The Siposium - Haunted Elegies

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Ever wish your favorite NPR segment or Ted Talk came with trivia, drinks, and real conversation? Welcome to The Siposium, a live, interactive gathering where we deep dive into surprisingly niche topics with expert guests, thoughtful dialogue, and just enough irreverence to keep it fun. Think NPR-style curiosity, casual community vibes, and real-time interaction. With drinks.

What better time than October, month of Halloween’s embrace of all things spooky, to get acquainted with elegy: a lyric poem, a song of sorrow, an expressions of grief on the occasion of loss. Elegy is even more complex than that, for as we move through time, even poems that once celebrated the moment can feel elegiac, like photographs seen in retrospect, those clicks of the shutter that caught moments now vanished. In this sense, most poems are elegies. As we move through time, they sing of what is gone. Add this October thing: elegies also haunt, by remembering and commemorating persons, animals, or aspects of the culture that have passed, making them appear again. Some elegies even recount visitations, ghosts, hauntings that, in their own smoky style, breach the barriers of mortality to sing. In this Siposium event, Charlene will read poems from her most recent collection, Habitat of Ghosts (Broadstone Books, 2026) some earlier poems, and some poems by other poets. Then she’ll offer writing prompts, we’ll write, and the brave among us will share what they wrote.

Bio for Charlene Fix

Charlene Fix’s poetry collections are Habitat of Ghosts (2026 Broadstone Books), Jewgirl (Broadstone Books 2023), Taking a Walk in My Animal Hat (Bottom Dog Press 2018), Frankenstein’s Flowers (CW Books 2014), and Flowering Bruno: a Dography (XOXOX Press 2006). Her prose homage/film criticism is Harpo Marx as Trickster (McFarland 2013). She has published poems in Poetry, Literary Imagination, JAMA, The Journal, Cincinnati Review, The New Ohio Review, Mudfish, and The Manhattan Review, among other literary magazines, has received grants from The Ohio and the Greater Columbus Arts Councils, and once upon a time won the Robert H. Winner Memorial Award and the Louis Hammer Memorial Award from The Poetry Society of America. Emeritus Professor of English at Columbus College of Art and Design, Charlene co-coordinates Hospital Poets at the Ohio State University Medical Center, works for peace and social justice, and is the mother of three and grandmother of two. Her website is charlenefix.com

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