The CSU Poetry Center, which has existed since 1962, publishes two to five books a year with national distribution and maintains a backlist of more than 200 titles. Over the years, books it has published have received numerous awards, including one being named the best poetry book of the year by The New York Times.
Now, on the heels of shuttering WCSB, its popular community radio station, CSU is considering axing the Poetry Center’s publishing arm, despite the fact that it maintains a healthy budget and reportedly pays for itself through contests and book sales.
Critics say the move reflects a university that, after seeing enrollment drop from 16,000 to 14,000 students in the past decade, is making ill-conceived cuts in crisis mode, neglecting the liberal arts, and slashing programs like WCSB and the Poetry Center that make CSU a special place.
“It’s all about turning CSU into a job factory, just like the state of Ohio wants,” one person said.
A source close to the situation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of losing their job, said the loss of the Poetry Center’s nationally renowned press would be devastating.
“The lifeblood of the [English] department is the Poetry Center,” the individual said. “It’s the best thing we do.”
Former Poetry Center associate director Hilary Plum, who resigned from her position last fall but continues to teach at CSU, said via email that cutting the press would effectively gut the Poetry Center, noting that many programs, including the Lighthouse Reading Series and the Anisfield-Wolf Fellowship, have already either been eliminated or gone dormant.
We made it to Montreal (we’re the only family that vacations where it’s colder 🙂) and grabbed some poutine at Montreal Poutine. You can tell how excited we are. Man, this meal made me miss Banter in our ‘hood!
Managed to get away for a couple days at the end of the season for some skiing with family. Here’s a shot of us at the top of Whiteface Mountain at Lake Placid. Happy spring!
Had a great time with Mark Didonato checking out the Asheville Mountain Boys and the Sugar Mules at the Winchester last night. Highly recommend these bands and the venue.
Still one of my absolute favorite photos of Nathan. This is right after the Birchwood School of Hawken team won the state competition for Future Problem Solving. A bunch of nerds geeking out over their prize! From the expressions on their faces, you’d think they had just won a gold medal in the Winter Olympics.
Last night, I went to a great talk called “Forged in Steel” about the history of Polish workers in the steel mills in Cleveland. The event was organized by the Polish Genealogical Society of Cleveland and hosted at St. Mary’s Polish National Catholic Church in Parma. I highly recommend author/historian Tom Kaschalk’s website and books if you get a chance to check them out.
For my latest read, I dug into the lives and legacies of Cleveland’s Van Sweringen brothers.
These mysterious brothers, who built much of modern Cleveland, were actually rather boring bachelors who worked all the time and avoided the press. 
They came out of nowhere, the kin of a shiftless father, and turned themselves into real estate promoters. They built the Terminal Tower. They built Shaker Heights. They built the rapid tracks.
And they built one of the largest railroad empires in the entire country. Along the way, they made lots of money, at least for a time, by using holding companies and stocks to their benefit. 
Then it all came crashing down during the Great Depression. The brothers rode the ship down and both of them died relatively young in the mid 1930s. 
What an incredible story of a seemingly magical era that went boom and bust. Their legacies endure in the buildings they built which still stand today. 
(Photo of the Terminal Tower under construction in 1927 courtesy of the Cleveland Memory Project. The book is “Invisible Giants” by Herbert Harwood.)
“I grew up on East 80th St. off of Cedar. When I was growing up, it was the ideal community. It was a transitional street, you know, because of white flight to the suburbs, but it was a very good class of people moving into the area. They were lawyers, politicians, doctors. So we went from white to black, but it was black professionals. I had two brothers and a sister. And my dad worked at TRW, and my mother was a housewife.” #fairfaxhistoryproject /fairfax-oral-history-les-king/
So, I was curious what jazz fans thought of all the WCSB/JazzNEO saga ... so I asked them! The ones I spoke with for The Land expressed deeply mixed feelings about the switchover of WCSB (now known as XCSB). They were excited about the possibilities for jazz in Cleveland – and what could happen with JazzNEO now that it’s launched as a terrestrial station – but dismayed at how we got here. And many of them are embarrassed that an art form they love and champion is being caught in the middle of the cultural crossfire.
“I’m all about supporting local jazz, but not at the expense of silencing the voices of WCSB,” said one jazz promoter who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak by their employer.
“As a lifetime jazz lover and supporter of public broadcasting, I was pleased when Ideastream created JazzNEO as an HD companion channel to offer jazz programming,” commented Doug Wahl, a local architect and jazz aficionado. “But when this secret backroom deal was announced with no community input, I felt ashamed … the ‘public’ in public radio seems to have been intentionally sidestepped without even lip service to community input.”
Longtime jazz promoter Jim Wadsworth, on the other hand, said he’s concerned with how XCSB supporters have portrayed jazz, arguing they’ve used the term “smooth jazz” to smear the genre. “I’m kind of offended by the way a lot of people defending WCSB reference jazz,” he said. “The jazz community and jazz as an art form was not a part of taking WCSB away, that was done by Ideastream. I think it was the right move, but I think it could have been done more gracefully.”
/stories/clevleand-jazz-fans-polarized-by-wcsb-switch-to-jazzneo/
![The CSU Poetry Center, which has existed since 1962, publishes two to five books a year with national distribution and maintains a backlist of more than 200 titles. Over the years, books it has published have received numerous awards, including one being named the best poetry book of the year by The New York Times.Now, on the heels of shuttering WCSB, its popular community radio station, CSU is considering axing the Poetry Center’s publishing arm, despite the fact that it maintains a healthy budget and reportedly pays for itself through contests and book sales.Critics say the move reflects a university that, after seeing enrollment drop from 16,000 to 14,000 students in the past decade, is making ill-conceived cuts in crisis mode, neglecting the liberal arts, and slashing programs like WCSB and the Poetry Center that make CSU a special place.“It’s all about turning CSU into a job factory, just like the state of Ohio wants,” one person said.A source close to the situation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of losing their job, said the loss of the Poetry Center’s nationally renowned press would be devastating.“The lifeblood of the [English] department is the Poetry Center,” the individual said. “It’s the best thing we do.”Former Poetry Center associate director Hilary Plum, who resigned from her position last fall but continues to teach at CSU, said via email that cutting the press would effectively gut the Poetry Center, noting that many programs, including the Lighthouse Reading Series and the Anisfield-Wolf Fellowship, have already either been eliminated or gone dormant.](https://sp1.picnob.com/p/pt_6727686472317015682158_0_125c46f9bcb3d049847209de24b54429.jpg?o=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&h=09b7dbee555c01b6c3e2da1342a02aa0)
