Dianne Borsenik — Poet, Perfomer, Publisher, Promoter, Producer

Wednesday, October 4, 2017

This autumn is going to be busy...and filled with beauty!

First up, on Friday, October 13, I'll be heading to Frostburg, Maryland, for the 11th Annual Western Maryland Independent Literature Festival, where NightBallet Press will participate with a display of tasty titles. Ohio poets will be well-represented by their books; other featured categories include Beat-Era, African-American Storytellers, LGBTQ, and Outlaw. It's a vibrant, well-attended festival with readings, panels, and roving groups of editors and publishers. On Saturday, October 14, at 2:00 pm, I'll be feature reading my own poetry, along with Crisis Chronicles Press founder John Burroughs. I'm really looking forward to the drive there and back...it's the height of the change-of-seasons for the trees, and it was like driving through liquid gold last year.

Then, a week later, on Saturday, October 21, I'll be driving to Alliance, Ohio, for a featured reading at the Rodman Public Library, hosted by Byrun C. Reed. I'm honored and thrilled to be joining Molly Fuller, Mary Biddinger, Steve Brightman, Azriel Johnson, and Noor Hindi, and I can't wait to hear everyone's poems!

November sees me cranking into high gear with three poetry events:

On Wednesday, November 8, I'll be "sitting in the window" at Apple Tree Books in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, to celebrate NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). Hosted by Jane Rothstein, I'll be there from 2 pm to 4 pm, writing my poetry "live and in person" for the passing public. Stop in, chat with me, and check out the wonderful Apple Tree bookstore!

Saturday, November 18 will find me driving down to Main Street Books in Mansfield, Ohio, for the last-ever Borderlands: Poetry on the Edge gathering at 2 pm. Host Mark Jordan has said this popular (and one of my favorite) poetry series is ending...but it will go out with quite a bang! Crisis Chronicles Press will co-emcee the long-awaited, long-anticipated release of Oct Tongue 2. Five of the eight poets published in Oct Tongue 2 will be feature reading: moi, Kathleen Cerveny, Margaret Bashaar, Juliet Cook, and Mark Jordan. The bookstore is a gem, and Llalan Fowler, who runs it, polishes it beautifully. Be sure to check out the "Ohio writers" shelves.

Then, right after Thanksgiving, on Monday, November 27, I'll be featured reader at Ohio's longest running poetry series The Poetry Forum at Bossy Grrls Pin-Up Joint, 7 pm, in Columbus, Ohio. Hosted by Steve Abbott, I'll have two sets of readings during the evening, and I plan to do the two sets totally differently. It's a relaxed, welcoming venue, and I can't wait to see everyone again!

The main thing in all of this is that I'll get to be with a lot of fun, fabulous, and very talented writers and friends, with whom I can share poetry, laughter, and beer. I can't wait!

