Tag Archives: poetry stacked

Cento as Form: Poetry found in the stacks

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Join UC Libraries and the Elliston Poetry Room for a hands-on discussion and workshop about creating Cento poetry.

Thursday, Nov. 14, 6:30pm

Elliston Poetry Room, 646 Langsam Library

Katie Foran-Mulcahy, librarian and head of the College of Education, Criminal Justice and Human Services Library, will begin the event with an overview of library collections. She will instruct how to navigate the stacks and then give directions on how to proceed with a scavenger hunt to find resources to collect lines from various texts.

Dior Stephens, poet and PhD graduate student in the College of Arts and Sciences, will then lead participants in a workshop to create their own Cento poem. Dior will introduce the Cento form, its history and creative potential, and explain that participants can use lines from any genre of books they find in the stacks to create their own poems.

The event is free and open to all to attend. Come to learn about and create a Cento poem.

cento as form flyer

Join us in the CCM Library Wednesday, Oct. 23 for an afternoon of poetry and music

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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 collaboration with the College-Conservatory of Music (CCM), and is the first off-site event, which will be held in the Albino Gorno Memorial (CCM) Library, 600 Blegen Library.

At the next event, scheduled for Wednesday, Oct. 23 at 4:30pm, three poets will read their original work:

poetry stacked poets mauricio espinoza, brett price and lili alimohammadi
  • Brett Price is the author of “Ordinary Dissonance” (Midwestern Press, 2019).  He lives and writes in Cincinnati, OH, where he does various kinds of home renovation and handy-work, teaches at The Art Academy of Cincinnati, hosts readings occasionally at his house and plays in the band, The Actual Fuck.
  • Mauricio Espinoza, poet, translator and researcher. He is associate professor of Spanish and Latin American Literature at the University of Cincinnati. He holds a Ph.D. in Latin American Literatures and Cultures from The Ohio State University. He has published the poetry books “Nada más que silencio,” “Respiración de piedras,” which won the 2015 University of Costa Rica Press Poetry Prize; and “Pez de fieltro.” His poetry also appears in “The Wandering Song: Central American Writing in the United States” and in journals such as barzakh and Rio Grande Review.
  • L​ili Alimohammadi studies psychology and creative writing at UC, where they’re curatorial intern for the Elliston Poetry Collection and president of the undergraduate poetry club, Cincinnati Poetry Collective. They’ve received awards for their poetry, fiction, essays, paintings and textiles, and they edit the quarterly zine Braids.

This session of Poetry Stacked will also feature three composers who have created and will perform original musical pieces to accompany one of the poet’s readings:

  • John Stork has been a staff member of UC Libraries since 2000 and currently works primarily with interlibrary loan. After taking years of piano lessons in grade school, he picked up the guitar in high school, eventually attending CCM as a classical guitar performance major for three years. While he moved to other interests academically (graduating from UC with a degree in classics), he has kept playing for enjoyment and can be seen playing ‘non-classical’ guitar in the band Jack Burton Overdrive.
  • Siyuan Kang composes music inspired by folk songs and arts. Her work was performed in Toronto by Untitled Ensemble; piano solo work performed by Mingfei Li in Chicago in May. She holds a diploma from the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and is now pursuing a DMA degree.
  • Andrew Strawn is an established young composer whose talent and dedication has already gained attention and respect within the musical community. His music is known for its romantic expression and highly polished orchestration, with topics often drawn from visual art and literature. He currently studies music composition at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM) with Douglas Knehans, Michael Fiday, and Ellen Harrison; and saxophone performance with James Bunte and Carly Hood.
composers john stork, siyuan kang and andrew strawn
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Poetry Anthology, Vol. 1 on sale now!

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Buy your copy today for $50+tax. Available via the University of Cincinnati Press web site.

