Ohio Poetry Association Blog

On Saturday, October 10, 2015, at Otterbein College, Neil Carpathios provided those who attended the OPA quarterly business meeting and workshop an inspiring afternoon of poetry. His focus was on how to make your poems more original, and how to make them stand out in the crowd.  Creating delightful, surprising poetry is something Carpathios does well. He has three books of poems:   Playground of Flesh (Main Street Rag), At the Axis of Imponderables (winner of the Quercus Review Press Book Award), and Beyond the Bones (FutureCycle Press). He also is the author of several award-winning chapbooks and recently was named the winner of the 2015 Slipstream Press Poetry Competition for his collection, The Function of Sadness , which will be published in autumn of 2015.  In keeping with the dictum that says, to be a good writer you must be a good reader, we asked Carpathios to provide us with a list of the ten books he would take with him if he were stranded on a desert island. He

In a recent article in The Atlantic , titled,   “Why Teaching Poetry is so Important,” Andrew Simmons wrote, "Poetry enables teachers to teach their students how to write, read, and understand any text. Poetry can give students a healthy outlet for surging emotions. Reading original poetry aloud in class can foster trust and empathy in the classroom community, while also emphasizing speaking and listening skills that are often neglected in high school literature classes. ” Sara Abou Rashed, OPA Grand Prize winner in the 2014-15  contests reads  her poetry at the annual picnic. Sara is from  Centennial High School.  Her teacher was Sarah E. Barry. The Ohio Poetry Association has long recognized the value of encouraging young people to participate in poetry.   For the past thirty-three years, we have been sponsoring an annual student poetry contest. This year’s contest brings opportunities for prizes and publication across ten categories such as poetry of pl

Nancy Shanahan, Director of the AAPS welcomed guests. The nearly thirty guests who attended the OPA poetry reading, “Voices from the Past,” at Serpent Mound State Memorial on Saturday, September 26, 2015, were treated to a delightful afternoon of poetry and drums.  The Great Serpent Mound is a 1,348-foot three-foot-high prehistoric effigy mound on a plateau of an ancient impact crater along Brush Creek in Adams County, Ohio . The mound is maintained by the Arc of Appalachia Preserve System (AAPS) on behalf of the Ohio History Connection. It is designated a National Historic Landmark by the United States Department of Interior.  Kimberlee Medicine Horn Jackson was the featured reader. Guests were welcomed by Nancy Shanahan, Director of the AAPS, and then treated to the poetry of  featured reader Kimberlee Medicine Horn Jackson . Kimberlee is a Yankton Sioux Native American. Her poetry examines the fading boundary between Native and non-native, and questions wh