Mark Kuhar celebrates d.a. levy

Collage by d.a levy. "Agent from Vega H.S." , collage by d.a. levy 1967, Cleveland, Ohio" handwiitten by levy verso. The collage was used in levy's underground newspaper The Buddhist Third Class Junkmail Oracle.

On the 50th anniversary of d.a. levy's death, Mark Kuhar celebrates the man and his legend:

• 50 years after d.a. levy’s death, the legend of Cleveland’s visionary poet and provocateur lives on

Outsider Art, Underground Poetry

Poetry reading and art show!

Lady K, Mark Kuhar and Steven B. Smith will be reading poetry at the Serafino Gallery in Little Italy Thursday, June 23 at 7:30 pm as part of their current art show reception.'

Please join poet/artists Kathy Smith, Mark S. Kuhar, and Steven B. Smith as well as artist Ralph Solonitz for Outsider Art, Underground Poetry, at Serafino Gallery in Little Italy. View strange works of folk, primitive and art brut; political cartoons, and listen to poetry, cosmic love songs and bongo chants. OUTSIDER ART runs from June 18 through June 30th. The opening reception is from 6-10 p.m. on Thursday, June 23. Click here for a preview.

Serafino Gallery
11917 Mayfield Rd. in Little Italy, Cleveland, OH 44106 · 216.721.1025

Visit Serafino's Facebook page here.
Click here for directions.

Deep Cleveland Poem o' the Week

I'd been wondering what ever happened to the Deep Cleveland "Poem o' the Week," since the PoTW archives over on the Deep Cleveland site hasn't had anything new for a while. (Nor the older archives, either.)

Well, I'm not wondering any more-- turns out the poems are still coming, but Deep Cleveland guru MarkK had simply moved the PoTW over to Facebook.

Mystery solved! So, if you want your Deep Cleveland fix, head on over to the Facebook for the "Poem o the Week" page.

--by the way, while you're over at Facebook, you want to hit the Kattywompus Press page for some poetry as well.

Kuhar Speaks Out!

Local poet, publisher, and guru of the Deep Cleveland Poetry Tribe Mark Kuhar is profiled and interviewed on the "Poet Speaks Out!" website-- in two parts:

• Part one
• Part two

"I believe in stream of consciousness, just tapping into the words that are flowing in response to thoughts, feelings, experiences, visions, sights, people, etc. Then after you capture the verbiage, you either let it stand as is (primitive word energy) or you can revise as you see fit."

Covering the city with lines

Back in 2001,

when I launched deep cleveland, I began a weekly web feature called the poem 'o the week. The idea was simple: to publish a poem about Cleveland every week. I considered it an extension of d.a. levy's mission to "cover the city with lines." Well nine years later, I'm still doing it. Many of the poems that have appeared have been submitted by the deep cleveland tribe of poets, and many have been written my me, but i have had contributions from all over the country. It seems like every poet who once lived here or still lives here has at least one poem about their fair city. I would like to encourage anyone who has written a poem abut Cleveland to submit. Next year will mark the 10th year of continuous publication, and I would like to put out an anthology. If all goes well, I will have 520 poems to choose from. If you have a poem about Cleveland, send it my way, care of mailto:markk@deepcleveland.com

Songwriters & poets

Anyone who has listened to any amount of altrock over the past decade has certainly heard a tune or two by Our Lady Peace. The Canadian band, perhaps best known for the song "Superman's Dead," among others, is fronted by Raine Maida (left), who as it turns out, professes his love for poetry. So much so, in fact, that he has morphed some of his work into a new solo album called "The Hunter's Lullaby."

Yeah, it's almost cliche for a songwriter to boast his poetry roots, and frankly, after Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Patti Smith, Jim Carroll, and Henry Rollins, not to mention the entire genre of rap, who can compete on the same level? But for the sake of argument, who in your experience writes great songs and great poetry? Can you name a song that is really, truly great poetry? For starters, I'll throw out Medicine Hat by Son Volt. I'll be very interested to hear what you come up with.

What role should poetry play?

You have probably never heard of Alan Taylor, (in the photo at left, looking a bit like Steve Smith in a Tyrolean mountain climber's hat), but he is a poet who writes the World Class Poetry Blog, a very interesting little piece of work in which he comments, ruminates and opines about all topics poetic. Here is a bit of his wisdom:

"For much of the 20th century, poets have been fixated on experimentation and quite often in very odd ways. A reaction to this experimentation led to a movement in the past 20 years called New Formalism, where some poets tried to revitalize the old forms, but much of what has been done by them has been staid. I think it's time for a new movement. The 21st century is not just a new century. It is also a new millennium. This era is beset with new technologies, untold violence, and a topsy-turvy re-organization of old structures in religion (ordination of women and gay priests), politics (the spread of democracy and fall of authoritarian regimes), education (charter schools and home schooling), and morality (the rise of alternative lifestyles). We can argue about whether these developments are positive or negative, but what role should poetry play in that argument?"

And so I ask you, poets of Cleveland, in your opinion, what role should poetry play?