February's First Friday Poetry features EVA XANTHOPOULOS!

Arts in Stark and The Poet's Haven present Canton's First Friday Poetry Spectacular! February 3rd will feature the poetry of Eva Xanthopoulos!

Eva Xanthopoulos is the founder of Poehemian Poetry and the co-founder of True Colors Press. Her work has been published in se...veral anthologies and she is the author of three books; "The Artistic Muse," "Water Walker," and "The Poehemian Series." Poetry, music, and art are her muses and her life would lack color without them. She writes to inspire others -- it's safe to say that it's her life's purpose. Her official website can be found at www.theartisticmuse.com.

NEW LOCATION NEW LOCATION!!!!!! The Poetry Spectacular will now take place at CABLE HALL in the Canton Cultural Center for the Arts!!! (That's the same place as the Canton Museum of Art. We're by the Pegasus sculpture.)

This show includes an open-mic and poetry slam. First place in the slam wins $50. Second place wins $30. Third place wins $20. Prize money provided by Arts in Stark.

This is an ALL-AGES/UNMODERATED event, meaning that everyone is welcome to attend and participate, but parents should be aware that there are no restrictions on language and some performances may contain adult language and content.

We will be broadcasting this event on USTREAM! (Don't worry, poets, the open-mic will not be recorded. You can still feel free to try out rough drafts during the first portion of the event.)

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/canton-s-first-friday-poetry-spectacular

Shows!

Based on the number of text messages and now phone calls I've gotten the past week, I feel that I may need to emphasize something: There is NO Saturday Night With The Poet's Haven event this month. Saturday Night With The Poet's Haven shows are now bimonthly, held every even-numbered month exclusively at Phoenix Coffee in South Euclid. The next Saturday Night show will be on February 18th. A feature announcement will be made soon.

I will be using the months that we do not have a Saturday Night show to do other types of events. Poet's Haven will be going to art festivals and staging other types of unique events, working on exposing modern poetry to the wider masses.

While I was planning something cool for this month, the series of automotive catastrophes I've dealt with recently have caused me some financial distress. As a result, I put the plans on hold for another time, when I have the financial resources (read that as "gas money") necessary to successfully pull off the larger event I was aiming for. As it is, with limited travel options, I've managed to get a significant amount of work done on the new podcast series (and even some work on material for the "Saturday Night" podcasts, too). More on that in the near future. (NOTHING is getting posted until at least five episodes are complete.)

Fortunately, there's another big event happening this month that I can direct your attention to! Stardust Poetry at Karma Cafe starts off this coming Tuesday, January 24th! Stardust Poetry will be a monthly open-mic event, held on the fourth Tuesday each month. It is semi-unmoderated, meaning adult language will be okay as long as no young children come in. (We will also do our best to warn any parents that bring kids with them.) Karma Cafe is located at 4339 Dressler Road NW, Canton, OH 44718 (behind Rooster's, the former Arabica location). Skylark will be emceeing this show. :-) See you there!

TONIGHT! First Friday Poetry Spectacular!!!

Canton's First Friday Poetry Spectacular returns tonight in a new location! The slam will be taking place at Cable Recital Hall in the Canton Cultural Center for the Arts! (That's the same place as the Canton Museum of Art, if you didn't know.) (1001 N. Market Ave. Canton, OH 44702) See you there!

2011 Chapbook Bundle Offer - FREE SHIPPING!!!

I've updated the 2011 Chapbook Bundle! Get all six books published by The Poet's Haven this year, "Getting There" by Jacob King, "Street Corner Poetry" by Andrew Tobias Line, "Seasons of Discontent: Spring & Summer" by Jeff Kosiba, "Interfaces: Drilling Deeper" by Ben Bartman, "The History of Chickpeas" by Laraine Seidl, and "A Thousand Voices: A City Shaman's Notebook" by C.M. Brooks with FREE SHIPPING! Plus, place your order by Wednesday, December 14th and the books will ship in time for X-mas!

http://www.PoetsHaven.com/bookcontents.php?section=23&page=7

Please help spread the word about this!

December 17th - Saturday Night With The Poet's Haven!

While I'm still working on the new event calendar for Poet's Haven, I wanted to get word out about December 17th's Saturday Night With The Poet's Haven show. The featured poets will be none other than ZACH ASHLEY from Ferndale, MI and Cleveland's own AUTUMN AKI! We'll also be launching C.M. Brooks' chapbook, "A Thousand Voices: A City Shaman's Notebook" and collecting donations for the Poetic Provisions Food-Drive!

