Music Meditations Contributors
Cathy Barber
Cathy Barber’s poetry has been published in the journals Slant, SLAB, Tule Review, Kestrel, the anthologies Rewilding: Poems for the Environment and Fire and Rain: Ecopoetry of California, and has been nominated for a Best of the Net. Her abecedarian chapbook is Aardvarks, Bloodhounds, Catfish, Dingoes (Dancing Girl Press, 2018). Her first full length collection is due out in July (Kelsay Books). She is a graduate of the Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA program and makes her home in Cleveland Heights, Ohio.
Leon Bibb
Marion Starling Boyer
Marion Starling Boyer’s third full-length collection, Ice Hours won the Wheelbarrow Books Poetry Prize and was released in January 2023 and was mentioned in Poets & Writers Jan/Feb issue as “New & Noteworthy.” Her third chapbook, What Word for This, just won Grayson Books 2023 Chapbook Prize. Boyer is a Communication professor emerita and lives in Twinsburg, Ohio where she enjoys co-leading workshops for Lit Cleveland to encourage reading books by contemporary poets. For more link to www.marionstarlingboyer.com.
Kathleen Cerveny
Kathleen Cerveny is a graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Art and the Stone Coast Creative Writing Program, U. of Southern Maine. She was Cleveland Public Radio’s first Producer for Arts and Culture and is the former Program Director for Arts and Culture at the Cleveland Foundation. Kathleen was the 2013-14 Cleveland Heights Poet Laureate and twice held the title of Haiku Death Match champion. Her poems have appeared in numerous journals and the international anthology; Poems for Malala Yousafzai. Her chapbook, Coming to Terms was published by Night Ballet Press in 2015. Currently, she serves as a Vice President on the Apollo’s Fire Board of Directors, volunteers in the Wildlife department of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, teaches nonprofit management in the Conservatory at Baldwin Wallace University and writes occasional lyric essays on her blog, Pay Attention; kathleencerveny.wordpress.com.
Mary M. Chadbourne
Mary M. Chadbourne, BA, MA, BSN, RN, taught English at Kent State University. She was an environmental educator and consultant for over 30 years at the Institute for Environmental Education and at Chadbourne & Chadbourne, Inc., and later worked as a medical-surgical RN for the Cleveland Clinic at Huron and Hillcrest Hospitals. Her poetry has appeared in The Brand-X Anthology of Poetry: A Parody Anthology, A Gathering of Poets, The Human Issue, The Kent Quarterly, and others. Her poems were also performed in The Mirror of the Arts series of the Poets’ League of Greater Cleveland.
Mike Dayton
A member of the West Side Catholic Center’s 2021 Poetry Group, Mike Dayton has been writing for over twelve years. He deeply appreciates the opportunity writing provides to share with others. He hopes that community members listen to and appreciate this collaboration with Les Délices.
Mildred Dixon
A member of the West Side Catholic Center’s 2021 Poetry Group, Mildred Dixon returned to writing in the past three years after a break since high school. For her, writing enables catharsis and allows her to express herself artistically. She volunteers for the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless (NEOCH) and enjoys all sorts of music from R&B to pop, rock, classical, and country.
Dalin Evans
A member of the West Side Catholic Center’s 2021 Poetry Group, Dalin Evans took up writing again recently after a break since high school. Not only does writing allow Dalin to express herself in words, but she recognizes how important arts experiences (including music and poetry) truly are. Music gives her great hope and inspires her to continue writing. She is very excited to share her poetry with the community through the Music Meditations project.
Elsa Johnson
Elsa Johnson is a poet, landscape designer, artist, and environmental activist and volunteer. She has lived in and around the Cleveland area all her life except for stints studying elsewhere. Elsa is the 2020 winner of The Hopper, a poetry competition through Green Writers Press. Her book The Wind Speaks will be available July first.
Diane Kendig
Diane Kendig is a writer and teacher born and raised in Canton, Ohio, where she currently resides again after decades living and working elsewhere. Kendig’s four poetry chapbooks include the most recent Prison Terms (Main Street Rag, 2018), as well as The Places We Find Ourselves (Finishing Line 2009), Diane Kendig’s Greatest Hits (Pudding House, 2001), and A Tunnel of Flute Song (Cleveland State University 1980). She also co-edited the tribute anthology In the Company of Russell Atkins (Red Giant 2016) and published with photographer Steve Cagan a collection of her translations from Nicaraguan poets, And a Pencil to Write Your Name (Bottom Dog 1986). The recipient of two Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Awards in Poetry, Kendig has also received awards from the Fulbright Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities, and she has held artist residencies at Yaddo and at the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. Currently Kendig is working on two poetry collections: a bilingual collection of poems, Woman with a Fan, about the Spanish artist Maria Blanchard, and a book of poems, Stays. She curates creative writing sites for libraries, including Read + Write: 30 Days of Poetry for National Poetry Month, and she continues to give readings and to lead creative writing workshops. www.dianekendig.com
Dave Lucas
Dave Lucas is the author of Weather (VQR / Georgia, 2011), which received the 2012 Ohioana Book Award for Poetry. From 2018—19, he served as the Poet Laureate of the State of Ohio. A co-founder of Cleveland Book Week and Brews + Prose at Market Garden Brewery, he lives in Cleveland, where he was born and raised.
