How Far We've Come

We started in January 1974, and were incorporated October 15, 1976 as the Poets' League of Greater Cleveland. The mission of the organization was to give voice to Cleveland's growing community of beat style and street poets, for whom poetry was not an academic endeavor, but for whom poetry was a means of artistic, literary, social, and political expression. With a mission to promote the art of written and spoken word poetry, The PLGC was a place where workshops, classes, and poetry readings were organized and executed. By the mid 1980's, however, the artistic and social climate began to change, and prose was incorporated into the purview of the League, and in 1991, The Poets' League merged with Cleveland Writers' Center to form the Poets' & Writers' League of Greater Cleveland.

In expanding its mission, vision, and operations to include a broader spectrum of literary genres, fiction, essay, memoir, and journalism became areas of study and workshop. Since that time, we have again changed our name to The LIT: Cleveland's Literary Center, and although our focus remains literature across genres and literary arts, we seek to enrich lives through reading and creative expression.