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Category Archives: Elliston Poetry Room
Read Source to learn about the news, events, people and happenings of UC Libraries
Read Source, the online newsletter, to learn about the news, events, people and happenings in UC Libraries.
In this issue of Source, Liz Kiscaden, dean and university librarian, looks back at the accomplishments of the most recent academic year while also looking head to the fall semester. We celebrate the many accomplishments of the UC Libraries faculty and staff, the 2026 UC Open Research Day and announce the 2026 Zero Textbook Cost Grant cohort. Two collections are highlighted in this issue: The Werner H. Von Rosentiel papers and the Oesper History of Chemistry collection while the Winkler Center display illuminates Covington, Kentucky as the “X-Ray City.” This issue of Source concludes with a year in photos.
Read these articles, as well as past issues, on the website. To receive Source via e-mail, contact melissa.norris@uc.edu to be added to the mailing list.
Celebrate National Poetry Month with a poetry reading April 8, 4:30pm in Langsam Library
The University of Cincinnati Libraries and the Elliston Poetry Room announce the next roster of poets for Poetry Stacked, a semi-regular poetry reading series held in the 6th floor east stacks of the Walter C. Langsam Library.
At the next event, scheduled for Wednesday, April 8 at 4:30pm, Amy Lemmon, UC alumna along with five undergraduate student poets: Madison Crock, Grace Harsh, Nate Murphy, Iris Rokvić and Madeline Schrand.
Amy Lemmon is the author of the poetry collections Saint Nobody (Red Hen Press) and The Miracles (C&R Press) and coauthor, with Denise Duhamel, of the chapbooks ABBA: The Poems (Coconut Books) and Enjoy Hot or Iced: Poems in Conversation and a Conversation (Slapering Hol Press, 2011). Her poems and essays have appeared in The Best American Poetry, Rolling Stone, Prairie Schooner, The Hopkins Review, The Cincinnati Review, The Journal, Marginalia, and many other magazines and anthologies. Recipient of fellowships from the Constance Saltonstall Foundation, Sewanee Writers’ Workshop, and Antioch Writers’ Workshop, Amy is Professor of English at the Fashion Institute of Technology-SUNY, where she teaches writing, literature, and creativity studies. She has performed her poetry widely including the KGB Bar-Lit series, the Montevallo Literary Festival, and the New York Public Library. She lives in Astoria, Queens.
Panel to discuss “This is Not a Slush Pile: Surfacing the Submissions Queue”
On Thursday March 26th, in the Elliston Poetry Room, 646 Walter C. Langsam Library, the team behind UC’s Poetry Stacked reading series welcomes three writer/editors in various spaces of the literary publishing business to discuss the state of submissions and journals/presses in 2026.
The panelists include:
- Lisa Ampleman of Cincinnati Review
- Matt Hart of Solid State
- Sara Moore Wagner of Driftwood Press and Anthology
The panel will be moderated by Ben Kline of UC Libraries, with students, faculty and staff granted time to ask questions after the panel discussion.
The panelists will address such questions as:
- What are you seeing in your submissions and what would you like to see more or less of?
- How much research is necessary when choosing where to submit?
- How does the volume of submission queues drive response and publishing schedules?
- And other related topics.
The workshop is free and open to all. Refreshments will be served.
Join us March 11 for Poetry Stacked + music
The University of Cincinnati Libraries and the Elliston Poetry Room announce the poets and composers for the next Poetry Stacked, a semi-regular poetry reading series. This session is a musical collaboration, and will be held in the Albino Gorno Memorial (CCM) Library, 600 Blegen Library.
At the next event, scheduled for Wednesday, March 11 at 4pm, three poets will read their original work:
- Dr. Taylor Byas, Ph.D. is a Black Chicago native currently living in Cincinnati, Ohio. Her debut full-length, I Done Clicked My Heels Three Times from Soft Skull Press, won the 2023 Maya Angelou Book Award, the 2023 Chicago Review of Books Award in Poetry and the 2024 Ohioana Book Award in Poetry. Her second full-length, Resting Bitch Face (2025), was a September pick for Roxane Gay’s Audacious Book Club. She is represented by Noah Grey Rosenzweig at Triangle House Literary.
