Showing posts with label Elyria. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Elyria. Show all posts

Saturday, December 5, 2020

Police Detective Who Arrested Me in 1992 Has Been Charged with Rape


"ELYRIA — A retired Elyria police officer has been charged with 10 felony sexual assault counts.

Joseph Van Kerkhove, 78, of Grafton, was indicted Nov. 19 by a Lorain County grand jury on six felony counts of rape and four counts of gross sexual imposition. He was served with the charges Tuesday and was being held in the Lorain County Jail on $100,000 cash or surety bond...."

Read the rest in the 12/4/2020 Chronicle-Telegram: https://chroniclet.com/news/243700/retired-elyria-police-officer-charged-with-rape/.

Wednesday, February 19, 2020

Crisis Chronicles Press publishes Gildzen's new Alex in Movieland (1943-1973)

Crisis Chronicles Press is honored and ecstatic to celebrate Valentine's Day with the publication of Alex in Movieland (1943-1973), a major work by one of our favorite writers and artists, Alex Gildzen.

Alex in Movieland is a monumental work defying easy categorization. It is memoir, list, poetry, history and more, all in one, reading like a movie of the author's life in book form, replete with juicy detail. This new volume is 150 pages, perfect bound, 5.5 x 8.5". ISBN: 978-1-64092-947-0. Front cover art by the author. Available now for only $12 from Crisis Chronicles Press, 3431 George Avenue, Parma, Ohio 44134 USA.

US or Elsewhere?

Click here to read a 2009 Otoliths interview with Gildzen wherein he talks about the origins and evolution of Alex in Movieland, which he began writing in
1996 and is still writing. Our new Crisis Chronicles volume is the first time the entire first thirty years of it have appeared in print. 

Alex Gildzen
lives in Palm Springs where he writes every day. In the past year his poems have appeared in the anthologies "Love Jets" and "The End of the World Project." He also makes art from collages to conceptual pieces such as "The Century Dimes" and "Box of Little Bags." In addition he's become a model with and without clothes for artists and photographers.


Wednesday, November 20, 2019

Ohio Beat Poet Laureate Returns Home to Elyria, 11/21 at Roxy's Emporium

Self portrait with Rattle and Numb [cover art by Emma Anderson]
My family moved to Elyria in 1972, when I was five years old, although even before that when we lived in Lorain I went to kindergarten in Elyria. And Elyria remained my home until 2012 when my wife and I moved to Cleveland to be closer to her work. In many ways, it still feels like home. 

That's why I'm super thrilled to bring my Rattle and Numb poetry book tour home to Elyria this Thursday, 21 November, at Roxy's Emporium, right across from Elyria High School, where I went to 9th and 10th grades. This will be my first Elyria reading since 2011 when I hosted readings at Jim's Coffeehouse and Diner and at Scott Duncan's photography studio downtown.

At Roxy's I'll share selections from my latest book, Rattle & Numb: Selected and New Poems, 1992-2019 [Venetian Spider Press] and then emcee a mic-less open mic so attendees can share some of their work as well. The show begins at 6:30 pm. I'd love to see and hear you there.

Roxy's Emporium
604 Middle Avenue
Elyria, Ohio 44035
www.roxysemporium.net

Thursday, November 14, 2019

Eight Events Coming Up Quick

Lots of great poetry happenings in northeast Ohio in the next 10 days or so! Here's where I'll be:

11/14 - Broadsides & Ephemera feat. Dianne Borsenik at Loganberry Books in Cleveland.

11/16, 2pm - Borderlands Poetry Reading feat. Dianne Borsenik & me at Main Street Books in Mansfield.

11/16, 7pm - Concrete Wink Poetry Reading, Mac's Backs-Books on Coventry in Cleveland Heights.

11/17 - Tongue In Groove Poetry Music Jam featuring Steve Abbott in Cleveland.

11/19 - Poetry+ featuring Steve Abbott & Leonard Kress at Art on Madison in Lakewood.

11/21 - Ohio Beat Poet Laureate John Burroughs, plus Mic-Less Open Mic at Roxy's Emporium in Elyria.

11/23 - Streetlight Imaginations with Crisis Chronicles & NightBallet at the South Euclid-Lyndhurst branch of the Cuyahoga County Public Library. Crisis Chronicles Press will officially debut Nick Gardner's So Marvelously Far at this event.

11/25 - Timothy J Richards and I will be Writers in the Window at Appletree Books in Cleveland Heights.

Then I'm off until mid-December. Well, not off exactly because I'll still be working on poetry, since Crisis Chronicles Press intends to publish another two books by the end of this year.

We couldn't do this without you! So thank you, and I hope to see you soon.

