Winter Wheat is just a little over a week away! As a part of the writing festival, on Saturday, November 7th, poet Jonie McIntire will be reading alongside Dave Essinger and sharing her work with us.
McIntire is a long-time Winter Wheat supporter, but additionally, she is deeply immersed in the communities she works within to support her writing and foster writing among others in Northwest Ohio. McIntire is a writer based in Toledo, Ohio and is the Poet Laureate of Lucas County, Ohio. She is the poetry editor for Of Rust and Glass and serves as Membership Chair for the Ohio Poetry Association. Additionally, she hosts a monthly poetry reading series, Uncloistered Poetry, which has been going for over six years and currently runs in-person and on-line events each month. You can read Jonie McIntire’s full bio here.
In the interview that follows, McIntire shared with us how she found her communities or formed them when they weren’t there. She discusses the value she finds in community, how they support and encourage her, both in helping her to generate and develop her writing. She also shared with us a little bit about what she will be reading for us at Winter Wheat and why you should attend. Read on to learn more!
You are a part of many literary communities including the Ohio Poetry Association where you serve as a Membership chair, and with the monthly reading series you host, Uncloistered Poetry. What are some of your favorite things about the writing communities you belong to?
What I love about artistic communities is how they overlap and interplay. I have been a part of the Ohio Poetry Association for many years, but during the pandemic, I took on the role of Membership Chair because I loved the work they do and wanted to help them grow. OPA is so well-connected to Columbus, Cincinnati, Cleveland, and other major areas in Ohio, and they work to move events around the state whenever possible. More and more poets from the Toledo area have been getting involved in OPA events, from the Underground Railroad readings to the recent River Roots anthology. I love seeing our local poets reach out and establish themselves in the wider writing community! In 2024, I moved into the role of Treasurer and, though we are searching for a new candidate to fill the position, I have loved seeing the group expand its reach and offerings. They have a lot planned in the next year or so. I can’t wait to see more activity in our corner of Ohio!
During the pandemic, I also found some new communities who have become dear to my heart. In particular, the Women of Appalachia Project, founded and led by the incredible Kari Gunter-Seymour. Working with Haley Haugen-Mitchell, Kari edits a yearly anthology of writings by women in and from Appalachia. I was born in Pittsburgh and found so much resonance in what these talented women had to say. Finding WOAP really helped me build my voice and give me a chance to focus on some stories from my past. And I truly find kindred spirits every year I get to read with the group. In fact, through this group, I came to learn about a writing retreat Pauletta Hansel hosts in Kentucky which I have now attended a few times and am excited to return to in the future.
Beyond that, I have a couple writing workshop groups that I regularly interact with. One includes a few teachers from Toledo School for the Arts as well as a good friend I’ve known since college (Justin Longacre, Adrian Lime, Heather Smietanski, Lydia Horvath, and Kerry Trautman.) Kerry, Adrian and I have been writing together and reading together since the late 90’s. They are truly pivotal to who I am today as a writer, and they continue to be the best editors a gal could find. The other group I write with is online – a small collection of poets who are mostly new to me, but we email poems to each other, using a final line from the poet before us to start our next poem. I’ve been in this group for a few years now and it’s delightfully challenging but easy-paced (which is the right pace for me!)
Your reading series, Uncloistered Poetry— how did you come to create it? What prompted you to start it?
Uncloistered Poetry started in 2016, when my first chapbook “Not All Who Are Lost Wander” was released. There was a new brewery downtown called Black Cloister with the most delicious beer and a lovely little stage. So I asked if we could have readings, made our first reading a book release, and thought we might as well make this a monthly reading. At first, it was called “Cloistered Poetry.” Unfortunately, the location did not work out and we were only there for a few months before we had to move to Calvino’s. I changed the name to “Uncloistered Poetry,” and we stayed at Calvino’s for about three and a half years before the pandemic made us move to an online format. During that time, we were able to pay performers through an Arts Commission of Greater Toledo Accelerator Grant, and even raise funds for NAOMI House, Library Legacy Foundation, and Toledo Streets Newspaper. At the time, there weren’t many open mics going on. I was involved in Broadway Bards, which read at The Original Subshop and had been going for many years, but Hod Doering, who ran the series, was slowing down a little and I wanted to help build more stages for poets. Calvino’s opened on Sunday nights just for us, made us feel at home, fed us, and really gave us a space to grow in.
