Heights Arts Poet Laureate To Appear at Monday Council Meeting

Cleveland Heights’ next Poet Laureate will put a modern spin on an ancient art with her 2013 project Poetweet.

Kathleen Cerveny was tasked with running a blog and writing poetry about Cleveland Heights as the Heights Arts 2013 Poet Laureate and wanted to get Cleveland Heights residents directly involved in this year’s program.

She’s lived in the community for several years off and on, but, she said, though she feels she knows her version of Cleveland Heights, she can’t know everybody’s.

“I have the experience of the fabulous music of Dave’s,” she said of the local grocery store that plays 50s and 60s soul and pop music, “and I imagine other people experience that, too. But there’s aspects of life in Cleveland Heights that I have no clue about.”

So she’s turning to a very modern form of prose: Twitter.

She’s created the hash tag #htspoetweet for residents to use and Tweet about their own experiences in the community: a quick sentence about the trees in the neighborhood, what it’s like to rent in Cleveland Heights, or a photo of a flower in bloom.

Then, she’ll use the Tweets for write poetry for the community.

“I hope, as an artist, that by having this collective engagement as an art form that more people get interested in poetry,” she said. “I really hope to advance the awareness and enjoyment of the art form.”

Plus, she said, she thinks the project will benefit her as an artist.

“Kind of selfishly, I’d love to have prompts for my writing. It’s sometimes hard to just sit there looking at your naval, trying to come up with an idea for a poem.”

The Heights Poetweet Project kicks off with live event at Daffodil Hill in the Lakeview Cemetary May 4 at 10 a.m., where Cerveny will answer questions and attendees can tweet about spring with the beautiful view.

Then, a calendar of topics is posted for the first six months of the project, with topics that are relevant to life in Cleveland Heights.

Click here to see the calendar.

Cerveny will read a poem at Monday’s City Council meeting, which is open to the public and starts at 7:30 p.m. in City Hall.