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The Public Persona

Dianne Borsenik is active in the northern Ohio, Cleveland-area, poetry scene and regional reading circuit, and travels to perform her poetry throughout the Midwest. She is a member of the Ohio Poetry Association and the Haiku Society of America. In 2011, she founded NightBallet Press (where she is M.F.W.I.C.), and has since published over 120 titles for poets across the U.S. In September 2015, she produced BeatStreet Cleveland as part of the National Beat Poetry Festival. In 2023, her book Raga for What Comes Next was studied as part of the Modern & Contemporary American Poetry course at Muskingum University in New Concord, Ohio. Borsenik spent a day at MU to discuss the book with the students and did a featured reading from her new collection of poems, Flight of Honey. Flight of Honey was published by Luchador Press in May, 2023. Her poetry has been published in hundreds of journals, magazines, anthologies, and more, including Main Street Rag, Chiron Review, The Offbeat, Rosebud, Slipstream, Lilliput Review, bottle rockets, Voices of Cleveland, Poems-For-All, Haiku World: An International Poetry Almanac, and The Magnetic Poetry® Book of Poetry. Her poetry has also appeared in numerous galleries and projects, including Cleveland Heights Arts Gallery's "Ekphrastacy," the Wick Poetry Center's "Speak Peace - American Voices Respond to Vietnamese Children's Paintings," the 2019, 2020, and 2022 Edith Chase Symposiums, Amy Mothersbaugh's Studio 2091, & S. A. Griffin's cross-country project "The Poetry Bomb." A copy of her haiku chapbook Blue Graffiti (Crisis Chronicles Press, 2011) is in the Decatur Haiku Collection at Millikin University. In 2016, Crisis Chronicles Press published her first full-length collection of poetry, Age of Aquarius, and in January, 2019, Stubborn Mule Press published her second full-length collection, Raga for What Comes Next, which was released at the "We're No Angels" event at the acclaimed cocktail bar Speak of the Devil in Lorain, Ohio. In September of 2019, Stubborn Mule Press published a four-woman anthology, Heaven We Haven't Yet Dreamed, containing 23 pages of new poetry by Borsenik. She has also performed her poetry with 2 Chefs and a Beat - "Poetic Justice Edition" - at Porco Lounge and Tiki Room in Cleveland, Ohio. Actor Jonathan Frid (Barnabas on television's Dark Shadows) used three of her poems in his one-man touring show Genesis of Evil. Her poem "Let's Get It On" (from her chapbook Thunderclap Amen) was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. In 2013 and again in 2014, she won first place in the Best Cleveland Poem Competition. She has taught poetry at Southview Middle School (Lorain, OH), given workshops at Lit Youngstown's Literary Festival, and serves annually as a juror in the Cleveland Institute of Art's Scholastic Writing Awards. In Summer 2015, her poem "Disco" was selected by the Youngstown Summer Festival of the Arts to appear on its reusable tote bags, and Lit Youngstown printed the poem on their tee shirts, which makes her feel like a rock star. She believes in the musicality of language and the originality of expression in poetry, and continues to seek publication in journals, magazines, chapbooks, and anthologies. She is willing to travel for readings, to present workshops pertaining to small press publishing, to serve on panels about editing and publishing, and to participate with her press at independent literary festivals. Contact Dianne at dborsenik@gmail.com.

The Personal Shizzle

Dianne Borsenik was born Dianne Lynn Keith on Wednesday, February 2 (yes, Groundhog's Day), 1955 in Oberlin, Ohio, during a waxing gibbous moon. She is the Zodiac sign Aquarius and the Chinese Zodiac sign the Sheep. In 1959 her parents moved to Elyria, Ohio, about thirty minutes west of Cleveland, along with daughters Dianne and her younger sister. Dianne grew up roaming Cascade Park: a jewel of green trees, Black River, and East and West Falls in the heart of Elyria, and bookstores, wherever she could find them. In 1977 she met James Borsenik, and in 1979, married him. Their honeymoon was made especially exciting by Hurricane David hitting Florida while their car was sitting disabled in a Kissimmee parking lot. She kept her maiden name and added (unhyphenated) Borsenik. People the world over know her by the initials DLKB. Sadly, Dianne's beloved husband James died July 1, 2023. She misses him profoundly. James and Dianne were blessed with several dog-children over the years: Nickolas Wonder, Bahloo, and Dory Kiss Me Quick; she is still grieving her much-beloved Bodhisattva and little Michel-Angelo. In 2020, Speak of the Devil in Lorain, Ohio, created a tasty cocktail and named it "Borsenik's Law" -- ("That which is poured must be consumed.") She is inordinately pleased to have a listing in the IMDb for photographs she took at the Lix & Kix Poetry Extravaganza, which appeared in the documentary "Twisted Sisters." Favorite Dianne things include Toronto, the Black Hills, Led Zeppelin (emphasis on Robert Plant), steak, lobster, shrimp cocktail, asparagus, Star Trek (emphasis on Leonard Nimoy/Spock), the Monkees (emphasis on Peter Tork), apocalyptic and disaster movies, the Weather Channel, the English Royals, reading (especially biographies, nonfiction), sleeping with the windows open, going barefoot, carnations, honeysuckle, rap music (Snooooooop), riding in a convertible yeah, we're rolling with the top down, strong coffee, sweet tea, Blackstrap Rum, spicy Bloody Marys, Old Fashions made with Old Overholt Rye, the internet, getting her hands dirty growing herbs and flowers, floating in the pool, Tennessee Williams, travel, thunderstorms, Glenn Miller, Frank Sinatra, Nine Inch Nails-the Closer album, Andrea Bocelli, Devo, Ravi Shankar, the Beatles, the Doors, Pink Floyd, and of course, poetry.