Sunday, October 20, 2019

CLE Photo Fest reading 10/25 at Mac's - and looking for more OH gigs

I am looking for more Ohio (and vicinity) gigs in support of my new book this fall/winter/spring, especially in cities where I've not read before (though I'm also happy to return to cool places I've already been). I only have 2 more out-of-state readings scheduled this year (Nov 1 & 2 in western North Carolina) and then I'm sticking close to home through March. All suggestions/offers welcome! Here's what I have scheduled so far:

10/25 in Cleveland Heights OH - Altered Landscapes: poets interpreting surrealist landscape photography (part of Cleveland Photo Fest) at Mac's Backs-Books On Coventry. (6 to 8 pm).

11/1 in Boone NC - John Burroughs and Beth Copeland in Conversation w/ a reading.

11/2 in Sylva NC - John Burroughs & Beth Copeland Poetry Reading at City Lights.

11/8 in Cleveland OH - Poetry Reading: Burroughs / Baldinger / Pavey at Visible Voice Books.

11/9 in Avon Lake OH - Read/Write/Local Authors Event at Avon Lake Public Library.

11/16 in Mansfield OH - Borderlands: Poetry on the Edge at Main Street Books.

11/21 in Elyria OH - Rattle & Numb with open mic at Roxy's Emporium. (6:30 pm).

11/25 in Cleveland Heights OH - Writer in the Window at Appletree Books. (10 am to 12 pm).

12/18 in Painesville OH - Words & Wine at the Steele Mansion Inn & Gathering Hub.

1/6/2020 in Lakewood OH - Monday at Mahall's Poetry and Prose Series.

1/8/2020 in Youngstown OH - At The Soap Gallery.

6/13/2020 in Amherst OH - Poetic Expressions from the Heart at Arabica Coffee Bistro.

9/4-6/2020 in New Hartford CT - National Beat Poetry Festival.

Sunday, January 27, 2019

Pure Poetry in Lorain Bar

Thanks to Geoff Landis and Cleveland Poetics
for this photo of the newspaper clipping
Many thanks to Speak of the Devil, Dianne Borsenik, Dave Lucas and NightBallet Press for a wonderful night of poetry, merriment and ribaldry on Thursday. Good times with good friends, old and new, at We're No Angels: An evening of poetry performances!

We ended up in the Elyria Chronicle-Telegram too. Read Ohio poet laureate Dave Lucas among readers at Lorain's Speak of the Devil by Carissa Woytack.

Monday, November 12, 2018

New LCCC Radio Interview Tuesday 11/13

I look forward to talking with Ryan Sagert about poetry Tuesday 11/13 at 10 a.m. on Lorain County Community College radio. You can listen in at https://www.lcccradio.com/.

https://www.lcccradio.com/

Saturday, February 11, 2017

Geri Lynne Burroughs

Around 6:20 on Wednesday morning, February 8th, I received a call from the Cleveland Clinic saying Geri's heart had stopped and they were trying to resuscitate her. I sped to the hospital and when I arrived I learned that they were unsuccessful. Just the day before the doctors had seemed so certain she would be fine. I've been wanting to write more but I have more tears than words. 

We will receive guests from 6 to 7 pm on Monday February 13th at Laubenthal-Mercado funeral home, 38475 Chestnut Ridge Road, Elyria, Ohio 44035, right down the street from where I grew up. Memorial service will follow at 7 pm. And then I'm gonna hibernate for a while.


Thank you so much to everyone who has been so kind and supportive to our family and me. Love to you.

Heartbroken,
John

Thursday, March 24, 2016

Crisis Chronicles Press publishes Age of Aquarius: Collected Poems 1981-2016 by Dianne Borsenik

Crisis Chronicles Press is overjoyed to announce our latest book. Age of Aquarius: Collected Poems 1981-2016 contains 139 pages of poems by poet-performer-producer-publisher Dianne Borsenik, almost all of which were published in various journals, magazines, anthologies, newspapers, and chapbooks over the past thirty-five years. Chosen from her vast body of work, these poems represent her most popular and enduring material, both on the page and on the stage. Covering years of tie-dye and travel, laughter and loving, meditations and performances, her poems are, by turns, wicked, willful, wonderful, and wild.

Where Do You Want It?
Available for $12 US (plus $3 postage) from Crisis Chronicles Press, 3344 W. 105th Street #4, Cleveland, Ohio 44111.

5.5 x 8.5". Cover art is a finger painting by Camren. ISBN: 978-1-940996-34-9.

