OHIO POETS SURVEY
Last week, in preparing for the Ohio Poetry Association presentation on "Ohio Voice: A Poetic History" for World Poetry Day, I sent out a survey on poets' favorite poets, asking:
1. Your three favorite Ohio poets no longer living. (We call them "The Historic")
2. Your three favorite contemporary Ohio poets
3. What poem by an Ohio should be read for "World Poetry Day"
The bad news is that I could only give responders two days, and many could not get back by then. Also, my address book being who it is, my survey isn't representative of the state. (I really missed getting enough NW Ohio responders.) Still, I got 60 responses.
The good news is that no one stuck to three (how could they?) The other good news is that many were named, and loved.
Here are the very skewed but nevertheless heartening results:
FAVORITE HISTORICAL OHIO POETS
(in alphabetical order, most mentions):
Russell Atkins, Hart Crane, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Langston Hughes, Robert Lawry, d.a. levy, Vachel Lindsay, William Matthews, Mary Oliver, Kenneth Patchen, Terry Provost, Maj Ragain, Daniel Thompson, Alberta Turner, James Wright, David Young
(in alphabetical order, also mentioned):
Angel, Boisseau, Cary Sisters (Alice & Phoebe),Coleman, Eckman, Friebert, Koch, Lang, Morrison, Polite, Xavier
FAVORITE CONTEMPORARY OHIO POETS
(in alphabetical order, most mentions)
Abdurraqib, Ali, Baker, Bentley, Biddinger, Bilgere, Borsenik,
Burroughs, Donoghue, Dove, Essinger, Glaser, Grimm, Gundy, Iris, Jacobson
(Bonnie), *Kendig, Lucas, Majmudar, Martin (Herb), McDonough, Metres, Nezhukumatahil,
Powell , Salmons, Smith (Maggie), Vidrick, Weldon, Wiegl--
(*disqualified due to suspected power of suggestion)
(in alphabetical order, also mentioned):
Andrle, Awad, Bellamy (Gail), Bree, Bryner, Bush, Chati, Daly, Demaree, Denton, Feen, Fix, Foster, Freeman, Franke, Gale, Garrison, Gay, Hague, Hassler, Jakobsons (Clarissa), Kamara (Yalie Saweda), King, Kolchinsky, LaCharity, Landis, Lime, Matsuura-Ayers, McIntire, Minar, Moss, Orr, Phillips, Rich, Robinson, Rojas, Sanchez, Schaer, Schubert, Seymour, Smith (Stephen), Smith (Rose), Sparks, Stickney, Stone, Townsend, Turle, Turzillo, Wilson, Wing, Woods, Zamora
FAVORITE POEMS
Nineteen poems were suggested, but for the presentation, we let the seven readers choose the poems they wanted. List available on request.
READ + WRITE: 30 DAYS OF POETRY in the can--er, the books--er, in the queue
Eleven days ago, I sent this year's "Read + Write: 30 Days of Poetry" document to the Cuyahoga County Public Library staff to check and recheck and blogify and eventually send out to its many readers, a screen a day through the month of National Poetry Month, which is April.
I started in November with a list of 97 poet names I'd been gathering all year, which is the easy part because Northeast Ohio has many many (over 97) excellent poets we haven't published in our 13 years (30 poets a year: about 390 so far). We try to publish a poet only once, and with two mistakes and a lost year, we haven't repeated poets.
But the hard part, for me, is finding them. A lot of poets keep their writing out there but keep their contact information on the downlow, and I depend on John Burroughs of Crisis Chronicles, Literary Cleveland, and Facebook friends to ask poets for poems. Because we don't take submissions. We ask for the poem we want. This is sort of the opposite of the way most journals and presses work for submissions. It means more work for me at one end, but it also means I don't have to reject poems that "are just not for us at this time."
Once I contact a poet, the rest is getting bio and citation information, cutting, pasting, ordering. Oh, and I create a prompt for each day.
Recently, reading old copies of Best American Poetry, I came to the 2014 anthology, edited by Terrance Hayes, who decided to write some centos from his collection, based on themes he found among the 75 poems he had curated. Despite the fact I only had 30 poems, I thought I might be able to write a cento (it turns out two) because we are a bit focused on Northeast Ohio, from whence sprang these:
NE OHIO CENTO: ENVIRO
Perhaps destruction is how it
always begins.
A warped Dalí garden:
An octopus tentacle, a kitten’s
whisker, a spider’s leg.
The moon’s backside takes potshots
for earth.
All the world’s trees…that somehow
Never sprouted stone leaves
Silver blue roots gripping the
soil, grounded,
The thrum of a life well bruised.
