Shore Cultural Centre seeks poem submissions for challenge

“I Dream a World” poetry challenge accepting submissions until Feb. 22

Shore Cultural Centre is holding the “I Dream A World” Poetry Challenge, a poem submission event open to all current and former Euclid residents to share their words about hopes for Euclid as a city and changes they would like to see in the world.

Created by city resident Marianne Monaghan, the end result of the challenge will be a single communitysourced poem to be shared in print and via social media.

“People have strong ties to the community in which they grew up, and their memories and feelings for those places run deep,” Monaghan said. “If your heart is in Euclid even if your feet are not, we want to hear your poem.”

She said this challenge was inspired in part by realizing the impact many people felt from listening to National Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman recite her poetry at the presidential inauguration ceremony on Jan. 20.

“Poetry has that power,” Monaghan said.

She added that when she saw NPR’s Morning Edition had run a community poetry challenge based upon the poem “I Dream A World” by Langston Hughes, who went to high school in Cleveland, she thought it would be the perfect activity to bring to Euclid as well.

Monaghan said they are looking for as many poems as they can get, and are not limiting submissions to any particular topic.

“I hope that they write from their hearts,” she said. “We’ve had one response already from someone who said she had never written a poem in her life. Well, now she has and it’s a beauty. Poems don’t have to be lengthy and they don’t have to rhyme.”

People who choose to include their names with their submission will be acknowledged as contributors.

“Submissions will be combined into one poem for everyone to enjoy,” she said. “Maybe there will even be a future performance of Euclid’s crowd-sourced poem that we can enjoy together soon.”

Euclid’s community poem challenge runs until Feb. 22. For more details or to submit a poem, visit https://bit.ly/3oTaSPI.