- Jim Palmarini has been facilitating and participating in public poetry readings for more than 40 years. He currently hosts the Word of Mouth Cincinnati series, now in its 12th year, at Over the Rhine’s MOTR Pub. His work has appeared in numerous journals, online and in print, including Shellys, ClayDrum, Jawbone and For a Better World. His narrative poem, “Welcome to the Reading”, was included in the Fall, 2023 edition of The Cincinnati Review.
- Luca Campagnoli is a fourth-year fiction writer and poet majoring in creative writing at the University of Cincinnati. His work is forthcoming or has appeared in Solid State, Mr. Bull and Short Vine Journal. He serves as president of the university’s Writer’s Circle and Poetry Collective. He also works at Household Books, an independent bookstore in Cincinnati.
Join us Feb. 18 for an afternoon of poetry at the next Poetry Stacked event
The University of Cincinnati Libraries and the Elliston Poetry Room announce the next roster of poets for Poetry Stacked, a semi-regular poetry reading series held in the 6th floor east stacks of the Walter C. Langsam Library.
At the next event, scheduled for Wednesday, Feb. 18 at 4:30pm, three poets will read their original work:
- Richard Hague is author or editor of 23 volumes, including, with Sherry Cook Stanforth and Michael Thompson, Tributaria: Poetry, Prose, & Art Inspired by Tributaries of the Ohio River Watershed, the poetry collection Continued Cases, and the essay collection Earnest Occupations: Teaching, Writing, Gardening, & Other Local Work. He was named Co-Poet of the Year in 1984 by the Ohio Poetry Association, received the Appalachian Poetry Book of the Year in 2003, and the Weatherford Award in Poetry in 2013. He has been a Pushcart Prize nominee in both poetry and nonfiction and has received several Individual Artist Fellowships in poetry and creative nonfiction from the Ohio Arts Council, and a Katherine Bakeless Scholarship in Creative Nonfiction to Bread Loaf. He is 2025-2027 Poet Laureate of Cincinnati & The Mercantile Library and was 2021-2022 President of the Literary Club of Cincinnati. He has taught writing in Cincinnati and elsewhere for 56 years.
- Chelsea Whitton is the author of Bear Trap and Wonder Wheel, forthcoming in March of 2026. She holds a PhD from the University of Cincinnati and an MFA in Poetry from The New School. Her poetry and prose have appeared in many of print and online publications, including Beloit Poetry Journal, Copper Nickel, Cream City Review, Poetry Ireland, The Atlanta Review, and Forklift-Ohio. Her work has been a finalist for the Gearhart Prize and the Frost Place and Adrienne Richard awards for poetry. She is the recipient of the 2018 Sandy Crimmins National Poetry Prize. Since 2021 she has been a staff member for the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. Raised in North Carolina, she spent her twenties in New York, and now lives in Cincinnati with her husband, Matthew, their twin sons, and their cat, Dolly. She teaches creative writing and literature at the Art Academy of Cincinnati.
- Emma Johnson-Rivard is a doctoral student in creative writing at the University of Cincinnati. Her work has appeared in Strange Horizons, Tales to Terrify, Red Flag Poetry, and others. She can be found @blackcattales on Bluesky and at emmajohnson-rivard.com.
Join us Nov. 19 for an afternoon of poetry at the next Poetry Stacked event
The University of Cincinnati Libraries and the Elliston Poetry Room announce the next roster of poets for Poetry Stacked, a semi-regular poetry reading series held in the 6th floor east stacks of the Walter C. Langsam Library.
At the next event, scheduled for Wednesday, Nov. 19 at 4:30pm, three poets will read their original work:
Kim Jacobs-Beck is the author of Luminaries and a chapbook, Torch. Her poems can be seen in Museum of Americana, Great Lakes Review, West Trestle Review, Nixes Mate, Gyroscope, SWWIM, and Apple Valley Review, among other journals. She is the founder and editor-in-chief of Milk & Cake Press. Kim is professor of English at UC Clermont College.
Matt Hart is the author of 12 books of poetry, including most recently FALLING FINE: Selected & New Poems. His poems, reviews and essays have appeared or are forthcoming in numerous print and online journals, including American Poetry Review, Big Bell, The Kenyon Review and Poetry, among others. From 1993-2019, he was a co-founder and the editor-in-chief of Forklift, Ohio: A Journal of Poetry, Cooking, & Light Industrial Safety. Currently, he lives in Cincinnati where he plays in the post-punk/indie rock band NEVERNEW and edits, solders, and publishes the poetry journal SOLID STATE.
