Ohio Poetry Association Blog

Ohio Poetry Day Association chartered as a nonprofit corporation News Release Ohio Poetry Day (OPD) 2016 is pleased to announce that the Poet of the Year for 2016 is Maggie Smith of Bexley, Ohio, chosen for her book The Well Speaks of lts Own Poison, published in 2015 by Tupelo Press. Smith, a native Ohioan, was born in Columbus and has degrees from Ohio Wesleyan (B. A.) and Ohio State (M.F.A.). She was for a time a lecturer at Gettysburg College and is now a freelance writer. Her previous publications include three chapbooks, Disasterology (Dream House), The List of Dangers (Wick Poetry Series) and Nesting Dolls (Pudding House), and a full length book, Lamp of the Body (Red Hen Press). She has had awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, Sustainable Arts, and the Ohio Arts Council individual excellence award. As this year's Poet of the Year, she will receive her award at the meeting at Heidelberg University on Saturday, October 15, and be the luncheon speake

Ohio Poetry Day 2016 is fast approaching, and the list of winners of the OPD poetry contests has been released. We're excited to see so many OPA members among the winners and honorable mentions. There were more than 1,000 entries to this year's OPD contests, which are open to anyone and offer a chance to win prizes and be published in the annual Best of Ohio Poetry Day anthology. This year's OPD will take place at the University of Mount Union in Alliance, Ohio, October 14–15, 2016 . Friday evening, following his visit to Heidelberg, poet laureate of Kansas and  Associate Professor of English, Washburn University, Eric McHenry will lead an evening poetry workshop. He will also be reading from his work. Ohio Poet of the Year, Maggie Smith of Columbus will be reading from her work Saturday afternoon mostly likely sharing poems from her recent book, The Well Speaks of Its Own Poison .  It will be a high-powered two days of poetry. "All interested writers