Literary Cleveland’s Cleveland Poetry Festival returns for its third year, this year to explore the intersection of poetry and visual art, on Friday, April 12 through Sunday, April 14 at the Cleveland Museum of Art Community Arts Center in Tremont.
Since 2022, Literary Cleveland has held a poetry festival celebrating the Northeast Ohio legacy of renowned poets—such as Langston Hughes, Hart Crane, d.a. levy, Mary Oliver, Russell Atkins, and Rita Dove—by highlighting professional poets and helping emerging poets advance their craft and create new work.
This year, the Cleveland Poetry Festival will celebrate the overlapping influence of poetry and visual art— exploring visual poetry, the play between image and text, the use of type in art, and the ways poetry and visual art inspire each other.
The festival includes poetry readings by authors from Cleveland and beyond. There will be panel discussions with established authors discussing the interplay between image and text, the work of poets and artists, and the idea of looking.
2024 Cleveland Poetry FestivalWriters can create new writing in workshops on poetry and photography, ekphrastic poetry, and poetry and comics. Additionally, there will be free family poetry activities at the Community Arts Center, or and stop by the book and art fair featuring Mac’s Backs Books, local presses and journals, and visual artists and organizations such as Zygote Press.
Local presenters include Northeast Ohio poets and artists Mansa L. Bey, Ali Black, Donald Black, Jr., Danny Caine, Siaara Freeman, Carrie George, Stephanie Ginese, J.P. Hernandez, Kevin Latimer, Michael Loderstedt, Philip Metres, Wendy Partridge, Alyssa Perry, and Zach Savich.
Visiting authors include Lauren Haldeman (poet, graphic artist, and Iowa Arts Fellow), Joyelle McSweeney (Guggenheim fellow and co-founder of Action Books), Diana Khoi Nguyen (author of “Ghost Of,” which was a finalist for the National Book Award), and Cindy Juyoung Ok (author of “Ward Toward,” which won the Yale Younger Poets Prize).
The full schedule is available on the Cleveland Poetry Festival page.
Registration is open now through April 10. Tickets are on sale for individual readings only, or for the workshops and panel discussions only, or for the full festival. The book + art fair is free to attend.
The 2024 Cleveland Poetry Festival is organized by Literary Cleveland and sponsored by Mac’s Backs Books. Partners include ATNSC: Center for Healing & Creative Leadership, Cleveland Museum of Art Community Arts Center, Cleveland State University Poetry Center, GRVLND, Ohio, Maelstrom Collaborative Arts, Rescue Press, and Zygote Press.
