Very much looking forward to sharing the stage with Jennifer Browne on Tuesday 7/15 during Poetry Speaks Dog Days at the Bokeh Lounge in Evansville, Indiana, before heading south to Vicksburg, Mississippi, and then west to Albuquerque, New Mexico, for the National Federation of State Poetry Societies' annual conference.
2022-2023 U.S. National Beat Poet Laureate and Crisis Chronicles Press publisher
Sunday, July 13, 2025
July 15th Poetry Speaks in Evansville; July 23-28 NFSPS Conference in Albuquerque
Friday, July 11, 2025
My new chapbook, Awash, released today as part of Pure Sleeze Press' summer drop
Darshan
Shaktipat
Bilateral Heart Moon Resolution
Aura
Beacon
Hunger
A Wait, A Final Fall
Deluge
Critical Condition
A Superior Stimulant
But for Now
Potential Energy
Selkie
Thursday, July 10, 2025
July 12: Ohio Poetry Association Picnic at Sandy Ridge Reservation
Picnic begins at 12:30 p.m. in the park's Johnson Wetlands Center.
Preceded at 10 a.m. by OPA's quarterly business meeting (all members welcome).
6195 Otten Road
North Ridgeville, Ohio 44039
Monday, July 7, 2025
My "Silence in Mourning" is Poem of the Week in BeatLife Magazine
Read the poem and its backstory at https://beatlife.org/poem-of-the-week-by-john-burroughs.
BeatLife is the official magazine of the National Beat Poetry Foundation, Inc.
Saturday, July 5, 2025
Five of My Poems Appear in Book 2 of Bards of a Feather
Sunday, June 29, 2025
July 3: Open Air Poets in Cleveland Heights feat. Salinger, Chernin, & Burroughs
This Thursday, July 3rd, I'll have the distinct pleasure of reading with the amazing Michael Salinger and Shelley Chernin during Open Air Poets on the lawn outside the Coventry Village branch library in Cleveland Heights.
So many thanks to Mac's Backs-Books and the Cleveland Heights-University Heights Public Libraries.
Thursday, June 26, 2025
June 28: Social Justic Poetry at ComFest in Columbus
From Dr. Moeller's write up: "Besides a declared national Pride and Black Lives Matter Month, June has also been declared the Rebuild your Life Month and June 28 in particular commemorates the Ukraine Constitution Day in the United States. EOW’s poets address the reasons for those dedications and our collective as well as individual experiences with them - emotionally, culturally, socio-economically, geographically, and politically — whether hard to digest or comforting, we are looking at them under the magnifying glass of poetry which serves as yet another tool to promote inquiry, curiosity, ethics, and compassion."
ComFest happens at Goodale Park, W. Goodale Street, 43215. For more information, including the full three-day schedule, please visit https://www.comfest.com/comfest-2025/.
Thursday, June 19, 2025
June 27: With A.M. Hayden and friends on Zoom for How to Tie Tobacco launch party
Tune in at https://sinclair.zoom.us/j/83689495716.
Monday, June 9, 2025
June 14: Ellen Austin-Li & John Burroughs in Sandusky
I very much look forward to sharing poems from the same mic as friend and Cincinnati poet Ellen Austin-Li this Saturday, June 14th, at Mr. Smith's Coffee House in Sandusky, Ohio. Her new book, Incidental Pollen, was just released by Madville Publishing. I am extremely grateful to Larry Smith, the Firelands Writing Center, and Bottom Dog Press for hosting us.
140 Columbus Street
Sandusky, Ohio 44870
Friday, May 23, 2025
West Virginia Writers Conference: June 6th through 8th
Other speakers will include Colleen Anderson, Karen Salyer McElmurray, Burke Allen, Diane Tarantini, Kate Long, Tobi Doyle, Sheila Redling, Donna Kathryn Kelly, Kathleen Guire, Rhonda Browning White, Renee Nicholson, Tim Huguenin, Natalie Homer, Mike Dittman, and keynote author Homer Hickam.
More info at Conferences | West Virginia Writers, Inc.
Monday, May 12, 2025
I have a poem in Ohio Bards: Poetry Anthology 2025
Ohio Bards: Poetry Anthology 2025 is available at localgemspoetrypress.com/ohio-bards-preorders.html.
Alas, I'll be out of town and unable to attend either of these Ohio launch events:
Saturday, May 24 at 7:30pm at
Hilton Garden Inn Columbus-University Area
3232 Olentangy River Rd, Columbus, OH 43202
Sunday May 25th at 5:30pm at
Holiday Inn Express Cincinnati West
5505 Rybolt Rd. Cincinnati, OH 45248
Friday, May 9, 2025
Video: A Gathering of Laurels III in South Euclid
April 5th, I had the privilege of being part of A Gathering of Laurels III at the Skirball Writers Center of the South Euclid-Lyndhurst branch of the Cuyahoga County Public Library, along with recent Ohio Beat Poet Laureate Sandra Feen, current Parma Poet Laureate Jeremy Jusek, current Lucas County Poet Laureate Jonie McIntire, and current South Euclid and recent Cuyahoga County Poet Laureate Doc Janning. Here is the video, recorded and edited by Andy Matovic.
