Awake at the End:: A Heights Arts Poet Laureate Anthology

Both a poet laureate primer and a collection of fine poems, Awake at the End collects the poetic output of the first three Cleveland Heights, Ohio, poet laureates, Meredith Holmes, Loren Weiss, and Mary E. Weems, poets who found themselves awakened by their tenures as poet laureate. A project of Heights Arts and Bottom Dog Press.

About the Author :
Meredith Holmes grew up in a small, Quaker town in New Jersey and started writing poetry in high school. She graduated from Case Western Reserve with a B.A. in English and worked in a variety of writing and editing jobs in Cleveland. Meredith was part of "Big Mama," a poetry theater group that performed in Ohio and New York and published two collections of poetry. She is currently part of Take Nine, a group of nine women poets who just staged their first reading. Meredith's publications include a collection called Shubad's Crown (Pond Road Press 2003) and poems in Garrison Keillor's Good Poems for Bad Times (Viking 2005), Cleveland in Prose and Poetry (League Books 2005), and Cleveland Poetry Scenes: A Panorama & Anthology (Bottom Dog Press 2008). A former president of both the American Die Casting Institute and Oakwood Country Club, Loren Weiss has a background in mechanical engineering and played varsity golf while a student at the University of Wisconsin and the University of Louisville. He worked in the die casting industry for more than 40 years and has been a certified pilot since 1970. He has been married to his wife, Lita, for 54 years. Loren's publications include a self-published poetry collection called I'd Rather Be Flying and poems in Ohioana Library, Ohio Writer, Tributaries, and Palo Alto Review.

Review :
For those who didn't know Cleveland Heights had an actual poet laureate, this anthology provides an introduction. For everyone else, Awake at the End is a wonderful reminder of the impressive talent that calls the Heights home as Meredith Holmes, Loren Weiss, and Mary E. Weems reflect on life, love, family, Barbie, Alice Walker, and, yes, their hometown. --Laura DeMarco, Pop Culture Editor, Plain Dealer Friday magazine Although the settings of these poems range from Saskatoon to the Great Wall of China, and report from the far reaches of age and the dark hollows of the body, they help define that slippery thing called place--where place is not only home, but a conflation of histories, memories, and narratives whose edges are ever-changing. --Amy Bracken Sparks, Poetry Editor, Whiskey Island Magazine