THE BOOK
Light Enters the Grove:
Exploring Cuyahoga Valley National Park through Poetry
A literary hike through Ohio’s oldest national park.
An anthology celebrating the biodiversity and staggering beauty of Cuyahoga Valley National Park, Light Enters the Grove collects 42 poems, each of which reflects its author’s unique connection to a living organism found within the park—ranging from white-tailed deer to brown bats and from Japanese honeysuckle to bloodroot. Additionally, each poem is paired with an artistic depiction of the poem’s subject that reinforces the rich relationship between artists and the natural world.
Editors Charles Malone, Carrie George, and Jason Harris provide a stirring introduction to this emotional journey through the park. Renowned writers featured in the volume include Kari Gunter-Seymour, poet laureate of Ohio, and Deborah Fleming, whose book Resurrection of the Wild won the 2020 PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay.
This collection invites readers to look further into their own experiences and memories of the park, to reflect on their relationships to its species, and to recognize the importance of preserving the lives and habitats of our nonhuman neighbors.
Events & Readings
August 20, 2024, 6:30pm
Book Launch: Light Enters the Grove
Happy Days Lodge, CVNP
Celebrate the publication of Light Enters the Grove: Exploring Cuyahoga Valley National Park through Poetry. Hear some of the contributors share their poems, each of which reflects its author’s unique connection to a living organism found within the park—ranging from white-tailed deer to brown bats and from Japanese honeysuckle to bloodroot. Additionally, each poem is paired with an artistic depiction of the poem’s subject that reinforces the rich relationship between artists and the natural world.
September 5, 2024 (Time TBD)
Summit Metroparks, Public Reading
Description: Forthcoming
Readers: Cathy Barber, Mary Biddinger, Steve Brightman, Theresa Brightman, Monica Kaiser
September 14, 2024, 5:00pm
Literary Cleveland
Hart Crane Memorial Park
As part of Literary Cleveland’s build up to the 2024 Inkubator Writing Conference, one of the largest free writing conferences in the country, contributors from Light Enters the Grove will share poems from the collection on the banks of the Cuyahoga River in a park named for one of Ohio’s most important poets.
Readers: Conor Bracken, Judith Mansour, Andrea Imdacha, Benjamin Rhodes, Cameron Gorman, Quartez Harris, Hilary Plum, Zach Savich, Kortney Morrow, Kimberlee Medicine Horn Jackson
September 19–21, 2024
Wick Poetry Center’s 40th Anniversary
Kent State University
Light Enters the Grove, will be included along with other Wick/KSU Press Publications at the anniversary and featured during our session on Poetry & Science on Saturday.
October 6, 2024
Cleveland Botanical Gardens
30 Contributors will perform pieces from the anthology at the Cleveland Botanical Gardens.
October 17, 2024
Lit Youngstown Fall Literary Festival
Youngstown, OH
Readers: Ray McNiece, Barbara Sabol, Cora Liderbach, Shei Sanchez, Diana Lueptow, Susann Moeller
November 13, 2024, 7:00pm
Elizabeth’s Bookshop
Readers: Benjamin Rhodes, Risha Hendrix, Isaiah Hunt, Kira Preneta, Sylvia Clark
Edited by Charles Malone, Carrie George and Jason Harris
Foreword by Jennie Vasarhelyi
Published by Kent State University Press
ABOUT
Traveling Stanzas community arts projects bring poetry to people’s everyday lives through innovative methods and digital platforms.
Made possible with support from the Poetry Coalition.