The Big Book of Daniel [Thompson]

 

"Daniel's last gift to us, his life's work, what he gathered in his sixty-nine years, over three hundred pages of poems, is this book, this big jug of honey, which you have in your hands. Taste and see." - from the "Foreword" by Maj Ragain

This fine book by one of Cleveland's finest poets 

 Daniel Thompson

is available at Bottom Dog Press
http://smithdocs.net

and at Mac's Backs
https://www.macsbacks.com

December 14th: Open Mic Sharing in Sandusky

You're invited to this sharing on poetry's relevance in your and our lives.

Sandusky is 55 minutes west and worth the drive. 

You're Invited to Celebrate St. Patrick's Day with Word and Song

 Ray McNiece at

Sandusky's Mr. Smith's Coffeehouse

2:00 Saturday March 16th

Open-Mic to Follow 

Connections

 Join us in lovely downtown Sandusky for a Celebration of haiku 

and Barbara Sabol and Larry Smith's new book CONNECTIONS. 

We will all be writing and sharing haiku. Come and share. 

Saturday Nov. 19th...1:30 - 3:00

Two Area Poets Pair up in New Book of Tanka and Haiku Poetry

 

two area poets pair up in new book 
of tanka and haiku poetry

CONNECTIONS

Morning Dew: Tanka by Larry Smith
and
core & all: haiku by Barbara Sabol

Order online from Bottom Dog Press 

Timothy Russell

 Here is a poem and tribute to Ohio 

Working-Class poet Timothy Russell.

Rustbelt Girl Blog

(two clicks to get there, but worth it.)

Thoreau's Journal

 Thoreau's Journal - August 29, 1859

It is so cool a morning that for the first time I move into the entry to sit in the sun. But in this cooler weather I feel as if the fruit of my summer were hardening and maturing a little, acquiring color and flavor like the corn and other fruits in the field. When the very earliest ripe grapes begin to be scented in the cool nights, then, too, the first cooler airs of autumn begin to waft my sweetness on the desert airs of summer. Now, too, poets nib their pens afresh. I scent their first-fruits in the cool evening air of the year. By the coolness the experience of the summer is condensed and matured, whether our fruits be pumpkins or grapes. Man, too, ripens with the grapes and apples.

Poetry Version

Thoreau's Journal - August 29, 1859

 

It is so cool a morning that

for the first time I move into

the entry to sit in the sun. But

in this cooler weather I feel

as if the fruit of my summer were

hardening and maturing a little,

acquiring color and flavor like the

corn and other fruits in the field.

When the very earliest ripe grapes

begin to be scented in the cool nights,

then, too, the first cooler airs of autumn

begin to waft my sweetness on the

desert airs of summer. Now, too, poets

nib their pens afresh. I scent their

first-fruits in the cool evening air of the year.

By the coolness the experience of the summer

is condensed and matured, whether our fruits

be pumpkins or grapes. Man, too,

ripens with the grapes and apples.

Two important books on Cleveland Poetry Scenes

 

Two important books on Cleveland Poetry Scenes

An anthology of writing by and about d.a.levy.

Chronology of his life and work, Biographical essays, Photographs, Interviews, Profiles, Statements, Letters, Art Work, Collage, Poems and Critical appreciations of his writing and art levy's “Cleveland Prints” Eight pages in full color.

Contributors: Ed Sanders, T.L. Kryss, rjs, Karl Young, Allen Frost, Joel Lipman, Kent Taylor, Mark Kuhar, Ingrid Swanberg, Larry Smith, Russell Salamon, John Jacob, Doug Manson, Michael Basinski, Jim Lang, and others.    

                                                 

Edited by Larry Smith & Mary E. Weems & Nina Freedlander Gibans

"Poetry has a long and living history in Cleveland, Ohio, and this examination of its past through the lens of its vibrant present is a treasure in and of itself. They are all here, the great ones who showed the way: Langston Hughes, d.a.levy, Alberta Turner, Robert Wallace, Daniel Thompson. They set the bar pretty high. But as the editors demonstrate, their sons and daughters carry on, bringing the word to the city's streets and universities, libraries and coffeehouses."  ~ Ron Antonucci

304 pages of Cleveland Poetry Scenes from 1945 to the Present. 6 x 9 with over 50 photographs of people and places from the times. Includes an anthology of 40 key Cleveland poets with bio and statements from each.

