Congratulations to Chuck Salmons, who the Ohio Poetry Day Association has selected as 2026 Ohio Poet of the Year for his book Surviving the Eremocene [2025, Sheila-Na-Gig Editions].
In his fourth poetry collection, award-winning poet Chuck Salmons explores and expands upon the meaning of Eremocene, or Age of Loneliness, a term popularized by biologist and naturalist E.O. Wilson. Through thought-provoking poems, Salmons looks at the term as it applies to environmental concerns and beyond—loneliness as a condition resulting from family history, sociopolitical differences, scientific advances, and cultural touchstones. Through narrative poems full of rich details, humor, and wisdom, Salmons examines his own Ohio upbringing and sense of place in the Midwest as an immediate descendant of Appalachians. He invites readers to join him in this endeavor and perhaps come to their own understanding about how to determine one’s place in a world simultaneously fraught with disappointment and ripe with hope.
Read more about this book at https://sheilanagigblog.com/shop-sheila-na-gig-editions/chuck-salmons-eremocene/.
Chuck Salmons has served in Ohio Poetry Association leadership, including as President, for well over a decade. His poems have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including Chiron Review, The Fib Review, Evening Street Review, The Ekphrastic Review, Main Street Rag, Pudding Magazine, and I Thought I Heard a Cardinal Sing: Ohio’s Appalachian Voices. He has published three previous poetry collections: Stargazer Suite (11thour Press), Patch Job (NightBallet Press), and The Grace of Gazing Inward: Poems in Response to the Art of Alice Carpenter (Dos Madres Press). Chuck received a 2018 Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award for poetry. He performs with the poetry trio Concrete Wink. Find him at chucksalmons.com.
This year's Ohio Poetry Day celebration occurred on October 16-17 in Toledo, Ohio.
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