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.

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.]

Ohio Poet of the Year, 2025 - Nomination Guidelines

Ohio Poet of the Year, 2025 - Nomination Guidelines

· Poets are invited to self-nominate by submitting their books, along with their complete contact information (mailing address, phone number, and email) and a bio (50-100 words).

· Books may also be nominated by others, such as a publisher, editor, poet colleague or poetry group.

· There is no form to fill out, no fee, and no letter of recommendation is necessary.

· 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.

· The poet must submit two copies of the book. Books will not be returned. Book length: at least 48 pages of poetry. (No chapbooks.) Illustrations and photographs are not included in the page count. The page count does include: front matter and title pages.

o Nominated books may be from a commercial, university, small or hybrid press, but vanity books and self-published books will not be considered.

o They may have received previous awards or honors.

o They must have been published between July 1, 2023 and May 1, 2025.

o They must be the work of one poet, not part of an edited anthology including various poets.

o 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.

· Nominated books must be received on or before May 15, 2025.

· Prize Money: $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 OPDA’s The Best of 2025 book.

· Results will be announced approximately 6 weeks following the submission deadline, or around July 1, 2025.

· Mail two copies of the book plus the additional requested information to:

Ohio Poet of the Year Contest
ATTN: Joanne Greenway, Contest Chair
810 Matson Pl., Unit 1602
Cincinnati, OH 45204

Questions? Contact Joanne Greenway, jgreenway978@gmail.com

Barbara Sabol and Erica Reid named 2024 Ohio Poets of the Year

The Ohio Poetry Day Association has selected Barbara Sabol and Erica Reid as our 2024 Ohio Poets of the Year. Congratulations to these two amazing writers!

Barbara Sabol was selected for her book of poems, WATERMARK: Poems of the Great Johnstown Flood of 1889 (Alternating Current Press, 2023). The poems in WATERMARK follow the path of the “great flood,” from the time prior to the perfect storm of events resulting in the disaster to the devastating aftermath and the reclamation of a bustling industrial city. The book is a poetic testimony of the great flood story through voices of the unidentified victims; their circumstances and lives imagined from morgue entries. The narrative also paints the backdrop of recovery and renewal, in the voices of survivors, telegraphers, aid workers, and historical figures such as Clara Barton. Watermark is a lyric narrative of this country’s largest and most dramatic flood of the 19th century, told from the perspective of those whose lives it claimed and those who lived to tell the tale. 

For more about the book, visit: https://altcurrentpress.com/2023/10/11/watermark/. 

Sabol is the author of six poetry collections, including WATERMARK. Her book, Imagine a Town, won the 2019 poetry manuscript contest by Sheila-Na-Gig Editions. She went on to become the associate editor of the journal, Sheila-Na-Gig online and edited the anthology, Sharing This Delicate Bread, featuring selected poems from the journal. Barbara co-authored a book of Japanese short-form poems with Larry Smith (Bottom Dog Press, 2023.) Her awards include an Individual Excellence Award from the Ohio Arts Council, and she was named the Arts Alive 2024 Literary Artist. Barbara’s work has been nominated for the Pushcart, Best of the Net, and her haibun was short-listed for a Touchstone award. She conducts poetry workshops through Literary Cleveland and the Cuyahoga Falls Library. Barbara lives in Akron, Ohio with her bird artist husband and wonder dog.

Erica Reid was selected for her book of poems, Ghost Man on Second (2024, Autumn House Press), which traces a daughter’s search for her place in the world after estrangement from her parents. Reid writes, “It’s hard to feel at home unless I’m aching.” Growing from this sense of isolation, Reid’s stories create new homes in nature, in mythology, and in poetic forms—including sestinas, sonnets, and golden shovels—containers that create and hold new realizations and vantage points. Reid stands up to members of her family, asking for healing amid dissolving bonds. These poems move through emotional registers, embodying nostalgia, hurt, and hope. Throughout Ghost Man on Second, the poems portray Reid’s active grappling with home and confrontation with the ghosts she finds there. 

For more about the book, visit: https://www.autumnhouse.org/books/ghost-man-on-second/.

Erica Reid, M.F.A., is an award-winning writer now based in Colorado. Her debut collection Ghost Man on Second won the 2023 Donald Justice Poetry Prize and was published by Autumn House Press in 2024. Erica’s poems appear in Rattle, Cherry Tree, Colorado Review, and more. Learn more at ericareidpoet.com.