Ray McNiece
Ray McNiece was born in Cleveland in 1960. He holds a BA in English from Ohio University and a MA from the University of Houston in Texas. McNiece is the author of many books, including Breath Burns Away (Red Giant Press, 2019); Love Song for Cleveland (Red Giant Books, 2015), among others. His book, Dis—Voices from a Shelter, was produced by WGBH TV Boston and aired on PBS affiliates across the country. McNiece is the recipient of many awards and grants, including the Cleveland Arts Prize Lifetime Achievement Award in 2021; a Creative WorkForce Fellowship from the Cleveland Arts Commission; residencies at the Cuyahoga Valley National Park and the Jack Kerouac House, among others. He has led two national poetry slam championship teams, and is a three-time Haiku Slam Champion of Cleveland. He is currently poet laureate of Cleveland Heights through 2023. In 2022, McNiece received an Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship.
Darlene Montonaro
Darlene Montonaro is a poet, teacher, and past arts administrator. Her poetry has appeared in a number of literary journals including Calyx, Slipstream, The Raven Review, Black Fox Literary Magazine, Blueline, Comstock Review, and The Buddhist Poetry Review among other journals. A Lakewood resident, she has been actively involved in Cleveland’s literary community, serving as the past Executive Director of the Poets’ & Writers’ League of Greater Cleveland.
Joyce Nichols
A member of the West Side Catholic Center’s 2021 Poetry Group, Joyce Nichols is new to writing but recognizes that its greatest benefit is in allowing her to express her feelings. Her lifelong fascination with the water and marine life are expressed in her contributions to the Music Meditations series.
Eric Odom
Eric is a libra, poet, brother, lover and friend. He works in the nonprofit arts/education field, as a way to work with and amplify the voices of communities and neighborhoods that are often forgot or silenced. He is also founder/host of One Mic Open, an open mic running for a decade to provide an intergenerational stage for arts and expression.
Dee Perry
Dee Perry began her broadcasting career in 1976, and worked for more than a dozen years hosting shows on commercial radio stations. In 1989 Dee took a job with what was then known as Cleveland Public Radio, becoming the morning host for WCPN 90.3FM. That station became the multi-media content provider ideastream in 2001, following a merger with WVIZ/PBS. Since then Dee has written, produced, and conducted thousands of interviews about arts and culture for radio, TV, and the web.
Over the course of more than 40 years in broadcasting Dee has received numerous honors, including multiple Emmy Awards, induction into the Cleveland Journalism Hall of Fame, and the Cleveland Arts Prize’s Robert Bergman Prize. Although retired from full-time broadcasting Dee continues to serve as a freelance researcher, interviewer, and host for various community events and organizations.
Shei Sanchez
Shei Sanchez writes from her farm in Appalachian Ohio. Her work has appeared in several journals and anthologies, including One by Jacar Press, Still: The Journal, The Braided Way, Women of Appalachia Project’s Women Speak, and Nonwhite and Woman: 131 Micro Essays about Being in the World. A Best of the Net nominee, Shei is working on her first poetry collection.
Philip Shalom Terman
Philip Terman’s most recent books are This Crazy Devotion, Our Portion: New and Selected Poems and, as co-translator, Tango Beneath a Narrow Ceiling: The Selected poems of Riad Saleh Hussein. Poems and essays have appeared in many journals and anthologies, including Poetry Magazine, The Sun Magazine, 99 Poets for the 99 Percent, The Bloomsbury Anthology of Contemporary Poetry and Extraordinary Rendition: American Writers on Palestine. Retired from Clarion University, he directs The Bridge Literary Arts Center and conducts workshops and coaches writing hither and yon. He’s collaborated with the composer Brent Register and performs his poetry with the jazz band Catro. www.philipterman.com
Julie Warther
Julie Warther, author of What Was Here (Folded Word Press) lives in Dover, Ohio and served for five years as Midwest Regional Coordinator for the Haiku Society of America (www.hsa-haiku.org). She is an associate editor at The Heron’s Nest (www.theheronsnest.com) and member of the Red Moon Anthology Editorial team. She was one of seventeen poets featured in A New Resonance 9 (Red Moon Press) and has co-edited, along with Jim Kacian, Echoes 2 and A New Resonance 11, both of Red Moon Press. In addition, Warther was instrumental in establishing several haiku installations in the Midwest including The Forest Haiku Walk at the Holmes County Open Air Art Museum in Millersburg, Ohio, the Seasons of Haiku Trail at The Holden Arboretum in Kirtland, Ohio and Words in Bloom: A Year of Haiku at the Chicago Botanic Garden to feature the work of other poets and bring further awareness to haiku.
Laura Grace Weldon
Laura Grace Weldon is the author of four books, most recently the Halcyon Poetry Prize winner Portal. She was named 2019 Ohio Poet of the Year. Laura works as a book editor and teaches community-based writing workshops. She lives with vast optimism on a small farm where she’d get more done if she didn’t spend so much time reading library books, cooking weird things, and singing to livestock. Lauragraceweldon.com