Celebrating Poetry

Clermont College Library celebrated National Poetry Month with the fifth annual Haiku Contest. Sixty-five students submitted 155 haiku. The poets came from a variety of majors including IT, history, and of course English.

Each morning during the entry period, I opened the portal and collected the poems. Haiku is a poetic form that is dependent on the experiences of the person writing. As I read each one, I admired the uniqueness of each poem.

After I read the haiku, I collected them in a document (sans the authors’ names) and sent them to our wonderful judges, Professors Cassie Fetters and Mike Hampton, who determined the winners.

 

Grand prize went to Meranda Balkema for:

 

Merenda Balkema

 

Darkness cannot win

If I do not let it in

Spring’s sun, makes it run

 

 

 

 
Three honorable mentions were chosen:

 

Love, justice, freedom

Sometimes that which gives us life

Can tear us apart

– Tessa Moore

 

Serendipitous

One word with five syllables

That is pretty cool.

– Evan Tellep

 

I despise the foes

Who char marshmallows to ash

And say “edible”

– Julia Wahle

 

Thanks to all who entered. We look forward to the 2017 Haiku Contest.

 

Penny McGinnis
Technical Services Manager

 

 

Poetry at Clermont: A Guide to Writing Poetry

Did you know Clermont College Librarypoetry has a Poetry at Clermont research guide for students?

What’s on the guide?

  • links to poems
  • databases that connect to a variety of poetic information
  • a list of books available for check out
  • reference sources
  • websites that aid in writing and understanding poetry
  • information about the annual haiku contest
  • proper citations

The guide also gives the poet a source for inspiration from other writers’ work as well as links to poetry associations.

Happy Poetry Month!

Penny McGinnis
Technical Services Manager

Guest Poet, Adam Day

Clermont College Library will be hosting a poetry reading in collaboration with the English, Languages, and Fine Arts departments. Adam Day, guest poet, will be in the library on April 6 at 1:25 to read from his writings, including his latest book, ModeDay.MODELCITY.web_-692x1024l of a City in Civil War. We’ll also host a reception, book signing, and Q & A session immediately following.

Adam is the recipient of a Poetry Society of America Chapbook Fellowship for Badger, Apocrypha, a PEN Emerging Writers Award, and an Al Smith Fellowship from the Kentucky Arts Council.

We hope you will join us for this wonderful event.

Penny McGinnis

Technical Services Manager

Clermont College Haiku Contest

In honor of National Poetry Month, the Clermont College Library is sponsoring its 5th Annual Haiku Contest.

Clermont College students will have the opportunity to write up to 3 haiku and submit them for a chance to win a $50 gift card.  Professors Cassie Fetters and Michael Hampton will serve as our esteemed judges.

We have complete contest guidelines and submission page online. You may begin submitting entries on March 16.

The entry deadline is April 8th.

Penny McGinnis
Technical Services ManagerHaiku poster for guide

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Two Events in the Elliston Poetry Room This Week

Claudia Keelan

On Wednesday, September 16th at 4:00 poet, editor, and translator Claudia Keelan will read from and discuss Truth of My Songs: The Poems of the Trobairitz (Omnidawn, 2015), the new anthology of 12th century female troubadours (or “trobairitz”) that she translated and edited. Her most recent of her seven poetry collections are O, Heart (Barrow Street, 2014), Missing Her (New Issues Press, 2009), and Utopic (Alice James Books, 2001). As part of her visit to Cincinnati, Keelan will also give a reading at Xavier University’s Kennedy Auditorium at 7:30 on Tuesday night.

James McMichael, Photo Credit: Cindy Love

Photo Credit: Cindy Love

Then, on Friday, September 18th, James McMichael will visit the Elliston Room for two events — a Q&A with Don Bogen at 3:00 and a poetry reading at 4:00.  His most recent collections include Capacity (Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, 2006), a National Book Award finalist, and The World at Large: New and Selected Poems, 1971–1996 (University of Chicago, 1996), and his honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Shelley Memorial Award, and a Academy of American Poets Fellowship.

Look for recordings of this presentation soon in the digital collection, The Elliston Project: Poetry Readings and Lectures at the University of Cincinnati.

