, reviews, and essays have appeared in numerous print and online journals, including Big Bell, Cincinnati Review, Coldfront, Columbia Poetry Review, H_NGM_N, Harvard Review, jubilat, Lungfull!, and Post Road, among others. His awards include a Pushcart Prize, a 2013 individual artist grant from The Shifting Foundation, and fellowships from both the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and the Warren Wilson College MFA Program for Writers. A co-founder and the editor-in-chief of Forklift, Ohio: A Journal of Poetry, Cooking & Light Industrial Safety, he lives in Cincinnati where he teaches at the Art Academy of Cincinnati and plays in the band TRAVEL.

Heather Christle is the author of What Is Amazing (Wesleyan University Press, 2012), The Difficult Farm (Octopus Books, 2009), and The Trees The Trees (Octopus Books, 2011), which won the 2012 Believer Poetry Award. Her poems have appeared in publications including Boston Review, Gulf Coast, The New Yorker, and The Best American Poetry. She has taught poetry at Antioch College, Sarah Lawrence College, the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Emory University, where she was the 2009-2011 Poetry Writing Fellow. She is the Web Editor for jubilat and frequently a writer in residence at the Juniper Summer Writing Institute. A native of Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, she lives in Yellow Springs, Ohio.

Dave Lucas is the author of Weather (Georgia, 2011), which received the 2012 Ohioana Book Award for Poetry, and is a co-founder and co-curator of the Brews + Prose literary series at Market Garden Brewery. Recently Rita Dove selected him to be featured on BillMoyers.com as a “young poet to watch.” A PhD candidate in English at the University of Michigan, he lives in Cleveland, where he was born and raised.

Tyrone Williams teaches literature and theory at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio. He is the author of five books of poetry, c.c. (Krupskaya Books, 2002), On Spec (Omnidawn Publishing, 2008), The Hero Project of the Century (The Backwaters Press, 2009), Adventures of Pi (Dos Madres Press, 2011) and Howell (Atelos Books, 2011). He is also the author of several chapbooks, including a prose eulogy, Pink Tie (Hooke Press, 2011). His website is at http://home.earthlink.net/~suspend/

Larissa Szporluk was raised in Ann Arbor, Michigan and earned degrees at the University of Michigan, the University of California-Berkeley, and the University of Virginia, where she was a Henry Hoyns fellow. Her books of poetry include Dark Sky Question (1998), which won the Barnard Poetry Prize; Isolato (2000), winner of the Iowa Poetry Prize; The Wind, Master Cherry, the Wind (2003); Embryos and Idiots (2007); and Traffic with Macbeth (2011). She has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, and currently teaches at Bowling Green State University.

Bilgere interviewed

Cleveland Height's George Bilgere is profiled and interviewed in the January Cleveland Magazine

---

George Bilgere and Garrison Keillor

Issue Date: January 2014 Issue  
Free Verse
Cleveland Heights poet George Bilgere tackles aging and America in his latest collection.
Barry Goodrich 

George Bilgere describes himself as "a middle-aged, middle-class guy living in middle America."
...

Q. What can be conveyed through poetry that can't be communicated through prose?
A. It's about compression and concision. A 16-line poem can be an entire universe, an entire history. In James Wright's "Autumn Begins in Martins Ferry, Ohio," you can experience an entire town in a few lines. Making a little collection of words as powerful as you can is the magic of poetry.
...

• Read the full article here.

A little help...

Hey, folks. Am I the only one who thinks this site could use a massive redesign? I've had a contributor account here for years now and it's come down to only the google calendar being relevant on any given listless night or day.

I'd like to see what other subscribers, contributors and viewers think of this. The blog does little in outreach outside of Cleveland, honestly, and hasn't for a long time.

Cinquain: Three things invisible

Check out Postcard Poems and Prose-- a site that matches up poetry with images.  If you've got a color printer, you can send out poetry postcards!

We want you to find prose, poems, and art all in a 4×6 postcard format. We want you to be able to stand and look at that revolving wire rack that’s in every tourist trap on earth. We want you see it from your laptop or handheld device. Just like the postcards of yesteryear, we want you to be able to share that experience with friends. We want it to be quirky and personal. And we want it to be great.

• My cinquain "Three things invisible".
• About Postcard Poems & Prose

Nin Interview

image by Nin Andrews

Northeast Ohio poet Nin Andrews is featured in an interview at the LunaLuna site:

• Interview with Poet Nin Andrews

Hart Crane and Cleveland

At the poetry foundation blog, Harriett Staff writes:

Cleveland, Ohio, and Hart Crane
by Harriett Staff

Hart Crane, one of America’s most mythologized poets, had a lifelong love/hate relationship with Cleveland, where he was raised. The Los Angeles Review of Books’s Anne Trubek calls him “not a New York poet but a Cleveland poet: a mess of a thing, a striving wreck of promise and all too human failings:”

At seventeen he wanted out of Cleveland, and he left for New York. He would soon return. And he would repeat that pattern for another decade, coming back to Cleveland when he was broke and needed a job, or at the behest of his needy mother, or because he wanted to. He worked at a munitions plant on the waterfront, working seventeen-hour days six days a week tightening bolts. (C.A. always gave him lowly jobs to test his mettle, a test Crane always failed.) That job didn’t last long — nor did his job as a camp counselor, or as a riveter for another war-related plant. The first world war ended right when it looked like he would be drafted. He wrote a poem about the armistice that was published in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, who then hired him as a cub reporter. He lasted seven weeks. He went back to New York, and then came back home again.
…In Cleveland, he supervised bulk storage. He had affairs. He went out on “mad carouses” that began with “pigs’ feet and sauerkraut” and ended in his tower, where he played classical music for his arty friends. At one point someone in town found out about his penchant for sailors and truck drivers. Crane paid $10 week, out of his $25 weekly wage, to buy the man’s silence.

Read more about Crane and his hometown here.