Here's the link to order: Cleveland Poetry Scenes

https://smithdocs.net/best_selling_anthologies__cleveland_poetry_scenes

Remembering Ben Rader (1947-2021)

I met Ben Rader for the first time at a reading Larry Smith hosted at Joe Sundae's in Sandusky in 2008. I immediately liked him. Since then, I've run into him at probably a hundred open mic venues across the state including right here in Cleveland, where he was born, and it was always good to hear and talk with and learn from him. Ben was known as a master of the haiku form, but was accomplished in a wide array of other poetic forms as well. And he was always generous with his time and knowledge. 

Here is a brief clip I recorded of Ben on the occasion of our first meeting:

https://youtu.be/hnk5j2r1IHk

Sadly, Ben passed away near the end of February following a battle with Covid-19. Our deepest condolences go out to his wife Willa and the rest of his family and everyone who loved him.

A celebration of Ben's life will be held from 2 to 4 p.m. on Sunday, March 7, 2021 at the Norwalk Masonic Hall, 319 E. Main St, Norwalk, OH 44857.

Read his obituary in the Norwalk Reflector: https://norwalkreflector.com/news/306098/bennett-james-rader/.

And here's one more short clip from that day in Sandusky:

https://youtu.be/6Y4-oe4PRaw

The Bookshop Podcast features Mac's Backs and Larry Smith

This week on The Bookshop Podcast, host Mandy Jackson-Beverly talks to northern Ohio lit icons Suzanne DeGaetano of Mac's Backs Books on Coventry and Larry Smith of Bottom Dog Press:

Listen on Spotify, Podcast Addict, PlayerFM or BuzzSprout.

Mac's Backs: www.macsbacks.com

Larry Smith: https://smithdocs.net/LarrySmithHomepage.htm

Firelands Writing Center presents Lynn Powell June 9th in Sandusky

Celebrate The Big Book of Daniel!

From Bottom Dog Press:

A series of readings for the book by Thompson’s friends and fellow poets is planned during April, National Poetry Month. 

They include:
April 5 at 7:30 pm, Room 214, Oscar Ritchie Hall, 225 Terrace Drive, Kent State University, sponsored by the Wick Poetry Center ; 
April 13 at 7 pm at Mac’s Backs, 1820 Coventry Road, Cleveland Heights; 
Sunday April 17, 2-5 pm at Nighttown jazz club on Cedar Road, Cleveland with Ray McNiece and Tongue-n-Groove, and musicians Joe Hunter, James Onysko of Drumplay and others; 
April 21, 7 pm at The Algebra Tea House in Little Italy; 
April 30, 7:00 pm at Lakewood Public Library auditorium; 
May 17 Shaker Heights Library, Bertram Woods, 7:00 pm, 

Friends and fellow poets are invited to come share one or two poems from the book, as well as any poems written for Daniel. 

Publisher and fellow poet, Larry Smith, states, “We invite others to join us in celebrating Daniel Thompson’s life and the release of The Big Book of Daniel.”

See more at http://smithdocs.net

New Book by Larry Smith/ Tu Fu Comes to America

And he lives right here in Cleveland. Smith is having fun and creating meaning by moving the ancient Chinese poet (or his spirit) to the streets of Cleveland. He's working at the temp agency, washing dishes, and struggling with his family to get by and make some meaning of their lives.

