Dianne Borsenik — Poet, Perfomer, Publisher, Promoter, Producer, and Independent Editor: 2022

Wednesday, November 23, 2022

Gratitude This Thanksgiving

I'm feeling very grateful this November. Since my post in September, a number of groovy things have happened.

(photo by Kari Gunter-Seymour)

On October 15, I traveled to Coshocton, Ohio, to participate in the final I Thought I Heard a Cardinal Sing: Ohio's Appalachian Voices reading at the gorgeous Johnson-Humrickhouse Museum. I also spent some treasured time with two very dear and generous friends, Robin and Dick Mullet, and their sweet little Nora.

James and I have been celebrating autumn: we had delicious meals at White Oaks and Antica and enjoyed a clambake at Jake's on the Lake.

November's Lit Youngstown Fall Literary Festival was fabulous beyond words! It was so good to see so many dear friends and to make so many new ones. The programming was excellent, and I thoroughly enjoyed the readings and presentations I attended. Much gratitude to Karen Schubert for making it all happen. I was honored to participate by giving my "NAG the Competiton: A Guide to Titles and Marketing" presentation. Next year's Festival is already on my calendar!

(photo by Melanie Buonavolonta)

My poem "Up the Mountain" is in this copy of Slipstream. Many thanks to editors Robert Borgatti, Livio Farallo, and Dan Sicoli. It's such a beautiful magazine. This is their Bread-Blood-Beats themed issue. "Up the Mountain" includes the line Blood doesn't always call to blood.

I'm overjoyed to report I received a message that my poem "In the Thick of It" will be included in the upcoming issue of Pudding Magazine! Thank you, C.W. Everett, Kathleen Burgess, and Rose Smith for giving me the opportunity to be a part of Pudding's final issue.

HOORAY! I finished my Winking Lizard Tour of Beers and got my Winking Lizard jacket (and a $25 Winking Lizard gift card)! Why am I so excited about it? It was one of my goals for the year after I retired in 2020. That —ah—didn't work out. It's nice to finally achieve what I set out to do almost three years ago. For the record, it took one hundred different beers over the course of the year (2022)!

For something different, James and I went to the Empty Bowls by the Lake event at the Avon Lake High School this past weekend. It was fantastic! For a donation of twenty dollars each, we received our choice of a pottery bowl and unlimited soup and bread. There were twenty-one different (and oh, so savory!) soups from local restaurants and bars, and there were multiple tables of pottery bowls to choose from. In addition, there was live entertainment and a very impressive array of baskets for silent auction. All proceeds were to benefit the Second Harvest Food Bank and other local food banks. I couldn't get enough of Rocky River's Market's "Signature Chicken Paprikash" and James loved the shrimp and lobster chowder from Avon's Longhorn Steakhouse.

James chose the "flame" bowl, and I chose the pastel one. Kudos and many thanks to the artists who created them.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, and James and I will be enjoying a tasty take-out turkey dinner from Fat Cat's in Tremont. We both are truly grateful for all of you who make our world a better place with your love, generosity, friendship, encouragement, assistance, and acceptance. Salute!

("Borsenik's Law," Speak of the Devil, October 2022)

Monday, September 12, 2022

Update on Summer and Fall Festivities 2022

At the Ohio State Fair, August, photo by Sandra Feen

Best of all this summer, I’ve been overjoyed to connect with new friends and to reconnect with dear friends I’ve missed seeing for two and a half years.

Jack & Kathleen Burgess, Chilicothe, OH, July

Jonie McIntire

Jo Ann Buzulencia & her photograph (I wrote an ekphrastic poem about it)
Youngstown, July

Nik Macioci & Sandra Feen

Sandra Gill

John Burroughs (the U. S. Beat Poet Laureate)

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The Poetry Intensives I’m attending each month in Youngstown has turned me on to a lot of new adventures in poetry, and I’m grateful to have the opportunity to meet so many new friends.

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Inkubator in Cleveland was fantastic. I attended the sessions

Word Weaving and the Web by Diane Kendig, Jeremy Jusek, Raja Belle Freeman & Laura Kincer

The Music of Poems by Robert Milter & Molly Fuller

How to Grow a Multi-Faceted Diamond: Writing the Poem Sequence by Rikki Santer, Rose Smith, Sandra Feen, & Linda Fuller-Smith

All three sessions were fascinating and informative.

I’m really looking forward to Lit Youngstown’s Fall Literary Festival next month (October) — I’ll be presenting a talk on ways to be inventive when giving poems and books titles. All of the sessions sound interesting. I’d love to see you there!

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I’m happy and grateful to have poems accepted for the following publications; many thanks to the editors for giving my poems a home!

