5 Questions with Rachel Richardson

Rachel Richardson is a jazz singer, folk singer, pop singer and all around Singer. She can expertly deconstruct a Swiss Cake Roll or Nutty Bar. She's the founder and director of Arts Corner Toledo, a community arts outreach that organizes mural projects in and around Lucas County. Rachel's also a real advocate for Toledo, where many of us are trying to do better, and succeeding, a little bit everyday. 

Your Name Here: The Matt Sradeja Interview

I met Matt Sradeja several years ago at a poetry workshop held at Brewed Awakenings, a coffee shop that was for a long time a fixture of Toledo’s poetry scene. Matt and I were still cutting our teeth on the words in those days. Since that time we’ve featured together at a few readings in Toledo, read at a million open mics, performed in Back to Jack, and had poems printed in the same anthology of local poets.

Matt’s poetry heroes, as you’ll soon learn, are Gregory Corso and Walt Whitman. He carries on their legacies like a champ. Matt’s poems are frank and sincere, funny, unexpected, and playful. He plays with pop culture references, makes jokes, and tender, sometimes heartbreaking overtures to the world.

5 Books with Sarah Osborn

"Picking five favorite books is like picking the five body parts you'd most like not to lose." Neil Gaiman

5 Questions with Ashley Eichner

Ashley Eichner is a poet, multi-media visual artist, spoken word performer, secret shaman, and gentle spirit from Toledo, OH. She's a member of the Back To Jack Reader's Theater, and the organizer behind the annual Charles Bukowski memorial reading, held at a local watering hole called The Attic. She's also a dear friend and a enthusiastic supporter of local art and artists. Here we discuss poetry, briefly, and a few of her favorite poems. Thanks for reading, and enjoy!

Writing Never Felt Like a Choice: The Lindsey Forche Interview

I met Lindsey Forche a few years ago when we were both employees at Borders in Toledo. It didn’t take long for us to learn we both had a mutual love for Tori Amos, a shared interest in poetry, and a strong desire to write the quintessential American novel or poetry collection. We talked about poetry but we shared very little of our original work with one another. I recall, in the mess of my memory, giving Lindsey a copy of a poem I was working on to read in the break room at Borders, and reading an e-mail from her with several of her musical, fierce poems attached.

5 Books with Erin Lottier

"Picking five favorite books is like picking the five body parts you'd most like not to lose." Neil Gaiman

Chasing The Ting, the Ray Patrick Interview

Ray Gene Patrick wears lots of denim, and t-shirts adorned with wolves and dream-catchers, and other Native American motifs, and black clothes, and he used to wear a hand-made beret a lady friend knit for him, he wore that a lot, he called it his Poet Hat. Ray used to wear turquoise rings. I don’t think he wears them anymore. He always carries a satchel or a briefcase, something he found second-hand, and it's full of poems, bottles of wine or beer, disposable cups, photographs, and things, gifts for someone. He has his friends in mind, and gives many of us tokens of admiration he finds while rummaging through second-hand shops and his own belongings. He had a vast collection of stuff: magic rocks, books, oils he used for massage and other things, posters, post cards, vintage clothes, funny hats, plants, lighters--odds and ends like that fill his life and briefcase, and he makes gifts out of it all. Every time I see him he has a small token to give, something he thought I might like or thinks I could use.