"Tu Fu Comes to America is a compelling verse novel depicting the poignant realities of working immigrants. Smith’s spare, sturdy lines flash with Buddhist insight as Tu Fu strives to provide for his family in Cleveland, 'In the shopping bag, my work clothes./ On my back the white shirt Mei has ironed./ No yesterday or tomorrow, only now.'" -RAY MCNIECE, author of Our Way of Life: Poems

"In the winter of 770 CE, Tu Fu left this world. In Larry Smith’s fine narrative, he reappears in present day Cleveland. We see America through his eyes, through his contemplative heart. Hope, loss, friendship, love, the old quarrel with the world. Travel with him. Open your chest. Learn." —MAJ RAGAIN, author of Twist the Axe

The book comes from March Street Press in North Carolina, 60 pages...$9. You can order from them online or from Bottom Dog Press or pick up a copy at Mac's Backs Books...Smith will be reading at Sandusky on Sunday October 10th and at Mac's on October 16th.

Images of Peace Celebrated in New Book

“Come Together: Imagine Peace”

is the title and theme of this new anthology from over 100 poets beginning with Sappho, Walt Whitman, and Emily Dickinson. The collection includes such modern poets as Denise Levertov, William Stafford, Gary Snyder, and Allen Ginsberg, and a broad spectrum of contemporary voices ranging from Carolyn Forché, Jim Daniels, and Jane Hirshfield to Daniel Berrigan, Sam Hamill, and Diane di Prima. Co-editor, Larry Smith, has stated, “This was such a gifted project from the start, to render a poetic tradition of peace poetry and see it manifested in today’s writings.” Smith is the founder and director of Bottom Dog Press and professor emeritus at Bowling Green State University’s Firelands College.

The book’s editors Ann Smith, Larry Smith, and Philip Metres provide the prefaces and introduction to the 208 page collection. Metres’s introduction concludes:

“The work of peace-making, and the work of peace poetry, is at least in part to give voice to those small victories—where no blood was spilled, but lives were changed, justice was won, and peace was forged, achieved, or found. And words bring us there, to the brink of something new. Peace poetry is larger than a moral injunction against war; it is an articulation of the expanse, the horizon where we might come together.”

Metres is an associate professor of English at John Carroll University who authored Behind the Lines: War Resistance Poetry on the American Homefront Since 1941 (University of Iowa 2007).

Come Together: Imagine Peace is the Ohio press’s sixth anthology in their Harmony Series. Others include the award winning O Taste and See: Food Poems; Family Matters: Poems of Our Families; Evensong: Poets on Spirituality; America Zen: A Gathering of Poets, and Working Hard for the Money: America’s Working Poor. Ann Smith explains, “From the thousand poems that were submitted we were able to select and group them into: Poems of Witness and Elegy, Exhortation and Action, Reconciliation, Shared Humanity, Wildness and Home, Ritual and Vigil, Meditation and Prayer. It’s an affirmation of peace and hope.” Ann Smith is professor emeritus in nursing education at the Medical College of Ohio in Toledo, a Clinical Nurse Specialist in Adult Mental Health, and previous co-editor of the Family Matters book.

Sixteen Ohio poets are represented in the collection, including Alice Cone, Maj Ragain and David Hassler (Kent), Tom Kryss (Ravenna), Robert Miltner (Canton), Jack McGuane (Lakewood), Mary E. Weems, Geoffrey Landis, and Philip Metres (Cleveland), Michael Salinger (Mentor), Larry Smith (Huron), Steve Haven (Ashland), Richard Hague (Cincinnati), Jeff Gundy (Bluffton), Angie Estes (Worthington), and Jeanne Bryner (Newton Falls).

Publication of this book by is supported in part through a grant from the Ohio Arts Council, and by John Carroll University and Mr. William C. Wright.

A series of group readings are planned for around the country in Seattle and Bellingham, Washington; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Washington, D.C. In Ohio initial fall readings include: November 23 at 4 pm at The Thurber House for Writers’ Ink organization in Columbus, and December 7 at 2 pm at Mr. Smith’s Coffeehouse in Sandusky. The book may be purchased at on-line bookstores or by sending $18 to Bottom Dog Press, PO Box 425, Huron, Ohio 44839.

New book on peace from Bottom Dog Press

New book by Bottom Dog Press....to be out in early December

I know I'm getting a little ahead of myself here as editor-publisher of Bottom Dog Press, but with all the bad news going around lately, it's good to know some relief is on the way. Phil Metres has joined Ann and me as editors of this fine collection of poems that bring us together to envision a way of peace. If we lose the ability to imagine peace for us and our children, we are lost. This book says no. Poets have always brought us sanity and hope...they are the namers and sayers of courage and beauty.