The Poetry Stacked Anthology, Volume 1 features the work of the poets, artists and dancers of the 2022-23 series. Accomplished poets featured in the Poetry Anthology, Volume 1 include University of Cincinnati faculty members Alecia Beymer, Elijah Guerra, Aditi Machado and Felicia Zamora, along with current and former University of Cincinnati students Hussain Ahmed, Taylor Byas, Casey Harloe, Asher Marron, Nicholas Molbert, Dior Stephens and Connor Yeck. Community poets bring a vibrancy to the Poetry Anthology with Manuel Iris, Violeta Orozco, Caroline Plasket, Kristen Renzi and Ohio Poet Laureate Kari Gunter-Seymour.

Art, dance and poetry coalesce in the Poetry Anthology highlighting the UC College-Conservatory of Music students Sydney D’Orso, Emilia Mieczykowski and Gracie Zamiska and College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning artists Kyle Angel, Kelsey Linder and Pedal Miranda.

poetry stacked anthology

The Anthology is a true artist book. Printed on bright pink paper with a four-part insert on colorful paper, its structure is an accordion fold that reveals each part upon opening. The first three parts include poems, artwork and illustrations from the featured 16 poets of the 2022-23 Poetry Stacked reading series. The fourth part features an Editor’s Note from student editor Grace Guy and biographies of the poets, artists and dancers.

The reverse side includes a list of the poets, the Poetry Stacked branding and two pockets – one containing the Poetry Stacked sticker and another for the book’s owner to fill.

The Anthology was a collaboration between the Elliston Poetry Room, University of Cincinnati Libraries, the Preservation Lab and the University of Cincinnati Press. The Anthology was edited by Grace Guy, Ben Kline and Michael Peterson.The form was created by Holly Prochaska with Melissa Cox Norris designing the layout and cover art. Jessica Ebert, Catarina Figueirinhas, Hyacinth Tucker and Holly Prochaska assembled the Anthology.

A limited run of 50 are available for purchase.

poetry stacked anthology

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.

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.

April 10th Poetry Stacked to feature UC poetry students

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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.

The next event, scheduled for Wednesday, April 10 at 4pm, will be an expanded program in celebration of National Poetry Month. The poetry reading will feature four University of Cincinnati student poets (pictured above clockwise from top):

  • Holli Carrell is a writer originally from Utah, now living in Cincinnati, where she is pursuing a Ph.D. in creative writing at the University of Cincinnati with a certificate in women’s, gender, and sexuality studies. Her poems have recently appeared in 32 Poems, The Journal, Salt Hill, Bennington Review, Quarterly West, Blackbird, Poetry Northwest, and other places. She currently serves as an assistant editor at The Cincinnati Review.
  • Tyler McDonald is a 3rd year undergraduate student at the University of Cincinnati studying Creative Writing and Professional Writing. He is a poet whose work deals with survivorship, relationships, and exploring personal identity. His poetry has appeared in Short Vine, Outrageous Fortune, and Mind Swimmer. In 2022, he was the recipient of the Robinson Essay Prize. Outside of writing, he can be found serving coffee, wandering nature, and copyediting the work of other writers.
  • Andy Sia is a poet and scholar from Brunei currently residing in Cincinnati. His recent manuscript, Sleuth, engages with whodunnit tropes and is an exploration of modes of reading and habitation. He is currently researching theories of reading and books as objects.
  • Grace Guy is a poet and writer, who currently splits her time between Cincinnati and Toledo. She is an undergraduate student studying English at the University of Cincinnati. Their poetry can be found in Short Vine Literary Journal. She is the recipient of an honorable mention for the 2023 Academy of American Poets Prize (Undergraduate Prize). When in Toledo, they work at a local coffee shop which they absolutely love.
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Poetry Stacked presents “Talkback Ekphrastic”

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In November 2023, faculty and student artists from UC’s College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning (DAAP) joined the poets of Poetry Stacked to create three paintings spontaneously while immersed in the reading’s live audience.

To complete the creative loop of that dynamic collaboration, the Elliston Poetry Room and the University of Cincinnati Libraries are hosting Talkback Ekphrastic, a two-part discussion and workshop about art, poetry, inspiration and process on Thursday, March 21 at 6:30pm in the Elliston Poetry Room, 646 Walter C. Langsam Library.

