July 12: Ohio Poetry Association Picnic at Sandy Ridge Reservation

Join us July 12th at the Lorain County Metroparks' Sandy Ridge Reservation in North Ridgeville, Ohio for the Ohio Poetry Association's annual picnic, featuring readings by co-Ohio Poet of the Year Barbara Sabol (Watermark) and recent Cleveland Heights Poet Laureate Ray McNiece (Bone Key Sutra), shorter readings by OPA members with recent publications, plus open mic.

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

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.

We're No Angels (Lucas, Borsenik & Burroughs in Lorain 1/24)

This coming Thursday, 24 January, at 6:30 p.m., I will have the honor of reading with Ohio Poet Laureate Dave Lucas and NightBallet Press publisher Dianne Borsenik as NightBallet presents We're No Angels: an evening of poetry performances at Speak of the Devil, 201 W. 5th Street in Lorain, Ohio.

Student Loan Free

There are so many sad and bad things in the world today, but I have a bit of good news. For the first time since 1987, today I am student loan free! 31 years ago when I was a student at Lorain County Community College, I borrowed $2058. It took me paying a total of $9425 over more than three decades to finally rid myself of this albatross. I'm grateful that Pell Grants, a Dean's scholarship and a supportive mom prevented me from having to borrow more. But my obligation was a mere drop in the ocean compared to what many of my friends have had to borrow to pay for their educations. Student loan reform is essential. And free college or trade school for young Americans is as doable as free high school if we only want to make it a priority.

My Poetry Double Header May 21st in Mansfield and Lorain

I look forward to playing a poetry double header this Saturday, 21 May, at two of my favorite venues.

First up, at 2 p.m. I will be sharing poetry along with the incomparable Michael Veloff at Main Street Books in Mansfield, Ohio, as part of their monthly Borderlands: Poetry on the Edge series hosted by Mark Sebastian Jordan.

Next up, at 6 p.m. I will be poeticizing alongside featured artists Bruce Weigl, Dianne Borsenik, Tom Adams, Liz Delgado, Robert Moore and Ryan Sagert, hosted by Antonio Barrios at the Lorain Arts Council in Lorain, Ohio.

Both events will include an open mic, wine and more. 

Hope to see you at one or both!

And to see my full 2016 Poetry Reading Tour schedule (also including upcoming gigs in Cleveland, Toledo, Painesville, Pittsburgh, Buffalo and Frostburg) please click here.

Poetry returns to the Lorain Arts Council 21 November

I thought Saturday's Toledo/Detroit trip was gonna be my last event for a while, but I couldn't pass up an opportunity to be part of this great event November 21st as poetry returns to the The Lorain Arts Council. I look forward to sharing selections from my new chapbook, Beat Attitude [NightBallet Press], from the same stage as poets Tamara R. Crumble, Jeanette Nettles, Dianne Borsenik and Ryan Sagert.  This event will also feature an open mic, refreshments and music by Undisputed Truth.

Lorain Arts Council
737 Broadway
Lorain, Ohio

This Un D'Elyrious

I recently (for the first time) stumbled upon this clip of me reading my poem "This Un" during D'Elyrious Night at the Lorain Arts Council's 737 Gallery on 15 September 2011.  Sal Kovach filmed it.  Alex Gildzen (with whom I read that night) uploaded it.  "This Un" was written in October 2010, first published in Rising in Hope: A Tinfoildresses Anthology, and finally included in my 2013 chapbook It Takes More Than Chance to Make Change.  Now the Lorain Arts Council needs our help to keep their gallery alive.  Please consider donating to the cause.

This Un

if i was nameless
my name would be
nothing
or like nothing
or unlike
if i were
nick cave
i’d be the place
where i reside
where i died
or e-did
or convinced
myself i.e. did
assuming nick
is an adjective
but i’ve been
nicked inside
and out of the cave
and i’ve been
caved in
and naked
and named things
i was and wasn’t
and am and
damned if mane
and mean
and amen
aren’t anagrams
of my name
and every other
which is also
an anagram
of o very there
which means both
nothing and whatever
you think it does
like this un
named poem

*

Loaner

I was quoted in reference to my student loan travails in this recent issue of the Lorain County Community College Collegian:

https://collegian.lorainccc.edu/2014/10/22/student-debt/

Dad's Day, New Books, Barrel

Me, Dad and baby brother Mike in April 1972 at our old apartment,
5000 O'Neill Blvd. #104C in Lorain, Ohio - photo by Mom

Some of the promising new literature I've acquired so far this month, mostly
at last night's Words Dance in the NightBallet event - photo by me

Recycling barrel painted by Dianne Borsenik, emblazoned with one of
my older short poems, now residing at Elyria Community Garden A Plenty
- photo by Dianne