Phil has an excellent introduction....Relief is on the way.

Come Together: Imagine Peace
Edited by Ann Smith, Larry Smith, and Philip Metres
With an Introduction by Philip Metres

“Peace poetry is larger than a moral injunction against war; it is an articulation of the expanse, the horizon where we are one. To adapt a line by the Sufi poet Rumi: beyond the realm of good and evil, there is a field.” -from the Introduction by Philip Metres

Precedents: Sappho, Whitman, Dickinson, Cavafy, Millay, Patchen, Rexroth, Shapiro, Lowell, Creeley, Rukeyser, Ginsberg, Levertov, Lorde, Stafford, Jordan, Amichai, Darwish;
Contemporaries: Ali, Bass, Berry, Bauer, Bly, Bodhrán, Bradley, Brazaitis, Bright, Bryner, Budbill, Cervine, Charara, Cording, Cone, Crooker, Daniels, di Prima, Davis, Dougherty, Ellis, Espada, Estes, Ferlinghetti, Forché, Frost, Gibson, Gundy, Gilberg, Habra, Hague, Hamill, Harter, Hassler, Haven, Heyen, Hirshfield, Hughes, Joudah, Jenson, Karmin, Kendig, Kornunhakaa, Kovacik, Kryss, Krysl, LaFemina, Landis, Leslie, Lifshin, Loden, Lovin, Lucas, McCallum, McGuane, Machan, McQuaid, Meek, Miltner, Montgomery, Norman, Nye, Pankey, Pendarvis, Pinsky, Porterfield, Prevost, Ragain, Rosen, Rashid, Rich, Roffman, Rosen, Ross, Rusk, Salinger, Sanders, Seltzer, Schneider, Shabtai, Shannon, Sheffield, Shipley, Shomer, Silano, Sklar, Smith, Snyder, Spahr, Sydlik, Szymborska, Trommer, Twichell, Volkmer, Walker, Waters, Weems, Wilson, Zale ...

Larry

Writers and Their Friends

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for friends, even in writing. This small press publishing can be an intimate affair at time because we work together, cooperate, share the load and support each other. Some can be suspicious of this, but for me it's a sign of an alternate and independent system...the other option is to let the big boys in publishing and bookstores and grants programs make the decisions for us. So, I have always supported the Literary Center's Writers and Their Friends event where regional writers are honored for their work. Submissions are made, nominations really, and some kind of a committee makes the selections. Then actors/performers present the work in a night of celebrating work by regional writers and publishers. I'll be there with Bottom Dog Press/ Bird Dog Publishing books to reach their nearest audience.

But what surprised me this year was the narrow range of those being honored. Only 10 writers, while in the past it was more like 20. Okay, but then when I looked at the kind of publishers being for their books, they are almost all University or big press titles.

THE HONORED WRITERS AND THEIR WORKS

Kazim Ali The Fortieth Day Published by BOA Editions, 2008

Michael Dumanis My Soviet Union Published byUniversity of Massachusetts Press, 2007
Ted Lardner Tornado Published by Kent State University Press, 2008
Philip Metres To See the Earth Published by the Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 2008

Cinda Williams Chima The Wizard Heir Published by Hyperion, 2007
Shurice Gross Parable of the Rain Dance Published in Barn Owl Review, 2008
Paula McLain Ticket To Ride Published by Harper Collins, 2008
David Giffels All The Way Home Published by Harper Collins, 2008
James Renner Amy: My Search for her Killer Published by Gray & Co. Publishers

Okay, I salute these folks for their good work, but I wonder at times if working locally in the small presses that to my mind really get the regional writing to the people of this area isn't a strike against one among our peers or those who judge us. There should have been some regional small presses represented.

2008 Writers and Their Friends Biennial Literary Showcase
Saturday September 6, 2008 7pm at The Ohio Theater,
Playhouse Square
Book Browse, Showcase, and Reception