Dianne Borsenik — Poet, Perfomer, Publisher, Promoter, Producer, and Independent Editor: November 2018

Sunday, November 4, 2018

So THIS Happened!

So many fun and wondrous things happened recently, and I wanted to share them before they slipped away into the Holidaze!

A couple of Sundays ago, I was astonished to find my friend and NightBallet Press poet Andy Roberts reading his poetry on television! The reading was from 2014, and I thought it might be a one-time thing. But another Ohioana show was on this morning's television. If you want to check it out, it's WVIZ/PBS/Ohio Channel.

I had the pleasure of traveling with John Burroughs to hear Concrete Wink read in Mansfield in October -- Concrete Wink is Rikki Santer, Chuck Salmons, and Sandy Feen, all from the Columbus, Ohio area -- and they were fabulous! The poets displayed their wares, and it made my heart bubble with delight to see all the NBP books included. Rikki has a new book just out from Crisis Chronicles Press, Dodge, Tuck, Roll. The event was held at Main Street Books, hosted by the lovely Llalan. We all had a wonderful after-party at Cypress Hill Winery.

During the course of the reading, Sandra Feen surprised me with a gorgeous bouquet of fall flowers as thanks for the book I released for her that day -- Fragile Capacities. My heart was truly touched by her kind words and generous gesture.

Then it was back to work at the press. These packages, mostly for subscribers to NightBallet Press, were mailed Friday. Another large package went out Saturday.

But I've found time to write, too! I have two poems in The Main Street Rag: "Grand Reflections" and "When You Read the Poems of the Dead." Many thanks to editor M. Scott Douglass for publishing my work.

And I have three poems, "This Can't Be Oklahoma," "Seeing Jim Morrison in Giant Eagle on the First Day of Autumn," and "Finding Myself Inside a Quentin Tarantino Movie in Cleveland at Four O' Clock in the Afternoon" in this gorgeous journal, Gasconade #3 - Gas Station Famous. It was just published, and I don't even have my contributor's copy yet. I can't wait to get my hands on it! Much gratitude to John Dorsey and Jason Ryberg for the honor and privilege to be a part of it!

I found time to do one more (sneaky) thing...I hand painted and lovingly detailed a "Day of the Dead" box for my husband James. It wasn't easy to surprise him, with him being around all the time, but I managed to keep it from him until November 1st. I painted the inside of the box with Glow-in-the-Dark paint, and added glitter. Oh, and it lights up, too.

October was a great month, filled with happy moments, good friends, and loved ones. Thank you, each of you, all of you, who were a part of it in any way. Big hug! Now, on to the Holidaze!

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.