This time, there were brighter warning signs
Lake Erie Monster Water
The air still and stifling for the middle of May
Every birdsong a dirge.
Third time in line today:
The numbers of the gas pump
Roll like a combination lock
This is how we make most of our money
The slow swell of days into weeks into years.
NE OHIO CENTO: REPAIR
History is funny. Braggarts of
loss.
The meaning of the term anosognosia.
It’s hunting season again,
We don’t even try to turn away,
Just hit the iceberg head on.
How hard a thing.
Music blasts from a teen’s
earbuds.
Tan and tough as old goat meat
Fists sprout spikes. Fingers of
night.
Where’s my guardrail?
In the tire swing that hangs from
the cherry tree.
A luau of fixing in Cleveland:
Orisons of flute choirs, a vibrato
of organs.
"We'll Always Have Canton: New Work"
Prompts for the Lit Cleveland Fall Festival Audience:
1. A
sense of your childhood
Draw a picture of
a place from your childhood. (If you have crayons around, use those, and use
periwinkle and sea green liberally, along with any other favorite crayon colors,
unless you are younger than I, and then use markers in pathetically fewer
colors.)
Draft a poem about
a regular event that took place there. In revision, focus on at least one of
your five senses in the moment.
At the end of your
poem, quote something an adult said or did OR say something you as a child
didn’t say at the time and are saying now.
See Diane Kendig, “Reedurban, Ohio”
https://aboutplacejournal.org/issues/rust-belt-tales/growth-and-some-death/diane-kendig/
See also Elizabeth Biller Chapman, “On the
Screened Porch”
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?volume=178&issue=4&page=24
2. Mashup
Write about a sacrament in the religious
sense (baptism, marriage, anointing the sick, confirmation, communion) or the
personal sense (marriage, divorce) as an episode of a reality show you have
seen. Use the format of the show as the format of your poem
OR
Draft a poem that combines lines from a famous classical poet with contemporary
slang. (My favorite these days is from a black out poem from Shakespeare:
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day/Thou
art…/hot.”
Based on Diane Kendig, “Epithalamion.” and
“Next on Dateline: At the Swan and Hoop”(p10):
https://www.thebrokencitymag.com/archive.htm
(Click on “The Silver Screen” for pdf)
3. Call
and Response, Listing
Choose a color and research it, listing its
features, pronunciation, literary associations, any associations, personal
associations. Try a color weirder than Lynn’s and mine. Try mauve, for example.
Then, try organizing your lists somehow, anyhow: by stanzas or as a shaped poem.
Find a title. Find an end line.
See Lynn Powell, “Kinda Blue”
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/42180/kind-of-blue
And Diane Kendig’s rip-off, “Green, I Want
You Green”
https://redwolfjournal.wordpress.com/2025/07/29/green-i-want-you-green-by-diane-kendig/
OR
Choose a poem by a contemporary poet and respond to the poet with a list,
a poetic list. It may be why you agree with the poet. Or why you disagree. Or
what you are adding to what they have to say.
Diane Kendig, “Des” in Comstock Review
ALSO, CHECK
OUT “Read + Write: 30 Days of POETRY”
https://cuyahogalibrary.org/blog/poetry
INWARD Outside : all-day women's retreat
Retreat info here
This October 3rd retreat was a wholesome, restful, inspiring day in the pavilion and grounds of the Tam O'Shanter Stark County Park for a bevy of terrific women from around the state.
The brain child and host for the day is MALLORY MCCREA, whom you can find here, along with info on all the practitioners for the day.
When this retreat is offered again, snap up a place for yourself. It really is a gift to your SELF.
Meanwhile, here are my three writing prompts and some responses:
A
tree- Write about one tree you saw today, or one where you live now, or one
from your childhood (Based on Laura Weldon’s “Redwood Dharma” and Ann Fisher-Wirth’s “Catalpa")
Answer
Mary Oliver’s question: what do you plan to do with your one wild &
precious life, i.e., what is your longstanding plan, or what do you plan as of
today? (Oliver’s “The Summer Day”)
The Winds Wings
by Sue B. Gahn
Connection to the winds wings
Breathing its calm
Its restlessness to always stay presently aware
Of its messages of perseverance and release
For the roots they do become uprooted
And we have choices
As to how we perceive these changing winds
Challenging us to always look up
About My Brother
by Emily Orsich
Bury me beside the bones
of my mother’s first-born son.
Fold me into silence,
like the blanket you once wove—
threads now heavy with dust,
whispering stories of hands that shaped us.
His laughter still crawls
along the chambers of my skull
a swarm of bees humming through
the hive of my mind,
circling the hollows,
seeking a place to rest
that time has long abandoned.
Scatter the marbles.