Bella Gordo is a creative writing student at UC, where she is an intern for Short Vine Literary Journal and the vice president of Cincinnati Poetry Collective. She edits the zine Cincinnati Girlfriend with her roommate in hopes to spread awareness of the revolutionary potential of bug life in the Queen City.
In addition to reading their poetry, each poet will speak briefly on their experience as an editor.
Continue readingPoetry Stacked presents the workshop: Masques & Personas, Thursday, Oct. 30
Join Poetry Stacked for the fall workshop: Masques & Personas, led by Kristyn Garza, Poetry Stacked alumna and PhD student in poetry at the University of Cincinnati.
Thursday, Oct. 30, 6:30pm ~ Elliston Poetry Room, 646 Langsam Library
Learn about persona poetry over spooky snacks. Come in a costume and compete to win fun prizes!
A semi-regular poetry reading series held in the 6th floor east stacks of the Walter C. Langsam Library, the mission of Poetry Stacked is to celebrate poetry and raise awareness of the collections of both UC Libraries and the Elliston Poetry Room.
Join us Oct. 1 for Poetry Stacked + open mic!
The University of Cincinnati Libraries and the Elliston Poetry Room announce the next roster of poets for Poetry Stacked. At the event, scheduled for Wednesday, Oct. 1 at 5pm in the Student Wellness Center located at 480 Steger Student Life Center, three poets will read their original work:
- Rebecca Lindenberg is the author of three books of poems: Love, an Index, The Logan Notebooks, and most recently, Our Splendid Failure to Do the Impossible. She’s the recipient of an NEA literature grant, an Amy Lowell poetry fellowship, an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award, a Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg prize, and has been a fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. She’s a member of the poetry faculty here at the University of Cincinnati where she also serves as Poetry Editor for the Cincinnati Review.
- Marcus Donaldson is a writer with a lot of questions. Their work has appeared in The Burr Magazine, The Cincinnati Review’s miCRo Series, and is forthcoming in Oxeye Reader. Marcus lives with their family in Cincinnati, Ohio, and teaches American literature at a local high school.
- Jo Wallace is a poet from Indiana. She received an MFA from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and she is the editor of Bad Lineage. Her poems appear in Conjunctions, Image, Seneca Review, New American Writing, the Minnesota Review and other places.
This special session of Poetry Stacked is a collaboration with UC’s Student Wellness Center and will focus on mental health. It will include an open mic after the initial reading. Those in the UC community interested in reading their original poetry, can sign up to share a 2-3 minute performance of poetry they’ve written about their mental health journey.
The evening will conclude with a reception open to all in attendance.
A semi-regular poetry reading series, the mission of Poetry Stacked is to celebrate poetry and raise awareness of the collections of both UC Libraries and the Elliston Poetry Room.
Each reading engages audiences via exposure to contemporary poetry and increases appreciation for both the talents of UC and community poets, as well as for poetry itself. Poetry Stacked is free and open to all to attend. Following each reading, guests are invited to tour the Elliston Poetry Room.
Can’t make it to Poetry Stacks in person? It will be live streamed via the Elliston Poetry Room’s Instagram.
Check out “Poetry in the Library”
Interested in poetry in UC Libraries? Check out the new exhibit on display in the Walter C. Langsam Library’s 6th floor east installed in celebration of National Poetry Month.
The display features the poets and events hosted by the Elliston Poetry Room. Located in 646 Langsam Library, the Elliston Poetry room houses the University of Cincinnati’s vast repository of twentieth-century and contemporary poetry. Among the tens of thousands of volumes are rare and signed first editions, historic broadsides, printed ephemera and archival recordings of visiting writers dating back to Robert Frost’s first visit in 1951. The Elliston Poetry Room hosts poetry events throughout the year. Highlighted in the display are event planning documents and promotional materials, as well as images and information about visiting poets.
In 2022, the Elliston Poetry Room partnered with UC Libraries to create Poetry Stacked, a semi-regular poetry reading series held in the 6th floor east stacks. The display includes information and images from previous readings along with the Poetry Anthology.
Poetry in the Library was curated by Michael Peterson, assistant research professor and curator of the George Elliston Poetry Collection, and Melissa Cox Norris, director of library communications. It was designed and produced by Lexi Davis, UC Libraries communication design co-op student.