 

 

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

This year's Ohio Poetry Day celebration will occur on October 17–18 in Springfield, Ohio.

 

OHIO POETRY DAY AGENDA

Friday, October 17, 7–9 PM: Meet and greet, overnight poetry contest prompt, et cetera.

Saturday, October 18, 10 AM–4 PM: Includes a morning workshop, open mic featuring Ohio Poetry Day contest winners, reading by Honorable Mention Neil Carpathios, and keynote reading by Ohio Poet of the Year Barbara Sabol. Registration opens at 9 a.m.

Where:   Christ Church Springfield,
                  409 E. High Street
                  Springfield, OH 45505

Previous Ohio Poets of the Year

1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994	Hallie Cramer Muriel de Chambrun Virginia Moran Evans Cecil Hale Hartzell Celia Dimmette Novella Humphrey Davis Daisy Lee Donaldson Mary Oliver James Magner, Jr. James C. Kilgore no award given Charlotte Mann Richard Hague Michael J. Rosen J. A. Totts Timothy Russell Amy Jo Schoonover Robert Wallace Bonnie Jacobson David Baker Debra Allbery Grace Butcher Frankie Paino David Citino Tom Andrews Michael J. Bugeja	A Sprig of Bittersweet Sudden Soring To Seek the Sun Song on the Anvil Ocean Carry Us Far There Was This Place Surface Fragments Twelve Moons Till No Light Leaps African Violet     --- Grape Pitcher Ripening A Drink at the Mirage Outside the Dream The Possibility of Turning to Salt New & Used Poems The Common Summer Stopping for Time Sweet Home, Saturday Night Walking Distance Child, House, World The Rapture of Matter The Discipline The Hemophiliac's Motorcycle After Oz
1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020   2021 2022 2023	Alberta Turner Lou Suarez William Matthews James Cummins Susan Grimm Miriam Vermilya Myrna Stone Pauletta Hansel Deanna Packard Elton Glaser Cathryn Essinger Herbert W. Martin David Hassler Martha Collins William Heyen Stephen Haven Terry Hermsen Will Wells George Looney Linda Ann Schofield Lianne Spidel Dzvinia Orlowsky David Lee Garrison Jeff Gundy Maggie Smith Kathy Fagan Susan Glassmeyer Laura Grace Weldon Kari Gunter-Seymour Quartez Harris Erica Manto Paulson Rikki Santer	Beginning With And Losses of Moment Time & Money Portrait in a Spoon Almost Home Heartwood The Art of Loss Divining ln Dreams We Kiss Ourselves Goodbye Pelican Talks My Dog Does Not Read Plato Escape to the Promised Land Red Kimono, Yellow Barn Blue Front The Confessions of Doc Williams Dust and Bread The River's Daughter Unsettled Accounts Open Between Us Psalms of the Hood What to Tell Joseme Silvertone Playing Bach in the D.C. Metro Somewhere Near Defiance The Well Speaks of Its Own Poison Sycamore Invisible Fish Blackbird A Place So Deep Inside America It Can't Be Seen We Made It to School Alive Hunger Resurrection Letter: Leonora, Her Tarot, and Me

 

Rikki Santer named 2023 Ohio Poet of the Year

[Crossposted from the OPA blog:]

The Ohio Poetry Day Association (OPDA) has selected Rikki Santer as its Ohio Poet of the Year for 2023. Santer was selected for her book of poems, Resurrection Letter: Leonora, Her Tarot, and Me (Materialist Press/Cereal Box Studio, 2023), a book-length sequence in tribute to the surrealist artist Leonora Carrington.

A resident of Columbus, Ohio, Santer has had published five full-length poetry collections and six chapbook sequences exploring such topics as the Hopewell earthworks of Newark, Ohio; the late Kahiki Supper Club of Columbus, Ohio; the world of ventriloquism, the art of fashion, and the classic television series Twilight Zone. She is a member of the teaching artist roster of the Ohio Arts Council, a vice president of the Ohio Poetry Association, and a member of the poetry troupe, Concrete Wink. Her poetry has been widely published and has received many honors including several Pushcart and Ohioana book award nominations as well as a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Learn more at rikkisanter.com.