The event kicks off with the official, public debut of the Poetry Stacked paintings. Kyle Angel, adjunct instructor in DAAP, will provide opening remarks about the collaboration, followed by a talkback/Q&A with Kyle and the other artists.

After that, the discussion will transition from the painted ekphrastic to the written, where Alecia Beymer, poet and assistant professor/educator in UC’s Department of English, will share an introduction to ekphrastic poetry (poems written about works of art). Alecia will then facilitate an ekphrastic writing exercise with the gathered audience, asking participants to draft poems inspired by the three art pieces created at Poetry Stacked.

The event concludes with a short open mic for anyone to share their work and where the artists (who are also writers!) might share some of their poetic work.

Refreshments will be provided. The event is expected to last 75 minutes and is free and open to all to attend, including students, staff faculty and the community. More information about Poetry Stacked is available on the Libraries website.

Join us Wednesday, March 6 for an afternoon of poetry…and dance!

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

poet images
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Join us January 31 for Poetry Stacked

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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, January 31 at 4:30pm, three poets will read their original work:

poets
  • Lisa Ampleman is the author of three full-length books of poetry, including Mom in Space (2024) and Romances (2020), both with LSU Press, and Full Cry (NFSPS Press, 2013), as well as a chapbook, I’ve Been Collecting This to Tell You (Kent State UP, 2012). Her work has appeared recently in journals including 32 Poems, Colorado Review, Cortland Review, Ecotone, Georgia Review, The Rumpus, Shenandoah, and Southern Review, and she was the recipient of an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award in FY22. She lives in Cincinnati and is the managing editor of The Cincinnati Review and poetry series editor at Acre Books.
  • Pauletta Hansel’s poetry collections include Will There Also Be Singing? (Shadelandhouse Modern Press, 2024), Heartbreak Tree (Madville Publications, 2022), which won the Poetry Society of Virginia’s 2023 North American Book Award, and Palindrome (Dos Madres Press, 2023), winner of the 2017 Weatherford Award for Appalachian poetry. Pauletta’s writing is featured in Oxford American, Rattle, Appalachian Journal, Cincinnati Review, Cutleaf, Sequestrum, Verse Daily and Poetry Daily, among others. She was the 2022 Writer-in-Residence for The Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County, Thomas More University’s first Writer in Residence (2012-2015), and WordPlay Cincy’s first Writer in Residence (2015-2016).  She is a core member of the Urban Appalachian Community Coalition, and past managing editor of Pine Mountain Sand & Gravel, the literary journal of the Southern Appalachian Writers Cooperative.
  • Dani Charles is a queer, Hispanic poet from McAllen, Texas, and recent MFA graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop; where they received the 2021 John Logan Poetry Prize, appeared in Poetry Magazine and Denver Quarterly. They’re currently in their first year of the Creative Writing PhD program at University of Cincinnati.
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Join us November 1 for Poetry Stacked…and Live Art!

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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 September 27 for the return of Poetry Stacked

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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, Sept. 27 at 4:30pm, three poets will read original works.

  • Elijah Guerra is a poet and collage artist whose poetry is forthcoming in DREGINALD and Permafrost and whose collages appear in The Spectacle. They received their PhD in English from University of Missouri, Columbia. They teach rhetoric and composition at University of Cincinnati.
  • Rebecca Griswold’s debut collection of poems, “The Attic Bedroom,” is out now with Milk & Cake Press (2022). Her poems have appeared in Cimarron Review, Superstition Review, Blood Orange Review, Revolute, Pine Mountain Sand & Gravel, among others. She is an MFA candidate at Warren Wilson, and she was a finalist for the River Styx International Poetry Contest. She’d describe herself as equal parts Valentine’s Day and Halloween. She owns and operates White Whale Tattoo alongside her husband in Cincinnati.
  • Asher Marron is a PhD student in poetry at the University of Cincinnati. They hold an MFA from San Francisco State, where they were a William S. Dickey Fellow. Asher’s chapbook, “We were alone together. I forget the rest.”, was the winner of the 2020 San Francisco Pandemic Chapbook Contest. Their book,  “Unbind(ing),” was published in 2018 through Conviction 2 Change Press. Their poems appear in journals including 14 Hills and Transfer Magazine, and the Enfleshed anthology, Held: Blessings for the Depths.