Learn more about Events sponsored by the Elliston Poetry Fund.

Professor Joel Peckham Returns to Clermont College for Poetry Reading

God's Bicycle

Former Clermont Professor, Joel Peckham, opens the 2015-16 Clermont Poetry Series with a reading in the Clermont College Library on Friday, September 11, at 1:25 pm. Professor Peckham’s new book God’s Bicycle will be available for purchase. He’ll be signing books at the reception immediately following the reading.

Joel has published three books of poetry, two chapbooks, and a collection of narrative essays. His works have appeared in academic and literary journals. Currently he is an Assistant Professor of Regional Literature and Creative Writing at Marshall University.

-Penny McGinnis
Technical Services Manager

Elliston Poetry Lecture, February 27, 2015, Mary Szybist

The next reading in the Elliston Reading Series will be by poet Mary Szybist.

February 27, 2015 4:00 PM, Elliston Poetry Room, 646 Langsam Library

Mary Szybist is most recently the author of Incarnadine, winner of the 2013 National Book Award for Poetry. She is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rona Jaffe Foundation, the Witter Bynner Foundation in conjunction with the Library of Congress, and the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center. Her work has appeared in such publications as Best American Poetry, The Kenyon Review, Poetry, Ploughshares, and two Pushcart Prize anthologies. Her first book, Granted, won the 2004 GLCA New Writers Award and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. A native of Williamsport, Pennsylvania, she now lives in Portland, Oregon where she teaches at Lewis & Clark College.

Look for recordings of this presentation soon in the digital collection, The Elliston Project: Poetry Readings and Lectures at the University of Cincinnati.

Learn more about Events sponsored by the Elliston Poetry Fund.

Poetry Month and ARB-Dublin's Easter Rising

By: Kevin Grace

A Voice of Insurgency     Ninety-eight years ago in 1916, the Irish Republican Brotherhood staged an uprising during Easter Week, the intent being to reclaim Ireland from the British and establish a republic.  Though the rebellion failed, as so many others had in the previous two centuries, the rising galvanized the Irish people in a way that would ultimately lead to the country’s independence following a bloody civil war.  The Easter Rising and the years following it are complicated ones in sorting out the loyalties and issues, though there has been no shortage of histories and autobiographies and polemics.

In the Rare Books Collection, there is another view of the rising: a poetry chapbook by Maeve Cavanagh.  Entitled A Voice of Insurgency, Cavanugh’s collection of verse documents the six days of the rebellion from Monday, April 24 through Saturday,April 29 and the men and women who were in the forefront of it as gunshots and cannon fire reverberated around Dublin.  Cavanagh was a dedicated supporter of the republican movement, and friends with many of the leaders of the insurgency.  Her poems capture the fear and exhilaration of that Easter week. Continue reading

A Poem in Your Pocket All Month Long: Emily Dickinson

pocketpiece-01Hope is the thing with feathers

by Emily Dickinson

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,
And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.
I’ve heard it in the chilliest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

For more on Emily Dickinson, visit Poets.org.

April is National Poetry Month. In celebration of this, UC Libraries has mounted an exhibit on the fourth floor of Langsam Library celebrating poetry and poets.

For more, visit http://www.libraries.uc.edu/elliston/poetryexhibit.html

Poetry Month and ARB-Phillis Wheatley's Poetry

By:  Kevin Grace

anthropodermic binding     Last week we had the pleasure of hosting an English Department lecture by visiting University of Texas professor John Rumrich on John Milton’s poetry, who spoke on the sometimes very literal connection between a physical book and an author.  In the case of Milton, Professor Rumrich related the poet’s work to the curious custom that developed in the 18th century of binding books in human skin.  And, in preparation for his remarks, Rumrich examined the Archives & Rare Books Library’s anthropodermic binding.

An odd volume in our holdings for over half a century, this binding encloses the poetry of Phillis Wheatley, an 18th century African American poet.  Though there is no indication at all that the binding has a connection to the poet in any way, and really is an altogether other topic for discussion, it did call our attention to the Wheatley body of work, appropriate enough for a month devoted to poetry. Continue reading