Literary Club Laureate Series

Richard Hague

Cincinnati & Mercantile Library

Poet Laureate

Three Guys in the Woods

    Beginning in the 60s, Richard Hague, Joe Enzweiler, and Jim Quinlivan, veterans of Xavier University’s literary fraternity, Mermaid Tavern, took excursions to the woods and rivers  from Appalachia to Alaska where they rusticated... and wrote about it. 

On this evening of Earth Day, Richard Hague shares 

stories about his departed companions and reads 

from their work as well as his own. 

Public Reception

& Reading

Earth Day

Wednesday

April 22, 2026

6:30pm

Free Admission

@ The Literary Club

500 East 4th Street

Cincinnati, Ohio

On the literary scene since 1849.

   Since 2021, the Literary Club's Laureate Series has welcomed noted writers for public receptions and readings at its circa 1830 clubhouse in downtown Cincinnati's Lytle Park historic District. Recent laureates include: Ohio Poet Laureates David Lucas and Kari Gunter Seymour; Kentucky Poet Laureates George Ella Lyon, Frank X Walker, and Richard Taylor; West Virginia Poet Laureate Marc Harshman, Linda Parsons, Poet Laureate of Knoxville, as well as Cincinnati Poet Laureates, Pauletta Hansel, Manuel Iris, and Yalie Saweda Kamara. Current Cincinnati & Mercantile Library Poet Laureate Richard Hague is a member and past president (2021-22). 

    Established in 1849, The Literary Club of Cincinnati is the oldest continually operating such organization in the United States. Founding members include woman's rights activist and abolitionist John Celivergos Zachos, Stanley Matthews (Supreme Court Justice), Ainsworth Rand Spofford (Sixth Librarian of Congress) and nine others. Early prominent members included Rutherford B. Hayes, William Howard Taft, and Salmon P. Chase, and Frank Duveneck. Members who left Cincinnati in the late 19th Century were instrumental in founding similar clubs in Chicago and Indianapolis. Notable guests include: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Booker T. Washington, Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde, Clarence Darrow, Potter Stewart, Robert Frost, and Neil Armstrong. 

2025 Literary Club Laureate Series 

Linda Parsons 

Poet Laureate of Knoxville

Thursday

November 13, 2025 

7:00pm

(followed by a Reception 

& Book Signing)

at The Literary Club

500 East 4th Street

Cincinnati, Ohio 

https://sites.google.com/litclubcincinnati.org/our-history/home

This event is free and open to the public

Linda Parsons, Poet Laureate of Knoxville, has been a poet, playwright, and editor for over 40 years while being active in the writing and artistic community of Knoxville and the East Tennessee region. She attended the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, earning both her bachelor’s and master's degrees in English. She retired after serving as editor for nearly 30 years at UT. A Nashville native, she has lived in Knoxville for over 50 years and is an eighth-generation Tennessean. 

A member of the East Tennessee Writers Hall of Fame, Parsons is the author of six poetry collections, most recently This Shaky Earth (2016), Candescent (2019), and Valediction: Poems and Prose (2023). Her works explore subjects such as family history, childhood, gardening / the natural world, and loss/rebirth.  

Parsons co-created and coordinated WordStream: The Weekly Writer’s Voice, a reading/performance series sponsored by WDVX-FM and Visit Knoxville in 2019-2020.  She is currently the poetry editor for Madville Publishing, Reviews Editor for Pine Mountain Sand & Gravel, and the copy editor for Chapter 16, the literary website of Humanities Tennessee. She also serves on the Board of Directors for the Knoxville Writers Guild. Five of her plays were produced by Knoxville’s Flying Anvil Theatre.

She has received two individual artist grants from the Tennessee Arts Commission, the AWP Intro Award, George Scarbrough Poetry Award, prizes from Streetlight Magazine and the Tennessee Writers Alliance, and numerous Pushcart Prize nominations. Her plays have been produced by Flying Anvil Theatre in Knoxville. 

Click here to see Parsons reading "Everywhere and Nowhere at Once" (YouTube). 

The Literary  Club Poet Laureate Series has presented Ohio Poet Laureates David Lucas and Kari Gunter Seymour; Kentucky Poet Laureates George Ella Lyon, Frank X Walker, and Richard Taylor; as well as West Virginia Poet Laureate Marc Harshman. 

