More Information about Ohio Poetry Day 2026

Each year, the Ohio Poetry Day (OPD) Association hosts a celebration of poetry in a different Ohio city. The event features a Friday night gathering and a Saturday of readings and a workshop. This year’s 90th annual Ohio Poetry Day event – held in Toledo – partners with an Art Loop hosted by The Arts Commission for an afternoon of readings by writers from around the state, poetry-themed activities, word games and puzzles, typewriters and a pop-up poetry bookstore.

The Arts Commission is delighted to introduce two new Poets Laureate to the Toledo community: Ohio’s new Laureate, Edward A. Julian Sr. from Columbus, and Lucas County’s newly-appointed Laureate Sandra Gill. Together with readings by former Laureates Joel Lipman, Jim Ferris and Jonie McIntire all together in one space, it’s a day of poetry not to be missed.

Admission and all activities are free; snacks and books available for purchase. There is a Book Room where books from contest winners and area poets can be purchased, as well as information tables about poetry-related organizations and opportunities.

Friday October 16th: 

See our previous post, Poets Gathering at Handmade Toledo from 7pm-9pm.

Saturday October 17th:

10:00 AM – 12:00 PM:

OPD Evan Lodge Workshop led by Professor Jennifer Moore
Workshop of poems submitted to Ohio Poetry Day contest.

Jennifer Moore was born and raised in Seattle. She is the author of Easy Does It (2021) and The Veronica Maneuver (2015), both from the University of Akron Press, and a chapbook of centos, Smaller Ghosts (Seven Kitchens Press, 2020). Her poems have appeared in Ploughshares, Bennington Review, 32Poems, Tupelo Quarterly, and elsewhere, and she is the recipient of fellowships and residencies with the Jentel Arts Foundation, the Leña Artist Research and Residency Centre, and the Ora Lerman Charitable Trust. A professor of creative writing and Director of the Honors Program at Ohio Northern University, she lives in Bowling Green, Ohio.

Activity stations (12:00 – 4:00 PM):
Typewriters by Dan Peterson
Poetry-themed art stations
Flyku / Rosemarie Wilson
Poetry on Demand / Tony Brewer
Feather poem prompts / Simone Spruce
Wire-bound books / Stefanie Hathaway
Fall-apart books / Tim Geiger
Toledo Museum of Art (1-2 activities)
Ode to the Zip Code / Audrey Johnson
Scrap4Art activity
Book buttons / Library
577 Foundation activity

12:00 PM – 1:00 PM:

Readings by Ohio Poet Laureate Edward A. Julian Sr. and Lucas County Poet Laureate Sandra Rivers-Gill

Named Ohio Poet Laureate for 2026 and 2027 by the governor of the state of Ohio, Edward A. Julian Sr. of Columbus, Ohio is a published author, poet, motivational speaker, and creator of The Begin Within Initiative Life Skills Course. Though he served 14 years in federal prison as a young man, he then committed himself to becoming a force for positive change, earning an Associate of Arts degree from Cuyahoga Community College and studying social work at Cleveland State University. Through his work and his life, Edward exemplifies the power of beginning within.

Sandra Rivers-Gill, Lucas County’s newest Poet Laureate, is an award-winning poet, playwright and teaching artist. Her debut poetry chapbook, As We Cover Ourselves With Light (Shelia-Na-Gig Editions, 2023), was a finalist for the 2024 Eric Hoffer Book Award, and was featured at the 2024 Ohioana Book Festival. She is currently serving as a Teaching Artist for the Ohio Arts Council and a Poet Ambassador to Ohio Poetry Association representing Northwest Ohio. Her work has appeared in numerous publications and her poetry has garnered nominations for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net.

1:00 PM – 2:00 PM: 

Reading by Poet of the Year - Chuck Salmons

Chuck Salmons has served as part of the leadership of the Ohio Poetry Association for over a decade. His poems have appeared in numerous journals, including Chiron Review, Evening Street Review, The Ekphrastic Review, and Sheila-Na-Gig Online. He has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and the Paterson Poetry Prize, and received a 2018 Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award for poetry. He has published four poetry collections: Stargazer Suite; Patch Job; The Grace of Gazing Inward: Poems in Response to the Art of Alice Carpenter; and Surviving the Eremocene, which was released by Sheila-Na-Gig Editions in autumn 2025.

2:00 PM – 3:00 PM: 

Reading by Ohio Poetry Day contest winners

3:00 PM – 4:00 PM: 

Readings by prior Lucas County Poets Laureate - Jonie McIntire, Jim Ferris and Joel Lipman

Jonie McIntire, former Poet Laureate of Lucas County, Ohio (2022-2026), has authored Semidomesticated (rereleased through Sheila-Na-Gig Editions, 2022), which won Red Flag Poetry’s 2020 chapbook contest; Beyond the Sidewalk, (Nightballet Press, 2017); and Not All Who Are Lost Wander, (Finishing Line Press, 2016). She hosts a monthly reading series called Uncloistered Poetry from Toledo, Ohio, currently in its eleventh year.