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.

The intent of the series is to enrich and engage the UC campus and Cincinnati communities in accordance with the Libraries’ Strategic Framework and the Next Lives Here Strategic Directions in support of Academic Excellence and Community Engagement. It aligns with the Libraries’ vision as the globally engaged, intellectual commons of the university – positioning ourselves as the hub of collaboration, digital innovation, and scholarly endeavor on campus and beyond.

Can’t make it to Poetry Stacks in person? It will be live streamed via the Elliston Poetry Room’s Instagram. And look for information soon about the November 1st Poetry Stacked.

poetry stacked image

Langsam Library exhibit in honor of National Poetry Month features the poets of Poetry Stacked

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poetry exhibit bannerIn celebration of National Poetry Month, an exhibit installed on the 4th floor lobby of the Walter C. Langsam Library features work by the 2022/23 Poetry Stacked poets. Included in the exhibit are poems from 13 of the University of Cincinnati student, faculty and community member poets that read at the series. Included in the exhibit are UC faculty poets: Aditi Machado, Rebecca Lindenberg, Felicia Zamora and Simone Savannah.

Rebecca Lindenberg

Bottle Brush Bees

The red-blossomed bush
furred out in the corner
of the narrow yard sizzles
with bees, bristled
cylindrical flowers tipped
with yellow pollen lure
their fuzzy thieves. Once
or maybe twice a month
barefoot she or her sister
might find one, lightning
in the grass; they
devised a whole lexicon
for sting – bee-branded,
bumble-shocked,  bee-
needled, honey-rung –
despite all their words
what she’ll remember is
not how it feels to be stung,
but their constant song.

Rae Hoffman Jager, Manuel Iris, Yalie Saweda Kamara, Caroline Plasket and Kari Gunter-Seymour represent poets from the community.

Manuel Iris

Witness

Your daughter is dancing, says my wife
touching her belly.

For the past five months
I have been a witness
to what happens there,
under her hands.

My wife is a house inside my house
and I am outside of my own heart.

I am sure she is happy, she says
and I would give up poetry
in exchange for having, inside me, my daughter.
For feeling that dance that bonds them
to all beginnings.

But that option does not exist
and I do what I can:
cooking, fulfilling cravings,
writing a poem in which I say what I can see
from this side of the skin
in which mystery embodies itself.

And I testify, with loving envy,
that an everyday miracle
is a miracle

and nothing less.

A highlight of Poetry Stacked are the UC students who read at each session. Students featured in the exhibit are: Dior Stephens, Romie Hernández Morgan, Hussain Ahmed and Casey Harloe.

Casey Harloe

for me, from me

I am here in
this world
to roam the
unknown
but stay stuck
in one home
fields remain
endless to
explore, yet
here I stand
at the door,
staring
at the ceiling
to mourn
the boredom
I carry &
the adventure
I crave
the journey
doesn’t begin
until you move
so I decided
to walk away
from what I
already knew

The exhibit was curated and designed by Melissa Cox Norris, director of library communications. A bibliography of the poets’ works is available at the exhibit and online.

Launched by the Academy of American Poets in April 1996, National Poetry Month is a special occasion that celebrates poets’ integral role in our culture and that poetry matters.

_______________________________

And don’t miss the next Poetry Stacked event, scheduled for Wednesday, April 12 at 4pm, featuring Kari Gunter-Seymour, Poet Laureate of Ohio, and celebrating poetry by graduating University of Cincinnati doctoral students: Nick Molbert, Marianne Chan, Connor Yeck and Taylor Byas. Following the poetry readings, attendees are invited to a reception in the Elliston Poetry Room as we mark the successful conclusion of the 2022/23 Poetry Stacked series.

poetry stacked