Seaside Poems: Talking to the Waves

Clarissa Jakobsons taught poetry, journaling, and various art classes at Cuyahoga Community College after teaching middle school art. She’s been featured at Parisienne Shakespeare and Company Bookstore and won Akron Art Museum’s New Words Competition. Her work appears in Sheila-Na-Gig, Glint Literary Journal, Hawaii Pacific Review, Lake, Ruminate, The Tower Magazine, and elsewhere. Her poetry collection Baltic Amber in a Chest (Bottom Dog Press, 2023) received a Pushcart nomination and is available worldwide. She is delighted to give readings in Ohio, the Cape, Florida, and California. She writes, “Don’t be surprised to see my inner artist kicking sandcastles, climbing Mount Diablo, painting Provincetown dunes, or writing under an Ohio crescent moon.”

Clarissa was born in Germany of Lithuanian parents fleeing the Russian Communists and willingly shares her family’s WWII history. As a child, her Saturdays were filled with inspirational drawing and painting classes at the Art Institute of Chicago, which instilled a lifelong affair with the arts. A former Kent State University art professor once remarked that her sketchbooks looked like poetry. Who would’ve guessed this observation predicted her weaving art and poems, or creating crystalized books? Since her college days at KSU, she has adored Cape Cod’s ocean waves.

Paperback: 60 pages
Publisher: Kelsay Books (July 31, 2026)