Jim Ferris is author of Slouching Towards Guantanamo, Facts of Life, and The Hospital Poems. Past president of the Society for Disability Studies and the Disabled & D/deaf Writers Caucus, he has received awards for performance and mathematics as well as poetry and creative nonfiction. Ferris was Poet Laureate of Lucas County, Ohio from 2014-2020. He earned a doctorate in performance studies and was the Ability Center Endowed Chair in Disability Studies at the University of Toledo.

Joel Lipman was the inaugural Poet Laureate of Lucas County, appointed in 2008 and serving until 2014. Founding co-director of the Toledo Poets Center and Radio Room Press, Joel received the Ohio Governor’s Award for an Individual Artist in 1985 and the Ohio State Library Pegasus Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2010. His current books are Origins of Poetry (2022) and Sold Old Paper (2024), both from Redfox Press. Joel Lipman lived in Toledo from 1975 to 2020, during which time he had a thirty-seven-year career in the departments of Art and English at the University of Toledo, introducing thousands of students to Creative Writing, poetry and the art of the book. Emeritus Professor of English, Joel and his wife, Cynthia, now live in Lambertville, Michigan.

This event is co-sponsored by Arts Commission of Greater Toledo.

October 16th: Ohio Poetry Day Kickoff Meet & Greet

This year's Ohio Poetry Day celebration will take place October 16th and 17th in Toledo.

The Friday night kickoff meet and greet will take place from 7 to 9 p.m. on the 16th at Handmade Toledo, 1717 Adams Street. 

Info on Saturday the 17th's events will be coming in our next post.

2026 Ohio Poetry Day Celebration: October 16-17 in Toledo!

Join us in the great city of Toledo for the 89th annual Ohio Poetry Day celebration!

Friday, October 16 (7:00 PM – 9:00 PM)

Handmade Toledo

1717 Adams Street

Toledo, Ohio 43604

Saturday, October 17 (10:00 AM – 4:00 PM)

Toledo Lucas County Public Library

325 Michigan Street

Toledo, Ohio 43604

Saturday Schedule:

9:00 AM – 10:00 AM: Set up (including table setup and book room)

10:00 AM – 12:00 PM: OPD Evan Lodge Workshop led by Professor Jennifer Moore

12:00 PM – 1:00 PM: Readings by Toledo poets

Lunch available at EatWell Cafe, located inside the library (https://eatwellcafe.org)

(We will be reading in the open atrium, across from the cafe, so you can easily get lunch and still listen to the readings.)

1:00 PM – 2:00 PM: Reading by Poet of the Year

2:00 PM – 3:00 PM: Reading by contest winners

3:00 PM – 3:30 PM: Readings by Toledo poets

3:30 PM – 4:00 PM: open mic

From noon - 4pm, there will also be activity tables in the library available for all, sponsored by the Arts Commission of Greater Toledo.

https://facebook.com/events/s/art-loop-ohio-poetry-day-takeo/27094168250269595/

https://theartscommission.org/events/art-loop

Nearby Accommodations:

  - Renaissance Toledo Downtown Hotel: (419) 244-2444 | 444 North Summit Street

  - Hilton Garden Inn Downtown Toledo: (419) 464-9220 | 101 North Summit Street

  - Homewood Suites by Hilton Toledo Downtown: (419) 464-9220 | 101 North Summit Street

  - The Kings Throne Inn and Guest House: (844) 722-2993 | 2040 Collingwood Blvd.

For additional dining and exploration options in downtown Toledo, please visit https://downtowntoledo.org.

Deep gratitude to Amy Jo Zook, to the Ohio Poetry Association's OPD liaison Eileen Trauth, and to Lucas County Poet Laureate Jonie McIntire.

Nominations Now Being Accepted for Ohio Poet of the Year 2026

Once again in 2026, our friends at the Ohio Poetry Day Association are accepting nominations for the Ohio Poet of the Year. This is the 50th year of handing out the award, which is given for a single book of poetry published in the previous year. Past winners include Mary Oliver, Maggie Smith, David Baker, and Yalie Saweda Kamara. Guidelines are provided below. 

