Maggie Smith Named 2016 Ohio Poetry Day Poet of the Year

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 speaker. The weekend will also include a workshop for the winning poems from the Evan Lodge Award and prizes given for all the winners in the general contests.

Those not on the OPD mailing list who wish to receive the reservation form for luncheon and workshop may send SASE or just a postcard with name and address to Amy Jo Zook, 3520 State Route 56, Mechanicsburg, OH 43044 to be included in the mailing. There will also be a book room selling the BEST OF 2016 books and the books by the Poet of the Year and other poets present. Come join us in this, our 79th year.

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