This will be the last show where you can get a copy of this year's "VENDING MACHINE: Poetry for Change" anthology in exchange for a food-drive donation.

This will be the FINAL show where the open-mic is recorded for podcasting! (See my blog post from November 10th for a full explanation of what's going on with the podcasts.)


After playing around with a couple open-source event calendar programs, I finally decided to just do what everyone else is already doing and use a Google Calendar. I'm still tweaking some things, and will be adding events to it in the days ahead.

Oh, and did I mention that the Canton First Friday Poetry Slam will return in January at our new location? Did I mention that the new location is Cable Hall at the Canton Cultural Center? 8-D And did I mention that the First Friday slam is now partnered with Lake Effect Poetry? Meaning that poets competing in the First Friday slam will earn points towards qualifying for north-east Ohio's official National Poetry Slam team?


Also, keep an eye out for another big announcement regarding a new poetry open-mic series in Canton! I'm hoping to be able to make the announcement at December 17th's Poet's Haven event. :-)

See you soon!!!

NO Poetry Spectacular at December's First Friday

Due to lack of an available, suitable location, there will be NO Poetry Spectacular at December's Canton First Friday.

News will be posted when we have confirmed a location for January's poetry slam.

Poet's Haven Events

FYI: Some changes are being made to the event pages at PoetsHaven.com. Some things are going on, some locations are being updated, and some new events will be added to The Poet's Haven's lineup. ;-) (Before anyone starts up rumors or makes ASSumptions, no *I* won't be emceeing any additional events. Poet's Haven will be helping with promotion and planning, but I do not have time to be the lead on any new poetry series.) Please be patient while the pages are updated.

Meanwhile, here's what's coming up:

Saturday Night With The Poet's Haven
Phoenix Coffee
(4441 Mayfield Road - South Euclid, OH 44121)
December 17, 2011: 7:00 PM
featured poets TBA
includes open-mic
NOTE: This will be the FINAL show in which the open-mic is recorded for the "Saturday Night With The Poet's Haven" podcast. (Only the features will be podcast from future events.)

VENDING MACHINE 2 Cover Art!

Here's the cover for "VENDING MACHINE: Poetry for Change" volume 2! Artwork by Craig Firsdon!

Open-Mic and Podcast Decisions...

It's no secret that I am MASSIVELY behind on getting podcast episodes done. No excuses, I just haven't had enough time to keep up with everything, and work on the podcasts has been the thing that has fallen by the wayside. However, with over a two-year backlog of recorded shows, I've been thinking about the future of the podcast series. I've reached some decisions:

The Vending Machine event on November 19th and the Saturday Night With The Poet's Haven event on December 17th will be the FINAL shows where the open-mic is recorded for podcasting.

We will continue to record the feature performances at the Saturday Night With The Poet's Haven shows and any of our other events that use the same format (IE: Vending Machine).

The "Saturday Night With The Poet's Haven" podcast series will end when the open-mic recording backlog is finished.

The remaining "Saturday Night With..." podcasts will not include feature performances, they will consist entirely of open-mic performances.

A new podcast series will be introduced, the exact title of which is yet to be determined. (I'm thinking of simply calling it "Poet's Haven Live," though that may imply they are live broadcasts rather than edited and cleaned up recordings.) This new series will consist of feature performances from the live Poet's Haven events. Episodes with featured musicians will include a complete set rather than just one song per episode. The new series will be released at a higher bitrate than the current series, resulting in better sound quality. (We're talking 128 or 156 kbps as opposed to the current 80. It won't be CD quality, but it'll sound a lot better playing through the headphones you use with your iPod.)


While time will still be an issue in getting new episodes done, these changes will at least slow down the rate at which the backlog is growing.

Thanks for your continued support, and I look forward to seeing everyone at the Vending Machine event on the 19th!

Authors Appearing in VENDING MACHINE 2!

The following authors will be appearing in VENDING MACHINE: Poetry for Change volume 2: Autumn Aki, Lynne Albert, Dianne Borsenik, Steve Brightman, John Burroughs, Shelley Chernin, Catherine Criswell, Weldon Davis, Craig Firsdon (cover artist), T.M. Göttl, Shelly Gracon-Nagy, Marlana-Patrice Pugh Hamer, Amy Hikel, Timothy House, K-- (Kristie LeVangie), Jackie Koch, Lori Ann Kusterbeck, Chris Lawrence, Marc Mannheimer, Jen Pezzo, Dan Provost, Tina Puckett, Andrew Rihn, Alexis-Rueal, Heather Ann Schmidt, Larry Smith, Teleri, Eva X, and Katherine Zaleski!