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A poetry open mic, moderated by the City of South Euclid's first Poet Laureate, "Doc" Janning.
Calling all poets! Join us for a poetry open mic every second Sunday of the month. It's open to all poets, 18 and over. We'll follow a round-robin format, with a featured reader to begin. You may bring more than one poem to read.
Featured reader: Matthew Greenfield, The Bard of Beachwood
Born and raised in South Euclid, The Bard of Beachwood (Matthew Greenfield) is delighted to be bringing it all back home to "the SEL" in November 2020. The Bard's poetic canon includes "Ode to Cleveland” (ironically written in South Florida during Hurricane Wilma in 2005), the verse drama "The Life and Death of King Edward VIII," and his magnum opus, the epic poem "The Fairly Tragic Ballad of Flailin' McDrab," the full 24-chapter version of which can be found at rise-of-west.com/epic
In the summer of 2018, the Bard toured a one-hour memorized performance of “The Fairly Tragic Ballad” to Beachwood, Cleveland Heights, and Tremont. In the spring of 2019, he returned to Cleveland Heights to deliver excerpts from his chapter-for-chapter parody of Herman Melville, “Mocha-Rich,” also available via the link above. In the fall of 2019, his historical drama and meditation on political/social pressures of the immigrant experience, “The Adventures of Fleische Michecha of Rumilshtenikisigov,” received a staged reading at Playwrights Local in Collinwood. Future projects include a Shakespeare adaptation for radio, a ballet based on Oona O’Neill Chaplin, and a secular oratorio.
A Beachwood resident for the last decade, the Bard won the title after “a hard-fought battle,” which was actually a three-minute phone conversation with Beachwood City Hall representatives, in early 2018. Thereafter, the trimeter structure he invented for his epic poem, an odd mix of the traditional ballad and terza rima, became known as "beach-verse." The Bard is amused to be residing in a town with so poetic of a name but, as a 15-year veteran teacher of writing, would still appreciate "Beechwood" as the proper spelling. The Bard currently teaches at Gilmour Academy and will always stand “at Mayfield & Cedar."
M.A. "Doc" Janning was sworn in as the City of South Euclid's inaugural Poet Laureate in October 2018. Doc grew up in East Cleveland and, after graduating from Western Reserve University and the Ohio College of Podiactric Medicine, became a Podiatrist. He's been active in the Boy Scouts of America for over 40 years. He also writes fiction, memoir, and nonfiction. His Facebook page, "Tears of My Soul," has nearly 6000 followers worldwide.
TAGS: | Writing |