Dianne Borsenik — Poet, Perfomer, Publisher, Producer: January 2019

Tuesday, January 1, 2019

RAGA FOR WHAT COMES NEXT

I am SO excited about this news...
as we move forward into this New Year, my full-length collection of poetry,
Raga for What Comes Next,
has been accepted by Stubborn Mule Press
and is slated for publication this month, January, 2019!

This is the gorgeous front cover, designed by Jeanette Powers, photo by Jon Lee Grafton!

Raga for What Comes Next is seventy-four pages long, and contains forty-eight poems separated into four sections: Sitar, Shenai, Bansuri, and Tabla. The poems include many of the ekphrastic pieces I've written in response to art in Heights Arts Gallery and the Erie Arts Gallery. Also included are the poems "Sitting Next to Paul McCartney in Bomba's One Week After the Autumnal Equinox," "Paul Simon Sees Angels in the Architecture, But I See Scooby Doo in a Flake of Rust," and the performance piece "If the Son of a Motherless Goat Tries to Stare You Down." Many of the poems contained within are recent and unpublished. When Stubborn Mule accepted my manuscript on December 22, it was like getting an early Christmas present. When I hold them in my hands at my book release January 24, it will be like getting an early birthday present—I'll turn sixty-four on February 2!

The Color of Oxygen

"Singing is like a celebration of oxygen."—Björk
Tree releases oxygen,
which becomes a raga.

Earth sings in tabla of thunder,
the bansuri of wind.

Birds pluck the strings, multi-tonic
melody in ascent, descent.

Each time it rains, another
improvisation blooms.

Nicole Robinson read the manuscript and wrote this about Raga:

Dianne Borsenik’s Raga for What Comes Next offers a framework of poems that burn with wit and wisdom. We learn to rely on the improvisational style of these poems: their turns, their moments between moments where – upon a closer look – empty is not so empty. Even a discarded bottle has “a shaft of sunlight” to refill it. Borsenik shows us how we all have an “unspooling of identity,” both individually and as a community. But she also reminds us – with sharp imagery and musical riffs that lift from the page – that we return to ourselves and must wait for what comes next. Fortunately, we don’t have to wait in the unknown alone. We have these poems – that sing with music, art, and pop-culture – to show us the joy, beauty, and fun that exists in our waiting.—Nicole Robinson, poet, writer

And Puma Perl wrote:

Ragas, jazz, Dylan, Björk, oxygen, Japanese legends, Lennon, McCartney, origami, Tarantino, Michelle Obama. I could go on in listing the inspirations Borsenik provides, tied together in four parts, each one an instrument that contributes to the rhythms. From the sitar to the tabla, the poems read like a double album, one you will play many times, finding something new with each listen. As Borsenik concludes, “the real prize is not knowing.”—Puma Perl, poet, author of Retrograde
Many thanks to Jeanette Powers and Jason Ryberg for this sparkly miracle! I love the cover, and the formatting is beautiful and sleek. We are working on final edits now. The plan is to have it in my hands in time for my big reading in Lorain, Ohio, on January 24th, 2019.

We're No Angels will be presented at Speak of the Devil between 6:30 and 8:00 pm on Thursday, January 24th, 2019. Speak of the Devil, a craft-cocktail bar, is located at 201 West 5th Street, Lorain, Ohio. The team behind the bar at Speak of the Devil excels at their craft, and the drinks will make you think you're in heaven. You also may order kick-ass pizza at SotD.

We're No Angels is a free event and is open to the public. You'll want to get there early, as there are only so many seats and tables available!

We're No Angels will be a poetry performance, not a reading! We are John Burroughs (nationally touring poet and founder of Crisis Chronicles Press), Dianne Borsenik (poet, publisher/editor at NightBallet Press), and Dave Lucas ( current Poet Laureate of Ohio). Together, we plan to rock your world!

This will be a landmark event; it will be Ohio Poet Laureate Dave Lucas' first reading this far west of Cleveland!

We are also planning a very important announcement concerning...well, we don't want to spoil the surprise. You'll just have to be there to hear it.

I am grateful for all the opportunities this new year offers. I am grateful for Stubborn Mule Press and Speak of the Devil. I am grateful for dear friends and loved ones. I am grateful for James, who has made my life a happy raga. I am grateful to be alive, well, and writing poetry another year.

My wish is that your New Year sparkles with bright sequins of love, light, and opportunity, and that the confetti of happiness and dreams-come-true inundates you. Happy 2019, my friends.

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.