Poet and teacher Phil Metres will present a Master Poets’ Class at the Library on Wednesday, Nov. 4 at 7 p.m. Adults and high school students interested in listening to, writing and reading poetry are welcome to participate.
Phil is a much-published poet and associate professor of English at John Carroll University. His teaching interests include creative writing, poetry, American poetry and the poetry of war and peace.
Phil writes poetry about poetry:
If you are sitting in an exit row & you cannot understand
this poem, or cannot see well enough to follow
these instructions, please tell a literary critic. Poems are
heavy, awkward to lift, push, pull, and maneuver.
Because of this, and for the safety of all
Harold Bloom requires that we seat qualified readers
next to poems. If a poem loses pressure, an idea
will be released from the overhead compartment.
Make sure to write down the idea before
you attempt to assist others with their ideas. Once again,
thank you for reading this poem. I know you have
many choices and appreciate your choosing this one.
(used by permission of the poet)
More of Phil’s poetry can be enjoyed at http://www.philipmetres.com/content/view/16/44/ or by coming to the Nov. 4 Master Class.
Ron Okicki, retired Senior Vice President of Oglebay Norton Company, will be here at 7 p.m. on September 22 to talk about starting a business, specifically Exploring Entreprenuership. Ron is a member of Business Advisors of Cleveland, an incredible resource to the new business owner. Ron will discuss the steps in successfully starting a business. Topics will include the business plan, financing, hiring, managing and record keeping. Participants will have lots of opportunity for questions and BAC will provide opportunties for follow-up, all for free.
Please call the Reference desk at 440.933.7710 or stop by to register anytime before 7 on Tuesday.
Tomorrow, Wednesday September 9 at 7 p.m. we’ll start off our fall Environmental Issues Series with a program on Green Consuming. Presenter Holly Mooore Kowalski is a library trustee and local activist. She has won a local reputation as the “Recycling Lady,” but tomorrow she’ll kick off our series talking about green consuming – looking at the shopping choices we make and how that contributes to our carbon footprint or to a healthier environment. Learn how to save money and save the Earth at the same time. Join us in the McMahan room.
Has it really been about 5 weeks since my last post?
Yes, indeed.
Thank you, Cindy for breaking the silence.
Good news: we will be hosting a book discussion AND a meet-the-author event this fall called Lorain County Reads.
Read An Open Book by Lorain-born author Michael Dirda and come to our book discussion on Tuesday, September 29. Not only is it a memoir, its about reading and libraries and how they change lives. Ask for a copy at the Reference Desk.
An Open Book: Chapters from a Reader’s Life ByDirda, Michael This funny, wistful memoir by a Pulitzer Prize-winning critic recalls the charm of growing up and the tenderness of one writer’s beginnings.
Publisher Comments
“AN OPEN BOOK is the exuberant, beautifully written story of how comics and adventure stories, poetry and Proust can change your life. Hailed by Morris Dickstein as “a glowing tribute to the world of books and the life of the mind,” “An Open Book communicates–as Eudora Welty’s “One Writer’s Beginnings once did–the thrill of great reading to a new generation. In its pages, literary journalist Michael Dirda re-creates his boyhood in Ohio, recalling his colorful family, friends, and teachers as he celebrates the great writers and fictional characters who fueled his imagination.
Meet the author here on Wednesday, October 28th at 6:30 pm.
Bad news: We will no longer be open on Sundays, starting this fall through all of 2010. We recognize that these were often the busiest four hours of the week. However, with state budget cuts here and all other options weighed, our Board of Trustees decided this would be the most fiscally responsible and least disruptive service cut. We are still open 64 hours a week.
We have been making difficult (but mostly invisible) cost cuts behind the scenes since last spring due to declining revenues. Its good we started early or we would be in a very bad spot today. However, we can’t cut our personnel, materials and technology budgets any more without short-changing our patrons, who expect and deserve quality service.