As an Ohio Poet of the Year, Santer joins the likes of Mary Oliver, David Baker, Kari Gunter-Seymour, and Maggie Smith. The complete list of previous Poet of the Year winners is below.

Santer will be featured at this year’s Ohio Poetry Day celebration, October 13–14. The event will feature a morning workshop, readings, and the keynote from Santer, who will read from her winning collection. See agenda details below.

OHIO POETRY DAY AGENDA

Friday, October 13, 7–9 PM: Meet and greet with Santer and previous Poets of the Year, overnight poetry contest prompt.

Saturday, October 14, 10 AM–4 PM: Evan Lodge Workshop, reading by Rikki Santer, open mic featuring Ohio Poetry Day contest winners.

Where:   Troy Hayner Cultural Center
                301 W. Main St., Troy, Ohio 45373
                troyhayner.org

2022 Ohio Poet of the Year: Erica Manto Paulson

Congratulations to our new Ohio Poet of the Year, Erica Manto Paulson!

 

The Ohio Poetry Association will serve as the virtual host of this year’s Ohio Poetry Day (OPD) celebration. The afternoon will spotlight the 2022 Ohio Poet of the Year, Erica Manto Paulson, for her winning book, Hunger (Finishing Line Press, 2021). We also are inviting OPD contest winners to take part and read their winning poems. To that end, OPA will host a virtual reading using Zoom and broadcast live on the OPA Facebook page.

This event is free and open to the public, but Zoom space is limited. Viewers can also tune into the event on Facebook. Click here to register.

OPD contest winners are invited to share their winning poems during the event. To reserve a spot in the reading, winners should contact the OPA team via email at team@ohiopoetryassn.org.

Registration via Eventbrite on the OPA website: https://www.ohiopoetryassn.org/events#ahejSK.

Registration closes October 14, 2022.

 

 

Ohio Poetry Day Association names 2021 Poet of the Year and Contest Winners

[Copied and pasted from the Ohio Poetry Association blog. Thank you, Chuck Salmons.]

The Ohio Poetry Day Association (OPDA) has selected Quartez Harris as its Ohio Poet of the Year for 2021. Harris was selected for his book of poems, We Made It to School Alive (Twelve Arts Press, 2020).

Residing in Cleveland, Ohio, Harris is a second-grade teacher at Michael R. White Elementary School. We Made It to School Alive, his second collection of poetry, was inspired by his work as a teacher and gives voice to the experiences of the children he works with every day who deal with issues of gun violence, poverty, educational challenges, and more.

Harris’ first book, Nothing, But Skin, was published in 2014 by Writing Knights Press. He is the first recipient of the Barbara Smith Writer-In-Resident at Twelve Literary Arts and a 2020 Baldwin House Fellow. He has been featured in the Plain Dealer, IdeaStream, and City Club of Cleveland, and recently signed on to be represented by Mckinnon Literary Agency. His works in progress are a young-adult novel and picture book biography. Learn more at quartezharris.com. To purchase a copy of We Made It to School Alive, visit twelve-arts-press.myshopify.com.

Harris’ book was one of seven books nominated this year. He joins the likes of Mary Oliver, David Baker, and Maggie Smith as Poet of the Year. To see a list of previous Poet of the Year winners, visit the OPA blog article here.

Annual Contest Winners

OPDA also has released the winners list for the 2021 OPD contests (see below). Winners and Honorable Mentions for the 24 contests reside not only in Ohio but across the United States and even overseas. Contest winners are invited to take part in the OPD event on October 16 by reading their winning poem(s). Winners should email OPA President Chuck Salmons,  president(@ohiopoetryassn.org, by October 10, 2021.

Join the Celebration: Ohio Poetry Day 2021

Date: Saturday, October 16, 2021
Time: 1:30—4:30 PM
Registration: Event will take place on Zoom. Register via Eventbrite. Registrants will receive an email with Zoom login information. Space is limited. The event also can be viewed without registration live on the OPA Facebook page: facebook.com/ohiopoetry.

About Ohio Poetry Day

The Ohio Poetry Day Association was founded in 1937 by authorization of the Ohio Legislature. Since 1976, it has selected annually an Ohio Poet of the Year, basing its choice on a book published in the previous one to two years. The award is based on the one book and not on an aggregation of work published over time. Four judges are selected to review the nominees, one of which is always a previous poet of the year winner.

