Culture

First Fall Spoken & Heard Event Slated for Sept. 11


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The Dairy Barn Arts Center is pleased to announce the lineup of poets for the first event in its fall poetry series “Spoken & Heard, Poetry of Departure and Relevance,” to be held September 11, 2019, at 6 p.m. in the Sauber Gallery. The evening is curated by Athens Poet Laureate, Kari Gunter-Seymour. Featured will be Kentucky poet James A. Riley and northern Ohio poet Dianne Borsenik. Athens poet Stephanie Kendrick will serve as opening poet.

James Alan Riley’s new book, Broken Frequencies: A Book of Poems has recently been released and is available online at Amazon, Goodreads, or at Shadelandhouse Modern Press (smpbooks.com). Riley is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, two Al Smith Fellowships from the Kentucky Arts Council, and an Individual Artist’s Fellowship from the Ohio Arts Council. His work has appeared in The Louisville Review, Kentucky Monthly, The Journal of Kentucky Studies, Appalachian Heritage, The Connecticut Review, The Greensboro Review, and a number of other literary magazines. He edited Kentucky Voices: A Collection of Contemporary Kentucky Short Stories (PC Press, 1999) and was the founding editor of The Pikeville Review (1987). He received a Ph.d. in Modern British and American Literature from Ohio University in Athens and a M.A. in English from the University of Arkansas. He is currently the English Program Coordinator and a Professor of English at the University of Pikeville in Pikeville, Kentucky.

Dianne Borsenik is active in the northern Ohio poetry scene and regional reading circuit. Earlier this year, she was featured in “We’re No Angels” at Speak of the Devil in Lorain, OH and “2 Chefs & a Beat: Poetic Justice Edition” at the Porco Lounge and Tiki Room in Cleveland, Ohio. Her work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including Chiron Review, Main Street Rag, Resurrection River Poems (Wick Poetry Center, 2019) and A Rustling and Waking Within (Ohio Poetry Association, 2017); recent books include Raga for What Comes Next (Stubborn Mule Press, 2019), and Age of Aquarius (Crisis Chronicles Press, 2017). Actor Jonathan Frid used three of her poems in his live show Genesis of Evil, and Lit Youngstown printed her poem “Disco” on their tee shirts, which makes her feel like a rock star. Borsenik is editor/publisher at NightBallet Press, and lives in Elyria, Ohio

Stephanie Kendrick writes from within the hills of northern Appalachia. When she isn’t working as an SSA for children with developmental disabilities, or writing poems, she is training Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, attending workshops, painting mandalas on the walls in her home or watching trash TV. You can find other work by her in Women of Appalachia Project “Women Speak: 10th Anniversary Collection,” Not Far From Me: Stories of Opioids and Ohio and her self-published micro chapbook Spilling.

Poetry events are free to the public and doors open at 5:30 p.m. There will be a cash bar. All who attend are invited to bring a poem to share with the audience during the open mic session at the end of the evening’s performance.

For more information about the Spoken & Heard events please go to www.dairybarn.org or email Kari Gunter-Seymour at athenspoetlaureate@gmail.com.