Our seasonal featured poet/open mic series returns! All of our amazing features are brought in from out of town and the open mic is hosted by poet/SLG founder Scott Woods.

The March  Ascending Women Event

The March Ascending Women event will celebrate poets

Join us, Sunday March 1st  for the next edition of Ascending Women. This panel, will feature: 

• Holly Brians Ragusa President for Ohio Poetry Association 

• Whitney Ellison Attorney & Author

• Yalie Saweda Kamara 2025 Ohio Poet of the Year

• Moderated by Rhiannon Hoeweler, VP Experience & Impact, MadTree.

What is Ascending Women?

A speaker series featuring strong, inspiring women who have accomplished big challenges. It's an opportunity to connect, learn from, and grow with each other.

Please join us the evening of Monday, December 8 for a benefit poetry reading to support Sudan’s Emergency Response Rooms through the Mutual Aid Sudan Coalition.

FUNDRAISING RECIPIENTS

The Mutual Aid Sudan Coalition (MASC) was created to make it possible for global supporters to give directly to Sudanese responders leading life-saving work on the ground. When you donate through MASC, your support goes directly to the ERRs.

Funds are managed by Proximity2Humanity (P2H), a non-profit founded by experienced humanitarians. P2H combines deep relationships in Sudan with proven expertise in managing and verifying programs in complex environments.

Learn more at https://www.mutualaidsudan.org

Event link: http://bit.ly/4pNIKNE

Please join us for the Ohio leg of Samyak Shertok’s book tour for the release of his debut poetry collection, No Rhododendron, which was the winner of the 2024 Donald Hall Poetry Prize. We will gather from 4:00-6:00 PM at The Well!

The Ohio Book Awards will take place at the Ohio Statehouse on Wednesday evening, October 15, 2025.   Mark your calendars & grab tickets here.

About the Ohio Book Awards:

In 2024, the Awards were officially renamed to the Ohio Book Awards, Presented by Ohioana Library. Each year, juried awards are given to books in seven categories: Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, About Ohio/an Ohioan, Young Adult Literature, Middle Grade Literature, and Juvenile Literature. Fans have the opportunity to make their voices heard by selecting the Readers’ Choice Book Award from among all thirty finalists in an online poll. Finally, we present a special prize for emerging writers, the Walter Rumsey Marvin Grant.

First given in 1942, the Ohio Book Awards presented by the Ohioana Library Association are the second oldest, and among the most prestigious, state literary prizes in the nation. Nearly every major writer from Ohio in the past 80 years has been honored, including James Thurber, Robert McCloskey, Toni Morrison, Mary Oliver, Rita Dove, Hanif Abdurraqib, Anthony Doerr, Celeste Ng, and many more.

Seven of the Ohio Book Award winners, as well as the Marvin Grant recipient, are selected by juries. The Readers’ Choice Award is determined by voters in a public online poll. Over 3,500 votes were cast for this year’s Readers’ Choice Award.

Celebrated poets Yalie Saweda Kamara, Crystal Wilkinson, and Frank X Walker will be in the store to commemorate the publication of Giovanni’s final collection — THE NEW BOOK: POEMS, LETTERS, BLURBS, AND THINGS.

Water permeates this stunning collection—ocean, lake, saliva, tears, sweat, blood—and the deeper Felicia Zamora excavates the purer it becomes. Revisiting her childhood as a Latina living in poverty in the United States, Zamora explores racial trauma, estrangement from inherited culture and language, and the instinct to retreat into the body as a space of understanding. Grounded in the specificity of her history, her body, and her life, these poems find the universal threads that connect hummingbirds to whales, Galapagos tortoises to Matt Groening cartoons, family photographs to joy and heartache.

Zamora scavenges her past and America’s present for the hidden meanings at the borders of the social and environmental, linguistic and physical, familial and personal. Along the way she enters into conversations with other poets, activists, and scholars, seeking wisdom, tracing wounds, and amplifying the voices of the marginalized, ultimately creating a space to constellate radical imagination.

I will be facilitating an arts-based writing workshop with one of my most favorite museums in Cincinnati during National Poetry Month!

About the Creative Writing Project, 2025:

“Join us for a series of workshops designed to provide adult writers of all levels with opportunities to explore the art of creative writing. Inspired by the CAC exhibition, My Kind of Protest, each workshop centers around the topic of identity. This four-week series puts participants amongst a community of writers and educators, offering instruction and guidance from a diverse group of local and published writers. Throughout the series, writers will produce a piece of their choosing, exploring methods such as poetry, nonfiction, and prose. Participants meet every Saturday, April 5-26, for four sessions lasting two hours each (10am-12pm).”