Slipstream — “Up the Mountain”
Gasconade Review — “Ice Cubes”
                                         “What You Need”
                                         “Heat”
An as-yet-untitled David Bowie tribute anthology (Sybaritic Press) — “Serious Moonlight”

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I was thrilled to have been a part of these events — a huge thank you to the hosts for inviting me!

The Edith Chase Symposium Birds of the Cuyahoga reading — KSU Architecture Building, Kent, OH

Lit Youngstown Celebrates 40 Years of the Women’s Artist Show at the YWCA, Youngstown, OH

Visible Voice Books, Cleveland, OH — featured reading along with Diane Vogel Ferri, Steve Thomas, and Barbara Marie Minney

Noise Complaint at The Warehouse in Portsmouth, OH

The Poetry Showcase at the 2022 Ohio State Fair

30^th Annual Erie’s Blues & Jazz Festival as part of the 100 Thousand Poets for Change, Erie, PA   — Thasia Lunger had the brilliant idea for the "slide" photo!

and two I Thought I Heard a Cardinal Sing readings, one in Marietta, OH, and one in Lewis Center, OH, with one upcoming in Coshocton, OH, next month (October)

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I was amazed to discover (through Google; yes, I Google myself) that I have an IMDb listing! It’s because I contributed some photographs to the documentary “Twisted Sisters - Go to Daddy.” Sadly, they were of a local woman who was murdered by her mother. The young woman had read at open mic for the Lix & Kix Poetry Extravaganza (co-hosted by John Burroughs and me) some years ago, and you know me — I’m always taking photographs.

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DLKB books at Visible Voice, Cleveland, June

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I’ve continued to write poems for my manuscript titled Flight of Honey, including the titular poem, along with two ekphrastic poems, a poem about Elyria (where I live), and a poem about my husband having an “otherworldly experience.” Who knows where my mind will wander next?

I leave you with this sage observation:

Tuesday, March 15, 2022

The New Dianne Borsenik

Behold the new Dianne Borsenik, post-retirement, post-pandemic, post-redhead! I still do a double-take when I look in the mirror, but I like having long silver hair.

I have settled quite comfortably into retirement, and I don't miss anything about work except seeing my friends every day. There wasn't much to report in my poetry life for the past two years, but here in 2022 things are looking great and it's time to update!

I'm delirious with joy to report I just received my copy of I Thought I Heard a Cardinal Sing: Ohio's Appalachian Voices in the mail, containing my poem "Fall Out." Edited by Ohio Poet Laureate Kari Gunter-Seymour and published by Sheila-Na-Gig Editions, this gorgeous anthology contains poems by dozens and dozens of fine Ohio poets, and I want to read it cover to cover. (You can purchase your own copy here.)

I'll be reading from this book at three scheduled readings:

April 14, 2022, 7 -9 pm at the McDonough Auditorium at Marietta College, Marietta, Ohio

June 23, 2022, 8 - 10 pm at the National Federation of State Poetry Societies conference in Lewis Center, Ohio, sponsored by the Ohio Poetry Association.

October 15, 2022, 2 - 4 pm at the Johnson-Humrickhouse Museum in Coshocton, Ohio

(For more detailed information, or to see the other readings that are scheduled, go here.)

I haven't read to a live audience in over two years, so I'm really looking forward to getting out and about and seeing my mid-Ohio and southern Ohio friends again!

I found myself unable to write during 2020 and 2021, right up to December 4, 2021, when my poetry came back to me with a vengeance. Since then, I've written sixteen poems, and sometimes it seems as if my fingers won't type fast enough to keep up with the vision in my head.

One of my new poems, "Up the Mountain," has been accepted by Slipstream for inclusion in their Bread/Blood/Beats issue, to be published this summer. Slipstream is a beautiful journal, and I'm excited and grateful to be a part of it.

"Up the Mountain" has also been chosen by Lit Cleveland for a staged reading during the Cleveland Humanities Festival at the Cleveland Public Library, April 9, 2022, at 3 pm. This staged reading examines the theme of "How Do We Talk to Each Other?" and will feature professional actors performing the chosen pieces. I can't wait to see the actor(s) "do" my poem.

I've been active in other poetry events, as well. I'll be judging a "lilac poem" contest for Lorain this spring. I wrote a blurb for Alex Gildzen's new book Arroyo Chamisa: poems rescued from a blog, I submitted a proposal to Lit Youngstown for their Fall Literary Festival, I submitted a specially-themed poem for the Edith Chase Symposium in Kent, Ohio. and I have several poems out to various journals for their consideration. Freed from the constraints of being on call for my employment, I joyfully signed up for and am attending the monthly Poetry Intensives series of workshops conducted by Lit Youngstown. These workshops are great! Many thanks to Karen Schubert for hosting them, and to the various workshop leaders for sharing their writing insights.

I've missed seeing my friends and I hope to catch up with YOU, soon!

I love my time being my own. So many possibilities and opportunities abound . . . viva retirement!

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.