Cincinnati Poet Laureates, Pauletta Hansel, Manuel Iris, and Yalie Saweda Kamara have also presented. Current Cincinnati & Mercantile Library Poet Laureate Richard Hague, a member and past president (2021-2022), will be featured in 2026. 

Notable early Literary Club guests include: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Booker T. Washington, Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, Oscar Wilde and Robert Frost. 

Established in 1849, The Literary Club of Cincinnati is the oldest continually operating such organization in the United States. Founding members include woman's rights activist and abolitionist John Celivergos Zachos, Stanley Matthews (Supreme Court Justice), Ainsworth Rand Spofford (Sixth Librarian of Congress) and nine others. The next year, a young  Rutherford B. Hayes was elected to membership. Early prominent members included William Howard Taft, and Salmon P. Chase, and Frank Duveneck. Members who left Cincinnati in the late 19th Century were instrumental in founding similar clubs in Chicago and Indianapolis. Notable guests include: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Booker T. Washington, Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde, Clarence Darrow, Potter Stewart, Robert Frost, and Neil Armstrong. 

(Clubhouse photo by E. Rutz)

Papers (1885 to present) are archived in the club’s library and the Cincinnati History Library & Archives' Geier Center. The clubhouse sits opposite the George Grey Barnard statue of Abraham Lincoln in Lytle Park in downtown Cincinnati, Ohio, occupying a two-story Greek Revival house on the homesite of Winthrop Sargent, Secretary of the Northwest Territory. A grand reading room was added to the rear of the property in 1930 after the club purchased the building from the Taft family. The c.1820 clubhouse, the Guilford School Building (c. 1916) and the Taft Museum (c. 1820) make up the core of  the Lytle Park Historic District. 

In early years, presentations often took place in the form of debate, after which members voted on the winner the debate (not necessarily the stance) with the results published in local papers. Changes after the Civil War included a move away from the debate structure to the current (presentation sans formal discussion) format and a suggested limit of two papers by any member recounting war experiences. 

Membership is by election after sponsorship by a member in good standing. Today, members present an original paper on the subject of their choosing. By tradition, the papers are non-political and non-sectarian. Paper titles are announced in advance, but by tradition they tend to be purposely oblique. 

The club regularly hosts public events, and shares use of its historic property with similar non-partisan and/or non-profit groups with a focus on, but not limited to, the literary arts, education, and intellectual growth. 

Its Poet Laureate Series hosts public readings at its clubhouse. Recent laureates include: Ohio Poet Laureates David Lucas and Kari Gunter Seymour; Kentucky Poet Laureates George Ella Lyon, Frank X Walker, and Richard Taylor; as well as West Virginia Poet Laureate Marc Harshman. Cincinnati Poet Laureates, Pauletta Hansel, Manuel Iris, and Yalie Saweda Kamara have also presented. Current Cincinnati & Mercantile Library Poet Laureate Richard Hague is a member and past president (2021-2022). Donations to the Literary Club of Cincinnati help support these efforts and are tax-deductible. 

The Literary Club's Poet Laureate Series hosts public readings at its clubhouse. Recent laureates include: Ohio Poet Laureates David Lucas and Kari Gunter Seymour; Kentucky Poet Laureates George Ella Lyon, Frank X Walker, and Richard Taylor; as well as West Virginia Poet Laureate Marc Harshman. Cincinnati Poet Laureates, Pauletta Hansel, Manuel Iris, and Yalie Saweda Kamara have also presented. Current Cincinnati & Mercantile Library Poet Laureate Richard Hague is a member and past president (2021-2022). 

     Laureates

Pauletta Hansel 4/28/22            Cincinnati Poet Laureate

George Ella Lyon 11/10/2022   (former) Kentucky Poet Laureate

Manuel Iris 5/4/23                   Cincinnati Poet Laureate

Yalie Saweda Kamara 3/2/23 Cincinnati Poet Laureate

Marc Harshman 11/2/23      West Virginia Poet Laureate

Kari Gunter Seymour 11/11/21 Ohio Poet Poet Laureate

David Lucas 10/23/24         Ohio Poet Laureate

Frank X Walker 4/25/24      (former) Kentucky Poet Laureate

Richard Taylor 5/8/25          (former) Kentucky Poet Laureate

 Sherry Cook Standforth 2/24/25

Todd Davis 2/25/21

Michael Henson 2.24.22