Join us November 1 for Poetry Stacked…and Live Art!

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, November 1 at 4:30pm, three poets will read their original work:

Alecia Beymer – poet and educator whose work has appeared in The Inflectionist Review, Sugar House Review, SWWIM, Rust & Moth, Radar Poetry, among others. She was a finalist for the Marica and Jan Vilcek Prize for Poetry for her poem, “Tree Surgeon,” which appeared in Bellevue Literary Review. She was also a semi-finalist for the Francine Ringold Awards for New Writers from Nimrod Journal. She won second place in the Wisconsin People & Ideas contest; first place in the Kay Saunders Emerging Poet Award through The Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets and was a runner-up in the Ohio Writer’s Contest through Gordon Square Review. Alecia has worked at the Center for Poetry at Michigan State University, as an assistant editor at Autumn House Press, and as an assistant editor in Poetry for Fourth River. Several of her articles discussing variations on poetics, pedagogy, and methodology have published in English Education, Art/Research International, English in Education, Research in the Teaching of English among others. She graduated with her PhD in Curriculum, Instruction and Teacher Education at Michigan State University. Currently, she is assistant professor – educator in the Department of English at the University of Cincinnati.

Kristen Renzi – associate professor of English at Xavier University, where she teaches classes in Victorian and Transatlantic Literature, feminist and queer theory, and poetry. She has published a critical monograph, An Ethic of Innocence (Suny Press 2019) and two books of poetry, The God Games (Main Street Rag press, 2017) and Saudade for a Breaking Heart (Dos Madres, 2022). She’s working on a new critical project involving Victorian-era love letters and a poetry collection on motherhood. She loves to create artist books and zines in her spare time.

Violeta Orozco – author of three poetry collections in English, The Broken Woman Diaries (Andante Books 2022), Stillness in the Land of Speed  (Jacar Press 2022) and Atlas of An Ancient World, available for preorder by Black Lawrence Press. An internationally multi-award-winning writer from Mexico City, Violeta Orozco is a bilingual Latina poet and fiction writer who has earned an honorific mention by the Academy of American Poets, The Latino Book Award, and The Rising Stars Award. Her first nonfiction collection in Spanish was published this year in Mexico City. She is currently studying her Ph.D. in Romance Languages and Latinx Literature with a creative writing concentration at the University of Cincinnati.

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Join us Wednesday, March 8 for an afternoon of poetry…and dance

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, March 8 at 4:30pm, three poets will read their work.

march poetsFelicia Zamora is the author of six books of poetry including, I Always Carry My Bones, winner of the 2020 Iowa Poetry Prize (University of Iowa Press, 2021) and the 2022 Ohioana Book Award in Poetry, and Body of Render, Benjamin Saltman Award winner (Red Hen Press, 2020). She won the 2022 Loraine Williams Poetry Prize from The Georgia Review, a 2022 Tin House Next Book Residency, and a 2022 Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award. Her poems appear or are forthcoming in Academy of American Poets Poem-A-Day, AGNI, The American Poetry Review, The Best American Poetry 2022, Boston Review, Georgia Review, Guernica, Kenyon Review, The Missouri Review, Orion, Poetry Magazine, The Nation and others. She is an assistant professor of poetry at the University of Cincinnati and associate poetry editor for the Colorado Review.

Caroline Plasket’s work has been published or is forthcoming in numerous journals, including, Gulf Coast, Sycamore Review, Pleiades, Copper Nickel, The Cortland Review and Threadcount Magazine. She was a mentee in the AWP Writer to Writer Program. She currently teaches writing at Northern Kentucky University. She is working on three books and is fulfilled sharing her love of writing (and the power that lies within it) with others. She lives in Northern Kentucky.

Hussain Ahmed is a Nigerian poet and environmentalist. He holds an MFA in poetry from the University of Mississippi and is currently a PhD student at the University of Cincinnati. His poems are featured in AGNI, Poetry Magazine, The Kenyon Review, A Public Space, The American Poetry Review and elsewhere. He is a winner of the 2022 Orison Poetry Prize, 2022 finalist for the University of Wisconsin Press’s Brittingham Prize and Felix Pollak Prize poetry competition, 2021 Semi-finalist Cave Canem Poetry Prize, and several others. He is the author of a chapbook “Harp in a Fireplace” (Newfound, 2021) and a debut collection “Soliloquy with the Ghosts in Nile” (Black Ocean Press, 2022). He is currently an Editorial Assistant for Seneca Review and Cincinnati Review. Continue reading

Join us Wednesday, Feb. 1 for an afternoon of poetry

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. 1 at 4:30pm, three poets will read original works.

feb 1 poetsSimone Savannah, PhD is the author of Uses of My Body (Barrow Street 2020), the winner of the Barrow Street Poetry Book Prize chosen by Jericho Brown. She is also the author of Like Kansas (Big Lucks 2018). Her work has been published in Apogee, The Fem, Powder Keg, GlitterMob, Shade Journal, BreakBeat Poets, and several other journals and anthologies. She has received nominations for Best New Poets and Best of the Net. Simone is originally from Columbus, Ohio. She earned her MEd and BA from Ohio University. She holds a PhD in creative writing from the University of Kansas. She is currently the 2021-23 Taft Research Center Post-Doctoral Fellow at the University of Cincinnati.

Yalie Saweda Kamara is a Sierra Leonean-American writer, educator and researcher from Oakland, California. Selected as the 2022-23 Cincinnati and Mercantile Library Poet Laureate (2-year term), she is the editor of the anthology What You Need to Know About Me: Young Writers on Their Experience of Immigration (The Hawkins Project, 2022) and the author of A Brief Biography of My Name (African Poetry Book Fund/Akashic Books, 2018) and When the Living Sing (Ledge Mule Press, 2017). She has been a finalist for the National Poetry Series competition and the Brunel International African Poetry Prize and a semifinalist for the Cave Canem Poetry Prize. She earned a PhD in creative writing and English literature from the University of Cincinnati, an MFA in creative writing from Indiana University, Bloomington and an MA in French culture and civilization from Middlebury College. Yalie currently resides in Cincinnati where she works as the director of creative youth leadership at WordPlay Cincy and is an adjunct assistant professor at the University of Cincinnati. For more, visit her website: www.yaylala.com

Casey Harloe is a 4th year creative writing student at the University of Cincinnati. Her work has appeared in DIALOGIST, BRENDA, and Poets.org. She is a recipient of the Academy of American Poets Prize. She lives in Cincinnati. Continue reading