Poetry Exchange

Share your poetry here.

Subjects?--your favorite published poems on: Family, Self, The City.

Nina Gibans is a founding member of the Poets’ and Writers’ League of Greater Cleveland (now The Lit). She has published, written and read in San Francisco during the Beat Era and has given many readings in Cleveland at museums, bookstores, libraries, galleries, taverns and at City Hall. She taught creative writing at the Cleveland Museum of Art and in the program offered by four colleges and universities called Education for Aesthetic Awareness. She received an Ohio Arts Council Artists Project award as a poet which resulted in a publication 18 Gardens and their Gardeners. Her work has been published many times locally, most recently in Ohio Writer and Cleveland in Prose and Poetry, Poets’ and Writers’ League of Greater Cleveland. She has spearheaded poetry projects such as “Silver Apples of the Moon” on poetry and art and the naming of West 2nd Street “Daniel’s Way” in memory of county poet-laureate Daniel Thompson. In 2008, she spearheaded and co-edited the publication of the history of Cleveland poetry in Cleveland Poetry Scenes: Panorama and Anthology (Bottom Dog Press). She developed a related website www.clevelandpoetryarchive.com. As with all of her projects, this one involved many people and multiple institutions. This book was a "pick" of the month during July/August 2008 by Small Press Review.

Poetry from 18 Gardens and their Gardeners:

Letters

There is something about opening an envelope
from a friend
written in hand
stained with a raindrop
slipped through the door
so the dog will not run out
barking and leaping.

I sit at the table
to read and reread.
I know the handwriting
read what I want to hear
say what I think
to myself, and
put it in my drawer
to season.

I will discover new words
tell you about friends who have missed you
give you that recipe I said I would send
plan as if tomorrow were yesterday
and you lived around the corner.
I will pick up the pieces that made us friends
and dust them off, gently.