Columbus-Based Poetry Reading

Thursday, April 14 · 6:00pm - 8:00pm

OSU Urban Arts Space

50 W. Town Street, Suite 130

Columbus, OH

More Info

Join us for the first event of this literary series in which

Columbus-based (and OSU alumni) poets Maggie Smith, Jason Gray, Jen

Town, and Hannah Stephenson will read recent work. Stick around after

for refreshments and conversation. Warning: poems may contain wild

animals, references to Jersey Shore, and delicious sound play.

About the readers:

An Ohio native, Maggie Smith is the author of Lamp of the Body (Red

Hen Press), The List of Dangers (Kent State University Press), and

Nesting Dolls (Pudding House). Smith has received three Individual

Excellence Awards from the Ohio Arts Council and a 2011 Creative

Writing Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. For more

information, visit her site: http://maggiesmithpoet.com/

Jason Gray is the author of Photographing Eden (Ohio UP, 2009), winner

of the Hollis Summers Award. He co-edits the online journal,

Unsplendid (www.unsplendid.com). Find him online at

http://jason-gray.net/.

Jen Town grew up in Erie, Pennsylvania. She graduated with highest

distinction with an honors degree in English from Penn State

University in 2004, and with her MFA in poetry from The Ohio State

University in 2008. Jen's poetry and prose has appeared in Lake

Effect, Third Coast, Mid-American Review, Epoch, and Rhino Literary

Journal, among others. Her professional interests also include

editing, publishing, and design: http://www.jen-town.com/.

Hannah Stephenson is a poet, editor, instructor, and

singer-songwriter. You can read her poems at her daily poetry site,

The Storialist: http://www.thestorialist.com/. Her poems and songs

have been featured in various publications, including qarrtsiluni,

Lazy Gramophone Press anthologies, Spoonful, and Far Away Literary

Magazine.

Comments

OPA Ambassadors Report: NE Ohio with Ray McNiece

From the frozen tundra of the Firelands, through the rusty blast furnace of Cleveland, along the Crooked River’s ice chattering shallows of Kent, down to the worn rubber slushy tire churn of Akron, to the gritty grey clang of Youngstown there’s hot stove poetry cooking this winter all across the Northeast corner of Ohio. We boast a plethora of venues from bookstores, libraries, coffeehouses, cocktail bars and clubs where you can hear the varied carols of our poets should you dare venture out into our perpetually grey climes. Here’s a few highlights, some upcoming features and a reminder of ongoing workshops and reading series. In early December Billy Collins read at CWRU’s Maltz Center to a packed house. He often visits Cleveland thanks to George Bilgere of JCU. John Burroughs had a front row seat. The Tongue in Groove Poetry Music Jam (every third Sunday at the Millard Fillmore on Waterloo hosted by Ray McNiece) featured Mwatabu Okantah reading from his new book A Black Voice in t...

Odes of October 2024 Contest Winners Announced

OPA is pleased to announce that our judge for 2024, Karen Scott, has chosen the three winners and three runners-up for the 2024 Odes of October contest. First prize is awarded for "Restless Peace," by Jo Anne Moser Gibbons. First prize includes an award of $65 and inclusion in the 2025 issue of Common Threads, as well being published below. Second prize goes to "Scarecrow," by Dr. Anna Cates. This prize includes an award of $25 and appears below. Third prize goes to "Fall," also by Jo Anne Moser Gibbons. This prize includes an award of $10 and appears below. Honorable mention poems were: "Rite of Passage," by Claire Scott Rubin "Alone in Silence," by Jonathan Smith "Assassination Attempt Haiku," by Susan Glassmeyer Karen said she found her task made more difficult by the high quality of submissions, so each participant should be congratulated for their work. We thank them for participating and being a member of the OPA. A spe...

Barbara Sabol and Erica Reid named 2024 Ohio Poets of the Year

The Ohio Poetry Day Association has selected Barbara Sabol and Erica Reid as our 2024 Ohio Poets of the Year. Congratulations to these two amazing writers! Barbara Sabol was selected for her book of poems, WATERMARK: Poems of the Great Johnstown Flood of 1889 (Alternating Current Press, 2023) . The poems in WATERMARK follow the path of the “great flood,” from the time prior to the perfect storm of events resulting in the disaster to the devastating aftermath and the reclamation of a bustling industrial city. The book is a poetic testimony of the great flood story through voices of the unidentified victims; their circumstances and lives imagined from morgue entries. The narrative also paints the backdrop of recovery and renewal, in the voices of survivors, telegraphers, aid workers, and historical figures such as Clara Barton. Watermark is a lyric narrative of this country’s largest and most dramatic flood of the 19th century, told from the perspective of those whose lives it ...

Ohio Poetry Association Blog

Search This Blog