NEW BOOK! Columbus Obscura: A Poet's Guide to the City
What would it look like if an Atlas Obscura city guide was crossed with a poetry anthology?
That question inspired me to write a grant application for Columbus Obscura: A Poet’s Guide to the City. I’m ecstatic to report I got a $10,000 Artist Project Grant from the Greater Columbus Arts Council to bring the anthology to life! And I’ll be the editor.
Before I moved to Columbus a decade ago, I didn’t write poems. Because the Columbus poetry scene is so welcoming and supportive, I have an award-winning poetry collection that’s a Finalist for the 2026 Ohio Book Award. This city made me a poet, as it has so many others, and this project, Columbus Obscura: A City Guide in Poems, is both a love letter to the city and a way to support the local poetry community.
Columbus Obscura is an anthology of local poets and their poems about the places in the city that are meaningful to them. Inspired by Atlas Obscura, each poem will include at least one specific place and/or annual event, with specificity determined by whether the place can be photographed. (For example, you can’t take a picture of “Columbus,” but you can take a picture of the Columbus Museum of Art and Streetlight Guild.) If the specific place/event isn’t mentioned directly in the poem, it will be included in a footnote at the bottom of the page, making the anthology a guide to Columbus that maps inspiring places across the city.
Columbus Obscura aims to collect poems about popular, well-known spots and places off the beaten path for a holistic, diverse approach. The collection will represent as many different neighborhoods, establishments, and events as possible. Poets are invited to include one or more places per poem and will be paid for each accepted piece, with the goal of including as many poets as the budget allows. Each place mentioned in the anthology will be publicly accessible so Columbus Obscura can truly function as a city guide.
Stay tuned for a call for submissions coming soon!
Thank you, GCAC and community reviewers who believed in this project!