Nomination Guidelines 

• The poet must be a native or a resident of Ohio or, if neither, must have previously lived in Ohio and established close ties to the state.
• There is no form to fill out, no fee, and no letter of recommendation is necessary.
• Books must be nominated by other people, such as a publisher, editor, poet colleague or poetry group.
• Book length: at least 48 pages of poetry. The page count does not include: Title Pages, acknowledgments, illustrations, photographs, or end matter, such as notes.
• Nominated books may be from a commercial, university, small or hybrid press, or self-published, but vanity books will not be considered.
• They may have received previous awards or honors.
• They must have been published between July 1, 2024 and May 1, 2026.
• They must be the work of one poet, and the work is not part of an edited anthology including various poets.
• No translations.
• Poets who have previously entered the contest, but did not win, may submit a different book.
• No one will be chosen a second time as Poet of the Year.
• Nominations must be received by May 26, 2026.

Prize

The award includes a cash prize of $200.00 and a plaque. The winner will be invited to speak at the OPDA luncheon and a poem from the poet’s winning entry will be the lead-off poem in OPDA’s The Best of 2026 book.

Results will be announced in late July 2026, approximately 6-8 weeks following the submission deadline.

To Submit

Mail a copy of the book plus the poet’s mailing address, phone number, email and short bio (50-100 words) to:

Ohio Poet of the Year Competition

Attn: Amy Jo Zook

3520 State Route 56

Mechanicsburg, OH 43044

Questions? Contact Amy Zook @ 937-834-2666.

2026 Ohio Poetry Day Contests Now Open for Submissions

The Ohio Poetry Day Association is pleased announced our annual contests! May 15, 2026, is the deadline (postmark) for two dozen contest categories. Categories include humor, formal poems, parody and more. As always, a “Welcome Aboard” category for first-time submitters and an art category to design the cover art for the 2026 Best of Ohio Poetry Day anthology are also open to submissions. 

Below is a copy of the submission form, which provides full contest information. 

Please note: The single $10 entry fee covers all of the contests you choose to enter (not $10 each). 

Ohio Poetry Day 2026 will take place in October in Toledo, Ohio. Stay up to date on event information, including the event date, location, and agenda, by getting your name and address on the OPD mailing list. To do so, contact:

Amy Jo Zook

3520 State Route 56

Mechanicsburg, OH 43044

Checks for all contest fees and purchases should be made payable to: Ohio Poetry Day. For questions, call (937) 834-2666.

Click and download the image below to view it at full size.

Yalie Saweda Kamara named 2025 Ohio Poet of the Year

Congratulations to Yalie Saweda Kamara, Ph.D., who the Ohio Poetry Day Association has selected as 2025 Ohio Poet of the Year for her book Besaydoo [2024, Milkweed Editions]. 

Selected by Amaud Jamaul Johnson for the 2023 Jake Adam York Prize, Besaydoo is an elegantly wrought love song to home—as place, as people, as body, and as language.

A griot is a historian, a living repository of communal legacies with "a story pulsing in every blood cell." In Besaydoo, Kamara serves as griot for the Freeborn in Oakland, the Sierra Leonean in California, the girl straddling womanhood, the woman re-discovering herself. "I am made from the obsession of detail," she writes, setting scenes from her own multifaceted legacy in sharp relief: the memory of her mother's singing, savory stacks of lumpia, a church where "everyone is broken, but trying." A multitudinous witness.

Kamara psalms from the nexus of many languages—Krio, English, French, poetry's many dialects--to highlight mechanisms not just for survival, but for abundance. "I make myth for peace," she writes, as well as for loss, for delight, for kinship, and most of all for a country where Black means "steadfast and opulent," and "dangerous and infinite." She writes for a new America, where praise is plentiful and Black lives flourish.

But in Besaydoo, there is no partition between the living and the dead. There is no past nor present. There is, instead, a joyful simultaneity—a liberating togetherness sustained by song.

Yalie Saweda Kamara, Ph.D., is a Sierra Leonean-American writer, educator, and researcher from Oakland, California and the 2022-2025 Cincinnati and Mercantile Library Poet Laureate. She an assistant professor of English at Xavier University, where she specializes in creative writing and global and diasporic literature.

She is also the editor of the anthology What You Need to Know About Me: Young Writers on Their Experience of Immigration (The Hawkins Project, 2022) and the author of  A Brief Biography of My Name (Akashic Books/African Poetry Book Fund, 2018), which is a part of the New-Generation African Poets: A Chapbook Box Set (Tano) series and When The Living Sing (Ledge Mule Press, 2017).

She has received fellowships from the Vermont Studio Center, the National Book Critics Circle Emerging Critics Fellow and Callaloo (poetry) and is the winner of the 2023 Meridians Journal Elizabeth Alexander Award for Poetry.

Lear more about Kamara at her website: www.yaylala.com.

As Ohio Poets of the Year, Sabol and Reid join the likes of Mary Oliver, David Baker, Kari Gunter-Seymour, and Maggie Smith. 

[Please note: I will post more information about this year's Ohio Poetry Day celebration as soon as I receive it.]

2025 Ohio Poetry Day Contests

 Please click on images to see more clearly: