From the Directory of Writers

Dianne Borsenik

Poet, Spoken Word Artist
Cleveland, OH

Dianne Borsenik is cofounder of the popular Lix & Kix Poetry Extravaganza and the Snoetry: A Winter Wordfest series, and is a member of the Ohio Poetry Association, the Haiku Society of America, and the Academy of American Poets. In 2011, she founded NightBallet Press, and has published over 30 poets from across the United States. Borsenik is active in the Cleveland, Ohio poetry scene and reading circuit; her poetry has appeared in numerous and varied publications and places, including the Worldwide Hippoetry Anthology 2010, the Wick Poetry Center's "Speak Peace-American Voices Respond to Vietnamese Children's Paintings" project, Amy Mothersbaugh Roos's Studio 2091, Inside the Old House (a Dark Shadows fanzine), Journal of the Dark magazine, Lyricist Review, Malevolence, Kuca od stakla (Serbia), Sivullinen (Finland), the 2001 Poet's Market, Under the Armchair (Canada), Naturally Magazine and the anthology Naked Verses, "Growing Up: Persons, Places and Things"- a dramatic presentation by Cleveland State University's "Mirror of the Arts" program, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, "Gaze"-a visual poetry collaboration in the Gypsy Art Show (online), S. A. Griffin's The Poetry Bomb project, and in the "Genesis of Evil" program performed by actor Jonathan Frid (who played the character of Barnabas on television's Dark Shadow series). Her poems have appeared in text and video on John Burroughs's Crisis Chronicles Online Library, and her poem "Lovechild" rode the buses and trains of Cleveland as part of the RTA Moving Minds Project in 2008. In February 2011, Borsenik and poet John Burroughs coproduced Snoetry 2, a record-breaking marathon involving over 100 poets reading for 150 hours nonstop. Chapbooks include HardDrive/SoftWear (Crisis Chronicles Press), Blue Graffiti (CCP), Cravings (recycled karma press), Bad Ink (Writing Knights Press), and Fortune Cookie (Kattywompus Press). In 2012, Borsenik won second place in her first ever slam competition, and first place in her second slam. In April 2013, she won second place in the 2nd Annual Poesies Slam Competition, and in May 2013, she won first place in the Best Cleveland Poem Competition. She has traveled and read with poetry partner John Burroughs from Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti, and Detroit, Michigan to Erie and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in West Virginia, and throughout Ohio. She continues to seek publication in journals, magazines, chapbooks, and anthologies, and is willing to travel for readings. She believes in the musicality of language and the originality of expression in poetry.