Let them shatter the silence,
glass moons breaking loose
from forgotten constellations.
Beneath their rolling weight
you will find me,
pressed into the floorboards,
a splinter caught in the grain,
patiently waiting for your footsteps
to echo through the corridors.
Birth
by Kara Pellegrene
Birthing my words my story. Oh what am I doing?
Will they accept it will they reject it?
Do you really care?
Yes! Yes! The inside me screams.
They will see me, right through me.
Like I'm naked on a stage. With no more shield held up in front of my heart, that was always trapped in a cage.
But here I am, I worked too hard. I cried and I pleaded to be set free. I let my heart bleed. Then I stitched her up. Through the seems my colors leaked, through my sorrows my dreams revealed - that I had to do this. I must reveal - if I want to heal, if I want to be of service. If I want to truly be free.
I birth my story.
I set my pages free. Out into the world for those who need to hear, for those who suffered like me.
It's not all about pain. But through those brakes I transpired - so you can too
So birthing my story from me to you is what I must do.
WHAT I HAVE COMING UP THIS FALL
Three events, a road trip, and lagniappe
Three Events
Thursday, September 25th from 5:30 - 8:00
This has been postponed. Stay tuned for a future date.=
Friday, October 3rd all day
I'll be one of several practitioners leading a one-day retreat in nature for women, led by Mallory McCrea, here in Canton. There will be poetry, somatics, reiki, writing, botanicals, and healthy meals. For more information on registering, see Inward Outside
Friday October 17th, 10:45 -Noon
I'll be reading with Robert Miltner and Molly Fisher in an event we call "We'll Always Have Canton: New Work." This event is not open to the public, but if you are at the conference, some hear us...even if you aren't from Canton.
Road Trip
After our successful tour of route 66 and NOLA in May, Paul & I are now heading out for his homeland of Central Massachusetts with visits to friends in Cohasset and Jamaica Plain. maybe get some haggis at The Haven.
Rennie & Rebus will be guarding the house and when we return will be appearing with us in Wooster for Archie Ambassador Day, marching with the band to the game with the Wooster mascot, Archie.
Lagniappe
If you don't know the term, it's a little gift or benefit, sometimes thrown in for free by shoppes in New Orleans. I've just had one of my poems made into a reed diffuser by poet-entrepreneur in India, Rochak Agarwal , at his business Urban Ganges. You can buy it here, but Trump's latest tariffs may be creating havoc with the ordering. I am ordering three this week and will let you know how it works out.
Road Trip10 Cities in 14 Days: Days 10-11
Days 10-11: NEW ORLEANS
The morning sessions included a business meeting and a presentation on the "Legacy of the 100th Bomb Group and Today's USAF, which its Air Refueling Wing in Middenhall, England. At this reunion, I met a photographer who works there, Karen Abeyaskere, who was one of the people taking photos the night before of us "Next Gen" kids wearing our dad's jackets.
I am wearing Dad's "Brass Hat," which his pilot Bob Ellis gave to him (and the whole crew) years ago at one of the reunions. Jack O'Leary, a Next Gen "Kid," sort of organizes those, and I harrassed to make sure women were included in the photo, so he got quite a laugh out of me blabbing away during the shoot, proving I am my mother's daughter as much as my dad's.
At lunch, I met up with another Next Gen "kid" Bob and Mary Jo Stropp, a union lawyer and a first grade teacher lifelong Democrats, retired in Florida.
At lunch, I met up with another Next Gen "kid" Bob and Mary Jo Stropp, a union lawyer and a first grade teacher lifelong Democrats, retired in Florida.
AND THEN, the very most important, moving presentation of the whole conference for me, on “The Nuremberg War Crimes Trials and ‘Rosie’ Rosenthal.” It led with the history of the camps, outlined by Kirk Saduski again, whose underlying point was that the concentration camps with crematoriums did not happen overnight but were slowly developed alongside POW camps and slave labor camps. He spoke brilliantly on the creation and escalation of the Holocaust.
The last event was the final banquet. I have dozens of my mom and dad at this event throughout the years in other cities, other 100 BG conventions, but I got none of my own. There were several short speeches by young and old and a presentation by Matt Mabe on the making of props for Masters of the Air. Recognition and celebration of living veterans:
 |
| L to R, James Rasmussen, John "Lucky" Luckadoo and Murray Lirette in front of the original 100th BG Flag used in the transfer of the fieldThorpe Abbotts, UK to the USAAF July 20, 1943. Jack O'Leary and Joe O'Leary had the honor to hold the flag. |
When I arrived back at the hotel, Paul was soon back from seeing Chickie Wah Wah performed and we packed for our last three days on the road.
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