Self-Publishing Roundtable, April 6th in South Euclid

This Thursday, 6 April at 7 pm, join us at the South Euclid-Lyndhurst branch of the Cuyahoga County Public Library for A Self-Publishing Roundtable featuring panelists

* Juliet Cook (Blood Pudding Press publisher and co-author of Short Poems About Violence and Chickens),

* Michelle R. Smith (Literary Cleveland Programming Associate and author of The Vagina Analogues), and

* myself.

Books (including my brand new The Wrest of the Worthwhile) will be available for sale and signing. This is a free event and there are seats still available. 

 

Please register here: https://cuyahoga.libnet.info/event/7616134.

1876 S Green Road
South Euclid, Ohio 44121

New York, Ohio, Florida, Indiana and Missouri in the Next Five Weeks

The next month is gonna be super busy for me, with (among many other things) a new poetry collection coming out and all these poetry events. I hope to see you somewhere soon down the line:

3/24 at 6 pm Eastern - The Finger Lakes Arts Series at MacFadden Coffee Co. in Dansville, New York.

3/25 at 7 pm Eastern - John Burroughs: 2022 - 2023 U.S. Beat Poet Laureate - Live at the Bundy Museum Annex Theater in Binghamton, New York.

4/6 at 7 pm Eastern - Juliet Cook, Michelle R Smith and I will lead a Self Publishing Roundtable at the Cuyahoga County Public Library's South Euclid-Lyndhurst Branch.

4/8 at 2 pm Eastern - A Gathering of Laurels will feature six Poets Laureate from the Cleveland area at the Cuyahoga County Public Library's South Euclid-Lyndhurst Branch.

4/14 & 15 - St. Augustine PoetFest - 2nd Annual in St. Augustine, Florida.

4/18 at 7 pm Central - Poetry Speaks at the Bokeh Lounge in Evansville, Indiana.

4/22 at 6 pm Central - Barb's Books Presents National Beat Poet Laureate John Burroughs & Joseph Fulkerson Plus Open Mic in Belle, Missouri.

4/23 at 7 pm Central - At Spine Bookstore & Café in St. Louis, Missouri.

4/24 at 7 pm Central - At Gumbo Bottoms Alehaus in Jefferson City, Missouri.

 

Reading my poems from the I Thought I Heard a Cardinal Sing anthology
on 3/17/2023 during the Appalachian Studies Association Conference at
Ohio University in Athens [photo by Ohio Poet Laureate Kari Gunter-Seymour]

 

April 6th: Self-Publishing Roundtable and John Burroughs Book Release in South Euclid

Early warning: On April 6th, Juliet Cook, Michelle R. Smith and I will be the featured authors at a self publishing roundtable hosted by the Cuyahoga County Public Library's William N. Skirball Writers' Center in South Euclid, Ohio.

As you may know, when I started Crisis Chronicles Press in 2008 it was with a tiny self-published chapbook. Then I published another in 2009 and another in 2010. My original plan was to self-publish one a year, but I got away from that and haven't done it in a long time.

Well, since the press is going on hiatus after we complete our current commitments this year, I thought it would be fun and appropriate to self-publish one more title before CCP makes her exit, a sort of bookend to our history, and release it at this April 6th roundtable.

The Wrest of the Worthwhile will feature all my best poems that didn't make their way into Rattle and Numb for whatever reason, including much newer work (some never before seen). I'll also fold in the contents of my recent limited edition (and no longer unavailable) chapbooks, You Can't Trust It to Remain and Dogging Catastrophe.

I hope you'll not want to miss this event! Register at: http://attend.cuyahogalibrary.org/event/7616134.

 

A James Baldwin Yearning

Last summer I decided to read more books by Black authors. One who I admire (mostly based on a biography, YouTube videos of him, and the 2016 film I Am Not Your Negro) is James Baldwin. But I have never read any of his books. I want to rectify that.

Then earlier this month I saw that poet Michelle R. Smith is leading a year-long class on Baldwin's work for Literary Cleveland. I wanted to sign up. But looking at my calendar I realized I already have commitments on several of the Saturday afternoons when it happens.

However, I still want to participate in my own way. So though I won't be part of the class I did recently procure three volumes of Baldwin's work (pictured) and, beginning today, will be reading along with their schedule. First up: Go Tell It on the Mountain.

[Order books]

Poetry+ to feature Ray McNiece & Michelle R. Smith, 12/17 in Lakewood

Poetry Plus at Art on Madison will triple your pleasure on Tuesday, December 17th with readings by two acclaimed featured poets - Ray McNiece and Michelle R. Smith - plus an open mic. Doors open at 7 pm, with the show beginning promptly at 7:30.