When the pandemic moved us online, we found a new community there. People from Australia, New Zealand, Canada, England, Italy, the Phillipines and all over the United States joined us and shared their work. It was really an incredible experience to find new poets each month.
As we were able to meet in person again, I wanted to maintain both series, the in-person and on-line. So we moved to The Attic on Adams for our readings in Toledo. The Attic has given us space to host all kinds of events over the years, from “Back to Jack” to book releases, even a few wakes for poets who had passed. And we were able to visit a few other locations, like the Switchboard, The Trunk (a long-time favorite haunt for local poets), and even The Peacock, all of which were incredible hosts.
As a writer based in the Midwest, can you speak to our community specifically? How does being a Midwest writer influence how you think about your work or impact the way you engage with the community?
Where you live and where you come from seep up through the pores in your writing. It’s in what objects you focus on and what attitudes you have about rain. Midwest writers talk about work even when they aren’t talking about work – because so much of what we do and where we live is centered on it. I guess I would say in my work, there is always a cloud – the dead body in the love poem, or the sadness of a sunny day. That’s pretty freakin’ Midwestern. I talk about the economy, about working class situations quite a bit, about women trapped by work and family, decaying houses and old dogs.
I suppose you can tell I’m a Midwest writer because I shy away from the stage sometimes, but when I get up there, I say what I mean whether you like it or not. That feels pretty Midwestern to me. A begrudging frankness. But a need to see other people get up, a true deep joy when they push themselves to say something difficult and find that they are not alone. Maybe that’s not just Midwest. But it’s what I love about the poetry scene in Northwest Ohio. We show up for each other.
Much of Winter Wheat is similarly about creating an environment for community and connection. As a past participant of Winter Wheat, I wonder if you can speak to some of your experiences for those who haven’t attended Winter Wheat before.
Oh you are in for a treat! I learned how to make little books at Winter Wheat. I learned how to use fairy tales in poetry to take allusions and assumptions and turn them. I learned how to do yoga and turn that into poems about the body. I learned about what journal editors look for and what they immediately reject. I learned about incorporating memoir into prose poetry. I learned about writing theater pieces that interweave multiple storylines. I learned about drinking tea and making that an experience that generated many poems. I learned about building poetic communities.
Winter Wheat is a reunion of writers. Not just local and not just academic, but from all over and from all genres and styles. Because the presenters can be from any walk of life, the classes can cover any aspect of literary art – from the physical production of paper/books/broadsides/collage, to the ideation of poems and plays, from craft to presentation. I love the creativity that workshop leaders bring. And of course, there’s the bookfair – another favorite of mine. You get the chance to talk to journal editors about what they are looking for, get free copies sometimes or purchase some to get a better idea where to submit. There’s always the opportunity to get to know the other writers at lunch time or between workshops. And then there’s the open mic – THAT IS THE BEST! No, seriously. Open mic at the end of Winter Wheat is how I want to let go this mortal coil. Walk out with the exhausted, inspired, frantic joy of feeling everything renewed again. Open mic is where you get reborn.
Finally, can you share with us a little bit about what you will be reading and how you selected it?
What I’m going to read is a collection of various writing over the years. Because I want to tell the tale of how I got here. How I went from writing in college, to having kids and working, returning to poetry, retiring from corporate work at 43 years old, finding the courage to write about difficult things, returning to work at 50, and maintaining a sense of community through all of it.