A Poem for Cleveland | Cleveland Heights Poet Laureate Ray McNiece Partners with Cleveland Public Library and Ohio Center for the Book to Tell the Story of the City

Cleveland Public Library and Ohio Center for the Book join Cleveland Heights Poet Laureate Ray McNiece for monthly intergenerational and multicultural poetry workshops pairing youth poets with community elders aged 50 and older. Prompts created by youth poets jumpstart the conversation, resulting in poems that serve as a bridge between cultures, generations, and neighborhoods. Add […]

Cleveland Skyline

Cleveland Public Library and Ohio Center for the Book join Cleveland Heights Poet Laureate Ray McNiece for monthly intergenerational and multicultural poetry workshops pairing youth poets with community elders aged 50 and older.

Prompts created by youth poets jumpstart the conversation, resulting in poems that serve as a bridge between cultures, generations, and neighborhoods.

Add your voice to the mosaic of perspectives telling the story of our city! Poems created in the workshops will be published in an anthology in 2023.

For information, contact the Literature Dept @ 216-623-2881


Locations

All Workshops are Saturdays from 10:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

October &
November

Main Library, 2nd Floor (Literature)
October 1 & November 5

South
October 8 & November 12

Martin Luther King, Jr.
October 15 & November 19

December &
January

Main Library, 2nd Floor
December 3 & January 7

Fulton
December 10 & January 14

Langston Hughes
December 17 & January 21

February &
March

Main Library, 2nd Floor
February 4 & March 4

Carnegie West
February 11 & March 11

Rice Branch
February 18 & March 18

April &
May

Main Library, 2nd Floor
April 1 & May 6

West Park
April 8 & May 13

Memorial-Nottingham
April 15 & May 20

ABOUT RAY MCNIECE

Ray McNiece is the author of nine books of poems and monologues, most recently Love Song for Cleveland, a collaboration with photographer Tim Lachina and Breath Burns Away, New Haiku. The Orlando Sentinel reporting on Ray’s solo theater piece “Us — Talking Across America” at the Fringe Festival called him “a modern day descendant of Woody Guthrie. He has a way with words and a wry sense of humor.” He toured Russia with Yevgeny Yevtushenko, appeared on Good Morning, Russia and performed at the Moscow Polytech, the Russian Poets’ Hall of Fame where he was dubbed ‘the American Mayakovski.’ He has toured Italy twice with legendary beat poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti. He fronts the blues rock band, Tongue-in-Groove. (Courtesy of Literary Cleveland)


This project is made possible by the Academy of American Poets with funds from the Mellon Foundation.