Reading and talk at high school in Cincinnati, Ohio.

DUE TO EXPECTED INCLEMENT WEATHER, THIS SATURDAY’S WORKSHOP WILL BE ENTIRELY VIRTUAL. PLEASE CONTACT YALIE OR THE OPA DIRECTLY FOR DETAILS.

PLEASE NOTE: DUE TO INCLEMENT WEATHER, THIS EVENT IS NOW VIRTUAL. FOR ZOOM ACCESSIBILITY DETAILS, PLEASE VISIT: WWW.OHIOPOETRYASSN.ORG

Inspired by Lucille Clifton’s gorgeous poem, we’ll be thinking about the symbolism of the new year and possibility and its dis/connection from/to the previous year. Looking forward to good company, rich conversation and beautiful writing! Open to the public!

FANTASTIC NEWS! I’m excited to resume hosting Poet Laureate Office Hours at The Mercantile Library! Office Hours is an open-ended opportunity to talk with me about poetry, workshop some poems of your own, or even write some together. December’s theme will be announced shortly. No need to register — just show up!

Saturday, December 7, 2024, 10 AM-2 PM

Come for a little or stay for a while!

GreenLight Fund Cincinnati ‘s 5th annual Cinnovation will showcase HomeStart’s Renew Collaborative and its impactful eviction prevention efforts over the last two years, marking its fifth significant investment in Cincinnati’s future.

I will be debuting a poem commissioned by GreenLight Fund Cincinnati for this occasion.

About the festival: “In a year marked by significant transitions—elections, conflicts abroad, environmental challenges, and more—how can we find our footing? Some authors turn to the past for guidance. They ponder questions, like: What defines us? What events shaped our journey? Where did it all begin? And what possibilities lie ahead? Come join us at the 47th Annual ODU Literary Festival as we honor writers who explore literature's power to anchor us, offering insights into our pasts to inspire visions of our futures.”  For more: https://www.odu.edu/life/culture/arts/litfest

Community + Polyvocality: A Craft Talk and Generative Workshop

In this hybrid craft talk and generative workshop, Yalie Saweda Kamara, Cincinnati and Mercantile Library Poet Laureate, will present multimedia poetry projects that center community and polyvocality and explore the necessity of collaboration, tension, vulnerability, dialogue, and the indispensable value of failure in the artistic process. Participants will have the opportunity to engage in the creation of a polyvocal poem which will honor the multiple voices, gifts, and perspectives inherent in the gathering space. For more: https/inkubator.litcleveland.org/

Poetry and literary arts reading series based in Toledo, Ohio, bringing together artists of all styles. Curated by Jonie McIntire, Toledo Poet Laureate.

Join us for the final Dakin Fellows reading for the Sewanee Writers Conference. Reading features Yalie Saweda Kamara, Sean Enfield, Franky D. Gonzalez, Joanna Pearson, and Maya Salameh. Masks required!

Celebrate the kickoff of Tunde Wey’s residency on this special night with a meet and greet, remarks by Duncanson Program Manager Kareem Simpson, a reading from Cincinnati and Mercantile Library Poet Laureate Yalie Saweda Kamara, and more. For more: click here!

I will be virtually visiting Professor Dees's Advanced Poetry Workshop

I will be visiting UC Clermont for National Poetry Month, participating in readings and visiting Professor Phoebe Reeves’s class.

Joseph-Beth Booksellers and The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center invite you to an evening with Percival Everett as he discusses he latest book, James, with Cincinnati Mercantile Library Poet Laureate Yalie Saweda Kamara.

The #askmewhoiam conference brings together youth and youth serving professionals to promote better understanding of youth culture, specifically as it relates to transition-age youth and young adults with serious mental health challenges. We are eager to facilitate dialogue regarding the cultural shift needed to fully engage transition-age youth in decisions that affect them in life, treatment, and beyond. Our 2024 theme is Strengthening Connections. Yalie Saweda Kamara, Ph.D. will be the conference’s lunch keynote speaker.

Join us for a star-studded evening of poetry and conversation featuring Kimberly "DuWaup" Bolden, Marcus Donaldson, David Moody, and Zeda Stew, and hosted by Cincinnati and Mercantile Library Poet Laureate Yalie Saweda Kamara.

Event co-sponsored by Xavier University and The Mercantile Library

Free & open to the public. Registration required.
Kennedy Auditorium (Conaton Learning Commons 412)