September starts our new fall schedule of programs at Avon Lake Public Library. We’ve got a very full schedule this fall, something for everyone. The entire schedule can be found online. Here’s the schedule for the first week:
Monday, September 7 we’ll be closed for Labor Day.
Wednesday, September 9 at 7 p.m. we’ll kick off our newest edition of our popular Environmental Issues Series with Avon Lake’s own Holly Moore Kowalski presenting a program on Green Consuming – making choices about our purchases and the things we bring into our home to reduce our carbon footprint. This series is co-sponsored by the Avon Lake City Council Environment Committee and the Lorain County Metroparks.
Thursday, September 10 at 7:30 p.m. Certified Hypnotherapist Mary Ellen Ott will be back to us find ways of dealing with ever-present stress by learning to deeply relax. Learn more about hypnosis for stress management – what it is, what it isn’t, how it works. Begin to tap into the power of your imagination in a way that will leave you feeling relaxed and refreshed.
We’ve got lots of exciting programming for children and teens coming up as well as much more programming for adults. Be sure to check out the full schedule.
Tuesday, June 16 at 7 p.m. we will have a pre-release short showing of Clevelander Brad Ricca’s film Last Son about the Cleveland origins of Superman. Seems the Man of Steel was created right here in our fair city, back in the 1930s, by Glenville High graduates Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.
This film played at Ingenuity Fest last summer and at the Akron Film Festival. It’s not yet in general release, so there are few opportunities to see it. And along with the film itself (this version is about an hour long), Brad will be here to answer questions and talk about the research and filming of this Cleveland original movie.
This film is more than suitable for all ages of Superman fans.
Here at Avon Lake Public Library, we’re celebrating the Summer Reading Season with a superheroes theme. Come see our superhero decorations in each department and join one of our summer reading contests – we have them for all ages, all with great prizes!
Of course librarians have long been associated with superheroes. Take a look at this old Brady Kids episode featuring Ms. Prince, aka Wonder Woman:
Summer will be here before you know it, so it is not too early to start thinking about what books you would like to read at the beach or in your garden. We are compiling lists of books by author, genre, and themes on a regular basis. We will feature each list at the Reference Desk. Feel free to let us know what might interest you. Here is one of our recent lists, perfect for a light-hearted summer read.
If you like light-hearted or humorous mysteries, try these authors…
If you’ve ever read an old book that describes the price of something “back in the day” or someone’s wages in days gone by (or perhaps have heard an older family member tell a story about the price of something in their childhood) and you’ve wondered what that really meant, we’ve got the reference book for you. Actually, two volumes: The Value of a Dollar 1600 – 1865 and The Value of a Dollar 1860 – 2004. Both books contain a wealth of information on prices, wages, per capita spending and general economic conditions during different periods of American history (each half decade during the 20th century). A couple nuggets:
* Football great Red Grange recalled in a 1974 interview that he had supplemented his salary as a football player in the mid-1920s by working summers on an ice truck, “I’d start at six in the morning, and many a day I’d work until seven or eight a night, six days a week. We got five dollars a day until the union came in and upped our salary to $37.50 a week.”
* In 1901 the average salary for a public school teacher was $337. That was the equivalent of only $6740 in 2000 dollars. Imagine living on that!
These two volumes are beautifully printed and easy to read. Each historical era is described with a background narrative; a “historical snapshot” which may include old ads, quotes, excerpts of letters or magazine articles or interviews; tables of selected incomes drawn from advertisements; investments; average wages for a range of jobs; and prices for a variety of foods and other common consumer goods. The text is supplemented with old black and white photographs and line drawings. Besides finding particular pieces of information such as the approximate original cost of an old item or for research in social or economic history, these books are simply fun to browse through. You can find them in our Reference collection at R338.5 Value.
Poet and teacher Phil Metres will present a Master Poets’ Class at the Library on Wednesday, Nov. 4 at 7 p.m. Adults and high school students interested in listening to, writing and reading poetry are welcome to participate.
Posted by cindythelibrarian 
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Posted by cindythelibrarian 
