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OPA Student Contest Winners for 2022 Announced

The Ohio Poetry Association (OPA) is pleased to announce the winners and honorable mentions of the 2022 High School Poetry Contests. Eligible poems were sent to the National Federation of State Poetry Societies, Inc. Manningham Trust Student Poetry Contest. All winning poems receive monetary awards and publication in an OPA chapbook, which will be distributed to the participating schools. We sincerely thank each contest sponsor and judge and congratulate the teachers from each school with student winning poems and honorable mentions. Special thanks to contest coordinator Jessica Weyer-Bentley for all her hard work to coordinate this year’s contests. Voices from the Past Sponsor: Mark Hersman — Judge: Jessica Weyer Bentley 1 st Brooke McCroskey (Jefferson Area High School) 2 nd Becky Smith (Buckeye High School) 3 rd Madison Palmer (Buckeye Local High School) Ethos Sponsor and Judge: Chuck Salmons 1 st Annie Johnson (Dublin Coffman High School) 2 nd James Z

Lakefront Cleveland Poetry Festival, April 24-May 1

Attention Ohio poets! Don't miss the virtual Lakefront Cleveland Poetry Festival April 24-May 1 with Literary Cleveland, CSU Poetry Center, and Grieveland. Over the course of one week, you will work with some of the best poets and editors in the country to draft new poems, share your work, and learn where and how to publish. Presenters and instructors include Kaveh Akbar, Mary Biddinger, Ariana Brown, Hayan Charara, Stephanie Ginese, Quartez Harris, Kamden Hilliard, Valerie Hsiung, Brendan Joyce, Kevin Latimer, Ephraim Nehemiah, Eric Odum, Drew Pham, Hilary Plum, and Rachel Wiley. You can register for individual events or sign up for the full festival and save. Get full details at: litcleveland.org/ events-programs/lakefront- cleveland-poetry-festival

Ohio Poetry Day 2022 Contests Now Open!

The annual Ohio Poetry Day Association contests have been announced. May 15, 2022, is the deadline (postmark) for more than twenty contests, including a “Welcome Aboard” category for first-time submitters and an art category to design the cover art for the 2022 Best of Ohio Poetry Day anthology, published later this year. Below is a copy of the submission form, which provides full contest information. Ohio Poetry Day 2022 will take place in October. Stay up to date on OPD information, including the event date, location, and agenda, by getting your name and address on the OPD mailing list. To do so, contact: Amy Jo Zook 3520 State Route 56 Mechanicsburg, OH 43044 Checks for all contest fees and purchases should be made payable to: Ohio Poetry Day . For questions, call (937) 834-2666. Click and download the images below to view them at full size.

I Thought I Heard A Cardinal Sing: Ohio’s Appalachian Voices—a reading & book launch to be hosted by the Ohio Poetry Association

February 22, 202 2 – The Ohio Poetry Association is pleased to announce it will host a reading featuring the anthology I Thought I Heard A Cardinal Sing: Ohio’s Appalachian Voices, a one-of-a-kind collection of poetry focused specifically on the unique cultural experiences of Appalachian poets located in or connected to Ohio (Central) Appalachia. The event will be held Saturday, March 26, 2022, at 2:00 PM on the campus of Otterbein College, Towers Hall Room 112, 1 S. Grove Street, Westerville, OH 43081. The anthology was produced by Ohio Poet Laureate Kari Gunter-Seymour, who obtained a fellowship grant from the Academy of American Poets with funds from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Gunter-Seymour designed and edited the collection—a lavish mix of voices: Affrilachian, Indigenous non-binary and LGBTQ; from teens to those creatively aging; poets in recovery, some with disabilities or developmental differences; emerging and well established; some living in the state, others from

Poetry Spotlight: Karen Schubert - Poetry of Hybridity (podcast transcript S2, E4)

Jeremy Jusek: Welcome to Poetry Spotlight presented by the Ohio Poetry Association. I am your host, Jeremy Jusek. And with us today is Karen Schubert. Karen Schubert Karen is an author, co-founding director of Literary Youngstown, and multi-genre talented writer who has published poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, essays, reviews, interviews, and any other views you might consider. She's published six books, and her prose poem collection I Left My Winds on a Chair was the Wick Poetry Center poetry winner. Her awards include the William Dickey Memorial Broadside Award, an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award in Poetry, and has held residencies at the Headlands Center for the Arts and the Vermont Studio Center. To learn more about Karen, please visit karenschubertpoetry.com . Karen, thank you so much for joining us. Karen Schubert: Oh this is such a kick, thanks so much for bringing me on. I’m honored and chuffed. JJ: Thank you! The pleasure’s all mine. Do you wa

Poetry Spotlight: Pauletta Hansel - Poetry of Letters (Podcast Transcript S2, E3)

Jeremy Jusek: Welcome to Poetry Spotlight presented by the Ohio Poetry Association. I am your host, Jeremy Jusek. And with us today is Pauletta Hansel. Pauletta Hansel. Image: Kentucky Rose Photography Pauletta Hansel’s nine poetry collections include Heartbreak Tree , a poetic exploration of the intersection of gender and place in Appalachia, out in March 2022 from Madville Publishing, and Friend , Coal Town Photograph and Palindrome , winner of the 2017 Weatherford Award for best Appalachian poetry, all from Dos Madres Press. She is 2022 Writer-in-Residence for The Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County ( cincinnatilibrary.org/writer-in-residence ). Her writing has been featured in Oxford American, Rattle, Appalachian Journal, The Anthology of Appalachian Writers, American Life in Poetry, Verse Daily and Poetry Daily, among others. Pauletta was Cincinnati’s first Poet Laureate (2016-2018) and past managing editor of Pine Mountain Sand & Gravel . For more, visit her