The poems I read (beginning at the 15-minute mark) are "Bully for You," 17 September 1966," "A Kiss for David Johansen," "Aim High," and "Needful Things," all written in March of this year during the Tupelo Press 30/30.
Friday, May 2, 2025
I have two poems in Orange is Not a Colour: Poems Against Totalitarianism
I'm grateful that my poems "Abbreviate" and "What They Did" appear in this new anthology alongside strong work by fine folk.
Edited by Fin Hall and published by Like a Blot from the Blue.
Available at https://www.lulu.com/shop/fin-hall/orange-is-not-a-colour/paperback/product-4597v7y.html
Monday, April 28, 2025
A Confluence of Poems: 2025 Edith Chase Reading, May 16th at Kent State
Grateful to be part of this reading and have two poems ("Tenacity" and a revised version of "Falls") in this anthology.
So many thanks to RC Wilson and the Edith Chase Symposium Association!
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Friday 16 May 2025 at 4 p.m., poets from all over Ohio will gather for a dramatic reading on the theme of tributaries. There will be music, and an anthology of the poems performed will be available at the reading.
Kent State College of Architecture + Environmental Design
132 S. Lincoln Street
Kent, Ohio 44240
More info at https://www.facebook.com/events/1007338138041745.
To procure a copy of A Confluence of Poems, contact RC Wilson at rcwilsonii@gmail.com.
Thursday, February 27, 2025
Writing 30 Poems in 30 Days in March to Benefit Tupelo Press
I'm one of several poets who have signed up to write a poem a day through the month of March for Tupelo Press' 30/30 project. The results will be posted each morning on their website. (The last time I did this was in July 2022 and the poems I wrote then eventually made it into my book The Wrest of the Worthwhile).
If you can donate any amount to Tupelo Press in appreciation of my effort and to support the important work they do, I will send you a free book.
You may donate at
https://tupelopress.networkforgood.com/projects/247157-john-burroughs-s-fundraiser.
Read our daily poems at https://www.tupelopress.org/the-march-2025-30-30-page.
Monday, February 24, 2025
A Kindness
I am so grateful to A.M. Hayden, author of American Saunter, for this immense kindness.
I have been enjoying her daily book posts on Facebook. And now my book Rattle and Numb and some of my older poems have made their way into one of them.
A few notes on these poems:
“Judge Marks”: This poem was written in late 2018 around the time of the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Its title is a play on the name Mark Judge, who was a friend of Kavanaugh's.
“Half Write”: I forget exactly when I wrote this poem, but I recall pulling it out of one of my journals to include in my chapbook Loss and Foundering, which NightBallet Press published in 2018. The full Eliot quotation is: 'As things are, and as fundamentally they must always be, poetry is not a career, but a mug’s game.' [from The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism, first delivered as The Charles Eliot Norton Lectures for 1932-33 at Harvard].
“Align”: I began this poem in 2008 and finalized it (or at least gave it a title) in the fall 2011 before it was published that December in The Artistic Muses by True Colors Press. Between then and Rattle & Numb, it also appeared in my chapbook It Takes More Than Chance to Make Change, which The Poet's Haven published in 2013.
“Art Achoke”: This was an impromptu poem written in 2010 and posted on my blog. It was first collected in my chapbook The Eater of the Absurd, published in 2012 by NightBallet Press.
Tuesday, February 11, 2025
April 5th 2025: A Gathering of Laurels III in South Euclid
Ohio Poets Laureate to read from their work for National Poetry Month
Beginning in December 2024, I chose to take six months off from giving featured readings in order to focus on 1) getting up to speed in my new role as vice president for the Ohio Poetry Association, 2) finishing the manuscript I promised some time ago to New Generation Beat Publications, and 3) catching up on myriad other long-suffering tasks.
But I'm making one exception, on April 5th, to read with Doc Janning and other Poets Laureate from around Ohio at my favorite (and local) public library. This will be a free event, but they hope you will register here if you wish to attend.
Featured poets:
John Burroughs, recent Beat Poet Laureate of Ohio and the U.S.
Sandra Feen, recent Beat Poet Laureate of OhioSiaara Freeman, recent Heights Poet Laureate
Doc Janning, Inaugural Poet Laureate of South Euclid and Third Poet Laureate of Cuyahoga County
Jeremy Jusek, Poet Laureate of Parma
Jonie McIntire, Poet Laureate of Lucas CountyRay McNiece, recent Poet Laureate of Cleveland Heights
https://attend.cuyahogalibrary.org/event/12795676.
A Gathering of Laurels III
5 April 2025 at 3 p.m.
South Euclid-Lyndhurst Branch
Cuyahoga County Public Library
1876 South Green Road
South Euclid, Ohio 44121
[4/20/2025 note: Siaara and Ray weren't able to make it after all.]
Friday, January 3, 2025
Video: Walt Whitman Birthplace Association's Poets Building Bridges on 12/14/24
Wednesday, January 1, 2025
Books I Finished Reading in 2024
For the full list of the books I finished reading in 2024, click here.