Mon 7/24-Sat 7/29
Targeting voracious readers and creative writers in Northeast Ohio, nonprofit Literary Cleveland is hosting its third annual Cleveland Inkubator in partnership with Cleveland Public Library 7/24-7/29 at various venues around the Rock Hall City.
Kicking off the week is former Cleveland resident and nationally recognized composer and poet Janice A. Lowe. The New York-based author of Leaving CLE: Poems of Nomadic Dispersal will be conducting a musical performance, reading and author talk Mon 7/24 at the BOP STOP at the Music Settlement in Ohio City. Lowe’s latest release details her experiences and memories of moving from Cleveland to New York City to Tuscaloosa’s “schoolhouse door” and back.
As for the Cleveland Inkubator, it’s Northeast Ohio’s largest free annual festival for writers and readers offering an array of free performances, readings and social affairs. Scheduled events include the second annual Lit Cleveland Book Swap at Market Garden Brewery Tue 7/25, “Between the Lines” with Detroit-area writers Kelly Fordon and Laura Hulthen Thomas at the Happy Dog at the Euclid Tavern Wed 7/26, “Crossing Borders: Immigrant Narratives” performance on Public Square Thu 7/27, “Lit Cleveland Live: Open Mic Night” in Cleveland Public Library’s Eastman Reading Garden Fri 7/28, and a daylong literary conference packed with workshops and craft talks in Cleveland Public Library’s Stokes Wing Sat 7/29.
CoolCleveland talked to Lowe about growing up in Cleveland in the late ’70s, moving around as a youth and her excitement about returning for the Cleveland Inkubator.
What are your memories of living in Cleveland?
I moved around a lot with my parents to the east coast, but I lived most of my childhood in Cleveland’s Lee-Harvard neighborhood. I grew up around a lot of activism in the community. My father was very active in the neighborhood and he was real connected to this broad network of folks who were just really trying to make things better. So after my father came home from work, he’d go to the Lee-Harvard Community Association. My whole life he was either the president or vice president. I’d spend time with him going to community functions.
How did those experiences inform you as a writer and artist?
The way it informed me was I always had a lot of sort of positive feelings and hope about cites. I never looked at a city and saw like a lack of something. I always saw the possibilities of something. The possibilities of linking up with people for good. The possibilities of if something needs to be fixed or addressed or attended to, we’re going to make it happen. Also at that time in Cleveland, I saw everybody in my community with every kind of job, all walks of life. So as a kid I never saw a lack of possibilities of accomplishing anything. And that sort of encompasses the way that I approach being an artist.
Tell us about Leaving CLE: Poems of Nomadic Dispersal.
Part of what the book is about moving with my family, my reverse migration story to Tuscaloosa, Alabama when I was in high school. At the time I moved, I guess I didn’t realize that my parents’ decision was coming out of their response to growing up in Jim Crow, moving out to different places on the east coast and doing what they did in Cleveland. My mother taught in Shaker [Heights] for many, many years. She might have been one of the first black English teachers for all I know. I remember not visiting the south until I was a certain age for safety reasons from their perspective. And then it was time to go back to their relatives and do things in the community. It was a shift. For me as a kid, I don’t think I could process very well the type of racism that I was experiencing there. It wasn’t necessarily a KKK type-of-thing, it was much subtler, whereas they all grew up with it. They had been through the trauma earlier.
Are the poems looking back at various moments in your life?
I’m looking back to what is that shift from being northerner or northeasterner to all of a sudden being in a southern environment and not necessarily relating to some aspects. The book is in three sections. I was a Cleveland lover as a kid, I think that comes through. I’m the pre-building of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and the refurbishing of The Flats for entertainment. So it’s like those Cleveland themes are a part of me. I have a little bit of that in there, and then it has stuff about New York City where I’ve lived most of my life up to this point. There’s also a section about Alabama being that stark experience.
Finally, how excited are you about your involvement with Cleveland Inkubator and the performance at the BOP STOP at the Music Settlement?
Oh, my goodness, it’s so ridiculously cool. I play my poems as a musician, so I say them with musicians and myself on piano. And of course, I would be the kid who would read hundreds of books in the summer. It’s just all very special to have this literary and music coming together. And anybody can partake of these activities. They’re for all ages. I just really love that. It’s all really special. I always think of a performance not as a presentation, but as an exchange. We’re here together.
Cleveland, OH 44113
Cleveland, OH 44113
Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH 44106
Cleveland, OH 44114
Cleveland, OH 44114