Dianne Borsenik [photo by James Borsenik]
Dianne Borsenik is active in the northern Ohio/Cleveland area poetry scene and regional reading circuit. She is a member of Literary Cleveland, Heights Arts, the Ohio Poetry Association, the Haiku Society of America, and the Ohioana Library Association. In 2011, she founded NightBallet Press and has since published over 80 titles for poets across the U.S. In September 2015, she produced BeatStreet Cleveland as part of the International Beat Poetry Festival. Her poetry has appeared in hundreds of journals, magazines, and anthologies, including Great Lakes Review, Pittsburgh Poetry Review, Rosebud, Slipstream, Lilliput Review, bottle rockets, Voices of Cleveland, Modern Haiku, Haiku World: An International Poetry Almanac and The Magnetic Poetry® Book of Poetry. Her poetry has also appeared in numerous galleries and projects, including Heights Arts' EKPHRASTACY, the Wick Poetry Center's Speak Peace: American Voices Respond to Vietnamese Children's Paintings, Amy Mothersbaugh's Studio 2091, & S. A. Griffin's cross-country project The Poetry Bomb. A copy of her haiku chapbook Blue Graffiti (Crisis Chronicles Press, 2011) is in the Decatur Haiku Collection at Millikin University. Actor Jonathan Frid ("Barnabas Collins" on 60s television's Dark Shadows) used three of her poems in his live, one-man show Genesis of Evil. Her poem "Let's Get It On" (from her chapbook Thunderclap Amen) was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. In 2013, and again in 2014, she won first place in the Best Cleveland Poem Competition. In summer 2015, her poem "Disco" was selected by Lit Youngstown and the Summer Festival of the Arts to appear on tee shirts and reusable tote bags. Borsenik was born in Oberlin, Ohio, on February 2, 1955. Her Zodiac sign is Aquarius, her Chinese Zodiac sign is the (wood) Sheep, and the bat is her totem animal. She believes in the musicality of language and the originality of expression in poetry, and is willing to travel for readings. Learn more at dianneborsenik.com and nightballetpress.com.

Friday, April 24, 2015

Happy birthday to Alex Gildzen! His complete Ohio Triangle published!


Crisis Chronicles Press is thrilled to present a new masterwork by the legendary Alex Gildzen, inspired by his rich experiences in three Ohio cities: Elyria, Cleveland and Kent.  Ohio Triangle is 75 pages, perfect bound, featuring many of his best poems and a handful of color photographs.  Officially published on 25 April 2015 to celebrate National Poetry Month and Gildzen's 72nd birthday, Ohio Triangle is now available for $10.99 from Crisis Chronicles, 3344 W. 105th Street #4, Cleveland, Ohio 44111 USA.  ISBN: 9781940996196.

Choose US or International



Love for Ohio Triangle:

"Alex Gildzen rushes to the heart with the clearest of memories, tacking them to our own with perfectly wrought images from his own life and calling out real people from the shadows of the past.  His work glows with the power of a master poet.  There is not one word in this book that doesn't ring true.  Be glad.  You can share a remarkable vision in this book that echoes through time every time Gildzen fixes his focus on his Ohio Triangle."
D.R. Wagner, author of The Night Market

"Just as any 3 non-collinear points determine a unique plane, so Alex Gildzen's 3-part book of chiseled poems defines and explores the unique plane that is Gildzen's life in three different cities in Ohio. Here is a triangle considered in the context of the space-time continuum, where people, places and things combine to bring the past into the present and the present into the past. It is in the dimension of time, the loving remembrances and the sad recognition of the inevitable future of each person, place and thing within Gildzen's triangular plane, and by extension, within the reader's own unique plane, that brings warmth and heart to this multifaceted diamond of a book."
Shelley Chernin, author of The Vigil

"I was first introduced to the work of Alex Gildzen a few years back now and out of everything I've read, this latest collection, Ohio Triangle, is without a doubt the most touching look into the memories that make up his highly colorful life, so much so that I almost teared up at several points, because this is the way we all want to be able to look back on things, on a life well lived, only, Alex has been able to put it into words in a way that feels immediately relatable and effortless, as the passing of time should be."
John Dorsey, author of Imaginary Foxholes




Deluxe Package [no longer available]:

For a mere $5 extra a lucky 15 people received two great Gildzen books: Ohio Triangle and the rare New Notes: Poems 1971-76 (Kent, OH: Shelly's Press, 1978).  New Notes features paper wraps and a hand sewn binding.  While supplies last. [UPDATE: We have no more copies of New Notes, but you can still order Ohio Triangle for $10.99.]





Alex in front of Loomis Camera in Elyria, Ohio

He was born in California, first walked in Texas and now lives in New Mexico but Alex Gildzen spent the majority of his life as a resident of Ohio.  He was two weeks old when he arrived in Lorain.  When his father returned from the war in Europe the family moved to Elyria. He began visiting Cleveland as a child. Following graduation from Elyria High School he went to Kent State University where he was student, teacher and librarian.  In 1993 Kent presented him with the President’s Medal for “extraordinary and unique service” to the university.  The same year the Ohio Arts Council honored him with the Ohioana Citation in the field of humanities and education.

To learn more about Alex, visit the Literary Underground wiki and follow his Arroyo Chamisa blog.