For more information about Ohio Poetry Day, visit ohiopoetryday.blogspot.com.

         

###

Now Accepting 2021 Poet of the Year Nominations

 [Copied and pasted from the Ohio Poetry Association blog. Thank you, Chuck Salmons!]

The Ohio Poetry Day Association (OPDA) is now accepting nominations for Ohio Poet of the Year. Handed out annually since 1976, the award is given for a single collection of poems. The award is based on the one book and not on an aggregation of work published over some time.

Nomination guidelines:

• Poets may not self-nominate. Books can be offered by others: a publisher or editor, a college faculty or member thereof, a writers' or poets' organization, any other person of poetic standing in the state, or from the lists of books newly published that are put out by the Ohioana Library several times a year.
• The poet must be a native or a resident of Ohio, or if neither, must have lived in Ohio long enough to have formed serious ties to the state. (The list of former winners of Poet of the Year is below.)
• The nominated book must be longer than a chapbook (i.e., more than 48 pages) and not a "collected" or "complete" works.
• The book may be from a commercial or university press or self-published, but it may not come from a vanity press. Books nominated will be screened for quality and to ensure that there are not too many of them for judges to consider.
• The nominated book may have received previous awards or honors.
• Poets who previously were nominated may be so again, for a different book; but no one will be chosen a second time as POY.
• Nominations must be submitted by May 1, 2021. Mail a single copy of the book to:

Amy Jo Zook

3520 State Route 56

Mechanicsburg, OH 43044

The award consists of $200 and a commemorative plaque, with one poem from the chosen book also being published in the year's BEST OF collection. The POY winner will be notified in the late summer and invited to be the featured speaker at Ohio Poetry Day weekend. Again this year, OPA will host the event as a virtual program on October 16. Watch the OPA website and Facebook for more details

For more background and a look at the history of the award, see the OPA blog article here.

Previous Ohio Poets of the Year

1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994	Hallie Cramer Muriel de Chambrun Virginia Moran Evans Cecil Hale Hartzell Celia Dimmette Novella Humphrey Davis Daisy Lee Donaldson Mary Oliver James Magner, Jr. James C. Kilgore no award given Charlotte Mann Richard Hague Michael J. Rosen J. A. Totts Timothy Russell Amy Jo Schoonover Robert Wallace Bonnie Jacobson David Baker Debra Allbery Grace Butcher Frankie Paino David Citino Tom Andrews Michael J. Bugeja	A Sprig of Bittersweet Sudden Soring To Seek the Sun Song on the Anvil Ocean Carry Us Far There Was This Place Surface Fragments Twelve Moons Till No Light Leaps African Violet     --- Grape Pitcher Ripening A Drink at the Mirage Outside the Dream The Possibility of Turning to Salt New & Used Poems The Common Summer Stopping for Time Sweet Home, Saturday Night Walking Distance Child, House, World The Rapture of Matter The Discipline The Hemophiliac's Motorcycle After Oz
1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020	Alberta Turner Lou Suarez William Matthews James Cummins Susan Grimm Miriam Vermilya Myrna Stone Pauletta Hansel Deanna Packard Elton Glaser Cathryn Essinger Herbert W. Martin David Hassler Martha Collins William Heyen Stephen Haven Terry Hermsen Will Wells George Looney Linda Ann Schofield Lianne Spidel Dzvinia Orlowsky David Lee Garrison Jeff Gundy Maggie Smith Kathy Fagan Susan Glassmeyer Laura Grace Weldon Kari Gunter-Seymour	Beginning With And Losses of Moment Time & Money Portrait in a Spoon Almost Home Heartwood The Art of Loss Divining ln Dreams We Kiss Ourselves Goodbye Pelican Talks My Dog Does Not Read Plato Escape to the Promised Land Red Kimono, Yellow Barn Blue Front The Confessions of Doc Williams Dust and Bread The River's Daughter Unsettled Accounts Open Between Us Psalms of the Hood What to Tell Joseme Silvertone Playing Bach in the D.C. Metro Somewhere Near Defiance The Well Speaks of Its Own Poison Sycamore Invisible Fish Blackbird A Place So Deep Inside America It Can't Be Seen