2025 Poetry At Hayner: A Mosaic of Voices
Saturday, June 14, 2025 at 6:30 pm
Poetry At Hayner Event Will Feature a Mosaic of Voices
“Poetry At Hayner” will feature a collection of poets in a mosaic of voices to encourage a variety of subject matter, perspective, rhythm and meaning. These invited poets will read their own works in five-minute segments followed by an intermission featuring a poetry book store and an hors d'oeuvres bar. The second half of the evening will feature an open mic hour. To read one of your own poems, sign up for open mic beginning at 6:o0. Time slots are limited, be sure to get your name on the list.
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The 2025 Poetry at Hayner was curated by David Lee Garrison. David taught Spanish and Portuguese and chaired Wright State University’s Department of Modern Languages, retiring in 2009. His work has appeared widely in journals and anthologies, and two poems from his book Sweeping the Cemetery were read by Garrison Keillor on The Writer’s Almanac. The title poem from his Playing Bach in the DC Metro was featured by Poet Laureate Ted Kooser on his website American Life in Poetry and read on the BBC in London. David won the Paul Laurence Dunbar Poetry Prize in 2009 and was named Ohio Poet of the Year in 2014. His most recent book is Carpeing the Diem: Poems about High School from Dos Madres Press.
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Arvilla Fee - Arvilla Fee lives in Dayton, Ohio with her husband, three of her five children, and two dogs, Max and Scooter. She teaches English for Clark State College, is the lead poetry editor for October Hill Magazine, and has been published nationally and internationally in over 100 magazines. Her three poetry books, The Human Side, This is Life, and Mosaic: A Million Little Pieces are available on Amazon. Arvilla’s life advice: Never travel without snacks. To learn more, visit her website and her new magazine: https://soulpoetry7.com/
Karen George - Karen is author of the poetry collections Swim Your Way Back (2014), A Map and One Year (2018), Where Wind Tastes Like Pears (2021), and Caught in the Trembling Net (2024). Her award-winning short story collection, How We Fracture, was released by Minerva Rising Press in January 2024. She won Slippery Elm’s 2022 poetry contest, and was the recipient of grants from Kentucky Foundation for Women and Kentucky Arts Council. Her work has appeared in Ekphrastic Review, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Lily Poetry Review, and Sheila-na-gig online. She lives in Florence, Kentucky, enjoys photography and visiting museums, forests, cemeteries, historic towns, and bodies of water. Learn more about Karen at her blog.
Joanne Greenway - Joanne hails from rural upstate New York and was raised in an Italian-American family who "put the fun in dysfunction." She holds a Master’s Degree in French Literature from Indiana University, Bloomington (1971). After a 30-year detour into a social work career, followed by early retirement and early widowhood, she discovered poetry as a pathway through loss and grief. A longtime member and current president of the Greater Cincinnati Writers League. She has authored three chapbooks, Limited Engagement, True Confessions and Low-hanging Fruit, all published by Finishing Line Press. Animals often serve as subjects and narrators of her poems, but other recurring themes include childhood memories, loss and aging. She has lived in Cincinnati, Ohio, for the past fifty years, sharing her home with a succession of Airedale Terriers (the breed known as “Robin Williams in a dog suit”) and, always, at least two cats. Cats, she has found, make great paperweights, but lousy typists.
Betsy Hughes - Betsy Hughes is the author of three books and one chapbook of formal verse, including Breaking Weather (2014) and, most recently, The Sixth Sense of Loss (2021) dedicated to her late husband of 56 years. She is the winner of the Stevens Manuscript Competition sponsored by the National Federation of State Poetry Societies. Betsy's passion for poetry has been fueled as student at Vassar College and the University of Dayton, as teacher of English for 30 years at the Miami Valley School, and as participant in poetry groups such as the Wright Library Poets. Her themes range from nature and human nature to contemporary issues (environmental and others), and she is known to be especially fond of the sonnet genre.
Mike Olson - Michael earned his BA in Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Arizona. His work has been widely anthologized and his first full-length book of poetry In the Tall Grasses was published in July 2024. He has also been a finalist for 3 consecutive years in the Writer’s Digest Poetry contest. Presently, he facilitates the Cincinnati Writer’s Project poetry workshops connecting with members throughout the US and is a longtime member of the almost century old Greater Cincinnati Writer’s League. For more info and samples of his work please visit www.yingyangpoetry.com
Holly Brians Ragusa - (she/her/hers) is an interdisciplinary writer, poet, speaker, activist and awarded author of Met the End, also Dying to Know Myself In Time and poetry collections Inverse; Informed Thoughts By An Unfit Poet and Tilt a World. President for the Ohio Poetry Association, Holly also serves a range of nonprofits and literary endeavors, and is entrenched in the community. Contributor to Psychology Today and Opinion contributor to The Cincinnati Enquirer and USA Today, her presentations speak to students and organizations across the country. Global citizen and Cincinnatian, she lives with her loves in historic Over-the-Rhine. Learn more about Holly at Hollybriansragusa.com and @mothergusa on instagram.
Rick Wagner – Rick writes poetry, fiction, and composes music that has resulted in three books of poetry--Small Towns Sleep No More; We Small Kings and Queens; We Once Walked with the Gods, and a novel--Visits with Father. He and his wife, Hillary Wagner perform in the Midwest as a duo (Jim’s Red Pants) and have recorded 14 albums since 1999 of original and traditional European music. Rick has received awards for his poetry from Writers’ Digest, UU Poetry, and Dayton Voice. Rick has an MA in English / Creative Writing and taught creative writing classes in high schools and colleges. He also worked as a mental health therapist for fourteen years helping adults with chronic mental illness. Before those careers he worked on a construction crew, as a maintenance worker at Colorado College, a bookstore / record shop sales person and a bindery worker in Chicago meeting interesting working class folks—many with loving hearts. Rick and Hillary have been blissfully married for twenty-eight years.
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