Twenty-two poets gathered Saturday at the Collingwood Arts Center for the largest poetry event in Toledo since the 1970s, arts center program director John Dorsey said.

The festival featured poets from around the country and Canada who may know one another through online publications and social networks but never have met face to face until now.

“The amazing thing is, a lot of us just know each other from online,” said Brian Fugett, founder of literary magazine Zygote in my Coffee. “Now is the first time we’ve converged … it’s almost surreal.”

The festival, called “Zygote in my Fez,” was hosted by online literary magazines Zygote in my Coffee and Red Fez.

The event ran from 4 to 10 p.m., with four poets reading each hour. Topics included politics, Alzheimer’s disease, Bohemian life, marriage, and divorce. While the atmosphere in the theater was cheerful and enthusiastic, many of the poems took on a much darker tone.

PHOTO GALLERY: Click here to see more photos from Zygote in my Fez poetry festival

Mr. Fugett said there’s a “really good scene” of poets in northern Ohio, particularly in the Cleveland and Toledo areas.

“All of these events are like a big family reunion,” Mr. Dorsey said.

Steve Goldberg, an engineer from Cleveland who read at the festival, said his poems focus on dealing with middle age and a body that “can’t do the things it used to.”

He said the festival was a great opportunity to reunite with poets he hadn’t seen in a number of years.

But Mr. Goldberg wasn’t always a poet. On a trip home from Italy about 10 years ago, he read Jack Kerouac’s On the Road in one sitting, and was immediately attracted to the art of free verse.

He participated in his first reading in Cleveland eight years ago and has attended them ever since.

Mr. Goldberg said balancing his analytical engineering mindset with the creativity necessary to write poetry is a struggle.

“I grab the Muse when I can,” he said.

Holland resident Craig Firsdon, who has juvenile rheumatoid arthritis and uses a wheelchair, said writing poetry has been a form of therapy over the years.

“It’s one of those things, I don’t know where I would be without it,” he said.

“One of my big beliefs is that poetry can help you with so much.”

Mr. Firsdon said he is mainly known as an “angry” poet, writing extensively on political and social issues.

Cleveland poet Dan Smith describes his work as “surreal urban lyric.” Most of his poetry is centered on Cleveland, particularly the decline of industry in the area. His said his poems also take a strong political edge.

Mr. Smith performed as part of the “Deep Cleveland Trio,” which included himself, his son Morgan Ellington on bass, and Miles Budimir on percussion. Mr. Ellington and Mr. Budimir played expressively as Mr. Smith read his poetry.

Michael Grover, Toledo resident and poetry editor of the Red Fez, said reading a poem out loud is completely different from reading it on paper.

“The performance of a poem is really important,” he said.

The idea for “Zygote in my Fez” came about in February after Mr. Fugett attended a 150-hour long poetry event in Elyria called “Snoetry.”

He jokingly sent an instant message to Red Fez editor-in-chief Michele McDannold, suggesting that the two magazines combine forces and create a poetry event of their own.

They never expected it to actually pan out.

“At first we didn’t really think it was going to happen,” he said. “[But] the joke blossomed.”

The whole reading list was determined in four days, Mr. Dorsey said.

“Easily, we had to turn away 30 people.”

Originally, Mr. Fugett and Ms. McDannold were looking to schedule the festival in Dayton but couldn’t find the appropriate venue.

That’s when Mr. Grover asked Mr. Dorsey if the festival could be held at the arts center.

“We’re real happy to bring it to Toledo,” Mr. Dorsey said.

He said a poetry reading of such scale in Toledo hasn’t happened for “probably three decades.

Red Fez was founded in 2002 and publishes a range of creative work including poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and artwork.

Zygote in my Coffee is a poetry-focused literary magazine that is published twice a year online.

Mr. Fugett said he hopes to make “Zygote in my Fez” an annual event at the Collingwood Arts Center.

“It’s amazing, it really is — getting to meet all these people live,” he said. “That’s the best part.”

Contact Sara Felsenstein at: sfelsenstein@theblade.com or 419-724-6050.

First Published August 7, 2011, 4:30 a.m.