Ohio

State Poet Laureate

In 2014, Ohio established a state poet laureate position, which is currently held by Kari Gunter-Seymour was appointed the poet laureate of Ohio. Gunter-Seymour is the author of A Place So Deep Inside America It Can’t Be Seen (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions), which was the winner of the 2020 Ohio Poet of the Year Award and long-listed for the 2020 Julie Suk Award.

City and County Poets Laureate

Cuyahoga County

Honey Bell-Bey was appointed the poet laureate of Cuyahoga County in January 2020, the first poet in sixteen years to hold the position.

Cincinnati

In 2018, Manuel Iris was named poet laureate of Cincinnati, Ohio. Iris will serve a two-year term.

Cleveland Heights

In 2018, Damien McClendon was named poet laureate of Cleveland Heights, Ohio. McClendon will serve a two-year term.

Type	Title	State
Literary Magazine	FIELD	Ohio
Writing Program	University of Cincinnati	Ohio
Small Press	Oberlin College Press	Ohio
Reading Series	Cleveland State University / Lighthouse Reading Series	Ohio
Literary Magazine	Hiram Poetry Review	Ohio
Festival	Spring Literary Festival	Ohio
Literary Magazine	The Journal	Ohio
Festival	The Kenyon Review Literary Festival	Ohio
Literary Magazine	The Kenyon Review	Ohio
Poetry-Friendly Bookstore	Books of Aurora	Ohio

The Undertow

I am shown
a generosity

so muddied
at the muddy bottom

of a question I forget to ask
until it's fished out

but bloated but 
in the manner of a net 

a web of causal connections
attached to its corners

gently moving over
the surface of the water

how come the road
couldn't have stayed followed

by way of hollowed out
logs & paddles

made of pawpaw wood
rather than by the crows 

alone to the moment
when the Monongahela

the Allegheny
the Ohio meet

I hate the underside
of an idea

but I like the underside
of grass that grows

underwater
and I've seen it from there

blossom 
as if

Sasha Steensen

2010

Freedom in Ohio

on my birthday

I want a future
making hammocks
out of figs and accidents.
Or a future quieter
than snow. The leopards
stake out the backyard
and will flee at noon.
My terror is not secret,
but necessary,
as the wild must be,
as Sandhill cranes must
thread the meadow
yet again. Thus, autumn
cautions the cold
and the wild never want
to be wild. So what
to do about the thrum
of my thinking, the dangerous
pawing at the door?
Yesterday has no harmony

Jennifer Chang

2013

Hesperine for David Berger

     Begin with the dining room custodian at the university who smashed the stained glass window because we are actually going to change history

     Imagine then in the suburbs of Cleveland a sculpture of steel rings broken in halves but opening up away from the bullet-written history of the burning helicopter toward the open sky

     Seems possible because there is a bridge between relativity and quantum mechanics that no physicist has yet ascertained

Kazim Ali

2016

Poetry Near You

Recent & Featured Listings

David Young

Honey Bell-Bey

Andrew Hudgins

The Undertow

Freedom in Ohio

Hesperine for David Berger

Poetry Near You

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Ohio

Recent & Featured Listings

David Young

Honey Bell-Bey

Andrew Hudgins

Related Poems

The Undertow

Freedom in Ohio

Hesperine for David Berger

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