Ray McNiece is the author of 9 books of poetry and monologues, including New Haiku and Love Song for Cleveland, a collaboration with photographer Tim Lachina. He’s toured Italy twice with Lawrence Ferlinghetti. He toured Russia with Yevgeny Yevtushenko and performed at the Moscow Polytech, the Russian Poets’ Hall of Fame, where he was dubbed “the American Mayakovsky.” The Orlando Sentinel, reporting on his solo theater piece Us—Talking across America at the Fringe Festival, called him “a modern day descendant of Woody Guthrie.”

Michelle R. Smith is a black femme feminist, media activist, and admitted Netflix addict that between fighting the good fight and watching copious stand-up specials, dark comedies, and music documentaries manages to write poems, tell stories, teach college and high school kids, and be a loving mother and wife. She is the author of the poetry collection Ariel in Black, and she is currently working on a new collection tentatively titled The Real Jazz Wives of 20th Century America and looking to publish a third collection, called The Vagina Analogues.

Open mic to follow the features, emceed by Ohio Beat Poet Laureate John Burroughs.

Please note: Poetry+ happens on the third Tuesday of each month. For more information, please visit our website at https://poetrypluscleveland.weebly.com.

Other upcoming Poetry+ features:

1/21 - Chuck Salmons (Columbus) & Renay Sanders (Peninsula)
2/18 - Bill Yarrow (Chicago) & Laura Grace Weldon (Litchfield)
3/17 - Leah Mueller (Tacoma WA) & Rikki Santer (Columbus)

Art on Madison
14203 Madison Avenue
Lakewood, Ohio 44107

Poetry Plus to Feature Steve Abbott & Leonard Kress on 11/19 in Lakewood

Acclaimed poets Steve Abbott and Leonard Kress

Poetry Plus at Art on Madison will triple your pleasure on November 19th with readings by two acclaimed featured poets - Steve Abbott (Columbus, OH) and Leonard Kress (Toledo, OH) - plus an open mic. Doors open at 7 pm, with poetry to begin promptly at 7:30.

Leonard Kress has published poetry and fiction in Missouri Review, Massachusetts Review, Iowa Review, American Poetry Review, Harvard Review, etc. His recent collections are The Orpheus Complex, and Walk Like Bo Diddley. Living in the Candy Store and Other Poems and his new verse translation of the Polish Romantic epic, Pan Tadeusz by Adam Mickiewicz were both published in 2018. His latest book, Craniotomy, will appear soon (if it hasn't already). He teaches philosophy and religion at Owens Community College in Ohio.

Columbus native Steve Abbott has been a community activist, alternative newspaper writer and editor, criminal defendant, delivery truck driver, courtroom bailiff, private investigator, PR flack, and college professor. He was a founding member in 1984 of The Poetry Forum, now Ohio’s longest-running poetry series, and continues to co-host the weekly event. He is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus in English of Columbus State Community College. His poems have appeared in dozens of literary journals as well as in several anthologies. He received an Ohio Arts Council Excellence Award in Poetry in 1993 and an OAC residency the following year at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MA. 

He has six poetry collections: five chapbooks, A Short History of the Word (1996) and Greatest Hits (2004), both from Pudding House; The Incoherent Pull of Want (NightBallet Press) and Why Not Be Here Now? (11thour Press) in 2016; and Kicking Mileposts in the Video Age (Moria Poetry, 2017). He has also recorded a live reading on CD titled Stardust in Franklin Park. He edited the anthologies Cap City Poets (Pudding House, 2008), a collection of 74 central Ohio poets, and Everything Stops and Listens (OPA Press, 2013), containing work by members of Ohio Poetry Association. His full-length collection A Green Line Between Green Fields was published in 2018, and a collection of ekphrastic poems, A Language the Image Speaks, was released in September. He also edits Ohio Poetry Association's annual journal Common Threads, and in 2015 he represented the OPA on the Ohio Arts Council panel selecting Ohio’s first Poet Laureate.

Open mic to follow the features, emceed by Ohio Beat Poet Laureate John Burroughs.

Poetry+ happens on the third Tuesday of each month. For more information, please visit: https://poetrypluscleveland.weebly.com.


Upcoming Poetry+ features:

11/19 - Steve Abbott (Columbus) & Leonard Kress (Toledo)
12/17 - Ray McNiece (Cleveland) & Michelle R. Smith (Cleveland)
1/21 - Chuck Salmons (Columbus) & Renay Sanders (Peninsula)
2/18 - Bill Yarrow (Chicago) & Laura Grace Weldon (Litchfield)
3/17 - Leah Mueller (Tacoma WA) & Rikki Santer (Columbus)

Art on Madison
14203 Madison Avenue
Lakewood, Ohio 44107