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 nine 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 beautiful hors d’oeuvres and wine 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 at the event beginning at 6:o0. Time slots are limited, be sure to get your name on the list.
Arvilla Fee - Arvilla lives in Dayton, Ohio, teaches English for Clark State College, and is the managing editor for the San Antonio Review. She has published poetry, photography, and short stories in numerous presses, including Calliope, North of Oxford, Rat’s Ass Review, Mudlark, and many others. Her poetry books, The Human Side and This is Life, are available on Amazon. Arvilla loves writing, photography and traveling and never leaves home without a snack and water (just in case of an apocalypse). Arvilla’s favorite quote in the whole word is: "It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” ~ Henry David Thoreau. To learn more, visit her website.
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.
Norman Riggs, Jr. - Norman Riggs, Jr., began writing poetry at the age of fifteen. Influenced by the Civil Rights Movement and the Avondale riots in Cincinnati, Ohio, Riggs devoted many of his early writings to the grief and anguish felt by African Americans in the 1970s and 1980s. While Riggs raised his family, he found himself in coaching and mentoring positions. He leaned on his own experiences and spiritual beliefs to promote the importance of education, positive thinking and non-violence, to the young people in his care. Riggs, his wife, Darlene, and their grown children, continue to live in the Cincinnati neighborhood of Avondale. His recent book, Lil of a Lot (and then some) is his first, free-form poetry collection and contains works dating back to 1986. The book offers readers an authentic glimpse into the day-to-day thoughts of a humble man living in the inner city, and how intentional prayer and spirituality enabled him to reorder feelings, priorities, and relationships, and embrace the ordinary miracles in everyday life.
Ron Rollins - Ron Rollins is a retired journalist who worked as an editor, writer and columnist at the Dayton Daily News for 35 years. He is a poet and painter, specializing in abstract work. He's on the boards of Dayton's House of Bread and the Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, and of the Westcott House in Springfield, among other community work. He lives in Kettering with his wife, Amy, also a retired journalist. They have two grown children and three grandchildren.
Marlo Starr - Marlo Starr is an assistant professor of English at the College of Wooster. She holds a PhD in English from Emory University and an MFA in Poetry from Johns Hopkins University. Her poems have appeared in numerous literary magazines, and she is the recipient of a 2024 Individual Excellence Award in Poetry from the Ohio Arts Council. She edits The Dodge, a magazine of environmental literature, translation, and writing about animals. https://www.thedodgemag.com