Letter from the Editors

The writing included in the pages that follow represents a kind of micro-snapshot of a particular time and place, rather than a comprehensive survey of a city or even of a cohesive scene. As the editors of this issue, we mainly focused our lens of inclusion around the Domestic Water Reading series, which Harris started in 2021 and continues to host at Conveyor Belt Books in Covington, Kentucky, just across the river from downtown Cincinnati. Over the past four years, that series has been for many of us a space to hear (and try out) new work and meet new people, and a welcome excuse to gather with friends more regularly. We approached editing this issue with a similar curatorial philosophy: Who’s around? Who’s writing and sharing work and showing up to hear and read the work of others in town? Who’s putting on readings? Rather than organize the issue by grouping the work of each contributor discretely, we decided to try to order the writing in ways that might tease out unexpected relationships—generative frictions and weird harmonies—between pieces. This process was somewhat intuitive/associative and involved a lot of pleasurable conversations over piles of pages spread out on the living room floor. Many, though not all, of the writers included in the pages that follow were readers and/or listeners at Domestic Water.

(Harris:) I started Domestic Water at a time when I was really missing a sense of writing community in town, which I knew was there but the events (the ones that I knew of) had, since the Covid lockdown, mostly stopped happening. It’s been so fun hosting these readings. I have met a lot of people over the time of the series and been so inspired by how much is happening here, how eager people were and are to share their work and connect. At the time I started the series I had no prior experience hosting or curating events, just a desire to hear poetry read more often and to see who was here and writing. I am very grateful to Brandon Thomas DiSabatino, the owner of Conveyor Belt Books, who when I asked if they would ever want to have readings there, said yes. 

That said, there are so many other reading series and venues doing similar important work: Word of Mouth, Dogeared Writers’ Collective, Small Bite Poetry Night at Juniper’s, Waxy Gibbon, Poetry Stacked! and The Elliston Room readings at UC; readings at Mean Street Gallery, The Comet, Downbound Books (thanks, Greg!), Household Books, the Mercantile Library, Miami University, Xavier University, and Art Academy of Cincinnati, to name just a few.

We’re incredibly grateful to these and so many other people and places that contribute to a lively and diverse communal net of writers, readers, listeners, and attention-givers of all important kinds.

Cincinnati has ongoingly rich and active (and overlapping) literary communities, which intersect variously with all kinds of music and visual arts culture. It seems to us that one quality of the social life around writing in Cincinnati is that, perhaps because of the size of the city, friendships and affinities between writers or groups of writers seem to arise less out of specific aesthetic concerns than they do out of a general desire to foster an environment where opportunities to make and hear writing are possible. It’s not baked in, not given, and therefore it isn’t taken for granted. As a result, the atmosphere around writing here feels uniquely warm, porous and supportive. 

It’s been an absolute dream to work with Jordan Dunn on this issue of the Oxeye Reader.  His particular embodiment of patience, pacing, generosity, and know-how has been an example for us of how to usher beauty (beautifully) into the world for others to encounter.  Thank you, Jordan.  

We feel endlessly lucky to have been able to spend so much time with this writing.  Thanks, contributors, for trusting us with your work and for making the culture in Cincinnati so vibrant. Finally, thanks to you, dear reader, for taking the time to check this out. Come on through!  

— Brett Price & Harris Wheeler