John Philip Drury

On January 18, 2024, at 7:00 pm, Joseph-Beth Booksellers (2692 Madison Rd, Cincinnati, OH 45208) will host a book launch for my fifth full-length collection, THE TELLER'S CAGE: POEMS AND IMAGINARY MOVIES, which Able Muse Press will publish on January 12. Here's the link: https://www.josephbeth.com/event/john-philip-drury-discussing-and-signin...

"The Civil War Goes On," one of the "imaginary movies" in The Teller's Cage: Poems and Imaginary Movies, was featured on Verse Daily on October 26, 2023. Here's the link: http://www.versedaily.org/2023/thecivilwargoeson.shtml.

I'm thrilled that Able Muse Press will publish my fifth book of poems, The Teller's Cage, in Fall 2023! Many thanks to Alex Pepple, publisher and editor extraordinaire.

The video of the Able Muse Press poetry reading from Friday, September 17, 2021 is now on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2OQVZsab1U. I’m the first reader, followed by the amazing Rhina P. Espaillat. Unfortunately, our third poet, Gail White, had technical difficulties and could not appear, but several of us read poems of hers aloud. The Zoom event concluded with a Q&A session. I devoted my time to poems about my mother (some in her voice) from a new full-length poetry manuscript, The Teller’s Cage.

On March 6, 2019, I visited two classes taught by Jake Riordan at Walnut Hills High School, the premier academic public high school in Cincinnati. I read one of my favorite sonnets by John Keats, “On the Grasshopper and the Cricket,” and four poems from Sea Level Rising: “Girl on a Fishing Boat,” “Meeting in Water,” “Music of the Spheres,” and “How to Stay Awake.” Then I answered questions from the lively, well-prepared, enthusiastic students. It was exhilarating!

On October 12, 2018, I was happy and honored to serve as Guest Critic for the monthly meeting of the Greater Cincinnati Writers League. In addition to offering critiques of poems submitted by members for a workshop, I also read three poems from Sea Level Rising: the title poem, “Coastal Warning Displays,” and “Burning the Flags.” I chose those poems because the meeting took place two days after Hurricane Michael made landfall near Mexico Beach, Florida.

Today my poem "Ghazal of the Lutanist" (about the Elizabethan composer John Dowland) appears on the Cincinnati Poetry Month Daily blog, posted by Pauletta Hansel, Poet Laureate of Cincinnati. It includes a link to the video in which my reading of the poem is accompanied by lutanist Rodney Stucky. Thanks to Alex Pepple for publishing it first in Able Muse and later in Sea Level Rising.