Born: 1962 Ohio connection: Birth Mentor Michael G. Salinger was born in 1962, near Cleveland. A poet, performer, and educator, he is one of the earliest participants in the National Poetry Slam, former board member of Poetry Slam Inc., and current director of the organization’s summer writing and performance conference. Salinger is an eight time captain …
Read More Salinger, MichaelBorn: 1954 Ohio connection: Resident Rootstown It took Cynthia Rylant only one hour to write her first book, When I Was Young in the Mountains (1982), a collection of vignettes describing the years she spent with her grandparents in Appalachia. Born in Hopewell, Virginia, in 1954, Rylant spent her first four years in Illinois. When she was four, …
Read More Cynthia RylantBorn: 1954 Ohio connection: Birth Columbus Michael Rosen was born in Columbus, Ohio, the eldest son of Marvin and Nona Rosen. His childhood home was in a new development situated amid a former pasture. It was there he explored construction sites and fields, collected cocoons, milkweed pods and chrysalises, gathered buckeyes, fed roadside horses, and fished. Rosen attended Kent State …
Read More Michael J. RosenBorn: April 30, 1888Died: July 3, 1974 Ohio connection: Resident Gambier Poet, editor, educator, and literary critic John Crowe Ransom was the son of Methodist minister John James Ransom (also a noted scholar and linguist) and Sara Ella (neé Crowe) Ransom. Born April 30, 1888 in Pulaski, Tennessee, Ransom was educated at home until, in …
Read More John Crowe RansomBorn: December 13, 1911 Died: January 8, 1972 Ohio connection: Birth Niles Kenneth Patchen, son of Wayne and Eva Patchen, was born in 1911 in Niles, Ohio. He was active in sports and writing during his school years. After graduation, he worked in a steel mill and then attended the University of Wisconsin, 1928-29. From 1930 until …
Read More Patchen, KennethBorn: September 10, 1935Died: January 17, 2019 Ohio connection: Birth Maple Heights Mary Oliver, daughter of Edward William and Helen M. (Vlasak) Oliver, was born in 1935 in the Maple Heights, a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio. At the age of thirteen, Oliver had a great desire to be a writer. In 1950, when she was fifteen, she visited …
Read More Mary OliverBorn: 1946 Ohio connection: Birth Cleveland Dr. Marilyn Nelson, daughter of Melvin M. Nelson, (U.S.A.F. airman) and Johnnie Mitchell Nelson (teacher) was born in Cleveland. Nelson began writing in childhood. She earned her B.A. from the University of California, Davis, and holds postgraduate degrees from the University of Pennsylvania (M.A., 1970) and the University of Minnesota (Ph.D., …
Read More Marilyn NelsonBorn: 1954 Ohio connection: Birth Cleveland Thylias Moss was born Thylias Rebecca Brasier, daughter of Calvin Theodore and Florida Missouri (Gaiter) Brasier, in 1954 in Cleveland, Ohio. She was an only child who describes her childhood as being a happy one with doting parents. Moss wrote her first short story at the age of six and her …
Read More Thylias MossBorn: 1955 Ohio connection: Resident Youngstown Poet, publisher, educator, and writer Phillip Brady was born and raised in New York City. Brady received a B.A. from Bucknell University, M.A.’s from the University of Delaware and San Francisco State University, and a Ph.D. in English from SUNY Binghamton; he has been an Ohio resident since 1990. Brady …
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On Saturday, February 25, 2017, the weather was pleasant, mild—certainly not your typical winter day in Cleveland, Ohio. However, for 10 high school students and an audience that included their family members and teachers who gathered at the Cleveland Public Library, the day contained just the right atmosphere for an exceptional event. To view/print/download the program, …
Read More Congratulations to 2017 Ohio Poetry Out Loud Northeast Region Finalists