Poetry
Publications in 2020 - 2022
Bio
Erica was named the 2022 Ohio Poet of the Year by the Ohio Poetry Day Association. In 1938, the State of Ohio set the third Friday of every October as Ohio Poetry Day. This was the first poetry day established by a state government in the United States. Tessa Sweazy Webb spent thirteen months lobbying the Ohio General Assembly to create Ohio Poetry Day. Previous Poets of the Year include Mary Oliver, Kari Gunter-Seymore, Pauletta Hansel, Richard Hague, Herbert Woodward Martin, and David Garrison.
Erica was recipient of a 2021 Pushcart Prize nomination and a Slippery Elm poetry finalist. Her work has appeared in Thimble Literary Magazine, the Northern Appalachia Review, the Dayton Anthology, Shela-Na-Gig, and elsewhere. She was the winner of the 2020 Dayton Metro Library poetry contest, and has been featured on NPR's "Conrad’s Corner" (WYSO).
Erica Manto Paulson's poetry has been featured on the Cincinnati Library Writer in Residence blog and is a part of the Ohioana Library and the Cincinnati and Hamilton Co. Public Library's collection. Her work is also part of the Cincinnati Museum Center's permanent collection of Pandemic memorabilia.
Erica’s latest chapbook, Hunger, published by Finishing Line Press, was inspired by over a decade of work in the perinatal field as her own experiences as a mother of seven. With poems about the raw female power of birth to the tender moments nurturing children into a hunger for the world, each poem touches the intimate spaces we all can relate to.
Erica is a lifelong Ohioan who finds inspiration for her work in the fertile fields of her home state, drawing on a deep connection to the surrounding world.
Book Publication
Hunger is a book of poetry inspired and influenced by a decade of passion and work in the perinatal field as well as my own impressions and experiences of motherhood and birth as a human rights issue. My clients, co-workers, and members of the birth community, as well as my children and family, have been the greatest sources of inspiration in the composition of this book. All gratitude and thankfulness to them for the gift of their presence in my life.
Anthology and Poetry Journal Publications
"Timekeeper" published by Sheila-na-Gig February 2023
"Life Mosaic" published by Showcase, January 2023
"Moon Body" published by Porkbelly Press, 2022
"Ekphrasis of a Uterus" published by Thimble Literary Magazine
"The Daughter I Made With My Body, "The Ghost Arms of Trees" published by Tomorrow and Tomorrow, 2022
"Marigolds" published by Sheila-Na-Gig
"From the Throat of Crows" published by Slippery Elm fall 2021
"Midwifing Loss" is in the 2021 spring issue of Thimble Literary Magazine.
"The Gift" was published in the Dayton Anthology Dec. 2020
"Three Little Stones," "The Naming of Things," "The Eight Year Old Boy, Once Forgotten" was published by Sinclair College, Fall 2020 "Flights"
"Crossing the Edge in November" was published by The Northern Appalachian Review., October 2020
"St. Anne's Hill After the Quarantine" was first place winner of the Dayton Metro Library poetry contest and published by Mock Turtle Zine's Issue 21, fall 2020.
"When Diary Farmers Were Dumping Milk During the Pandemic" published by the Adanna Literary Journal, November 2020.
"Pandemic in Early Spring" was published in Postcards From the Pandemic and is in the permanent collection of the Cincinnati Museum Center's Pandemic Collection, April 2020.