Join us for this gathering of six poets laureate from the Great Lakes region reading from the new anthology, Undocumented: Great Lakes Poets Laureate on Social Justice. The book is organized around themes from the Southern Poverty Law Center’s “Ten Ways to Fight Hate: A Community Response Guide,” calling on readers to act on behalf of victims of social injustice. The evening of poetic and activist inspiration features Sarah Sadie, Wendy Vardaman, Kimberly Blaeser, James Armstrong, Oscar Mireles, Emilio DeGrazia, and Ken McCullough.
Undocumented: Great Lakes Poets Laureate on Social Justice
James Armstrong has published poems in Triquarterly, Gulf Coast, Orion, The Snowy Egret, The New York Times Book Review, Shade, Poetry East and elsewhere. He is the author of two poetry books, Monument in a Summer Hat (New Issues Press, 1999) and Blue Lash (Milkweed Editions, 2006) and is the co-author of a book of essays, Nature, Culture and Two Friends Talking (North Star Press 2015). Armstrong is a recipient of the PEN-New England Discovery Prize, an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship and a Minnesota State Arts Board Fellowship in poetry. He is a Professor of English at Winona State University in Winona, Minnesota. He was Winona’s first Poet Laureate.
Kimberly Blaeser, past Wisconsin Poet Laureate and founding director of In-Na-Po—Indigenous Nations Poets, is a writer, photographer, and scholar. She is the author of six poetry collections, most recently Copper Yearning, the bilingual Résister en dansant/Ikwe-niimi: Dancing Resistance, and the 2024 volume Ancient Light. Blaeser edited Traces in Blood, Bone, and Stone: Contemporary Ojibwe Poetry and wrote the monograph Gerald Vizenor: Writing in the Oral Tradition. Her photographs, picto-poems, and ekphrastic pieces have appeared in exhibits such as “Visualizing Sovereignty,” and “No More Stolen Sisters.” An Anishinaabe activist and environmentalist, she is an enrolled member of White Earth Nation. The 2024 Mackey Chair in Creative Writing at Beloit College and a Vassar College Tatlock Fellow, Blaeser is a Professor Emerita at UW–Milwaukee and an MFA faculty member for Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe. Her accolades include... Read More
Sarah Sadie is co-editor of Cowfeather Press (www.cowfeatherpress.org) and one of the Poets Laureate of Madison, Wisconsin (2012-2015), where she lives with her family. Her poems and books have won the Council for Wisconsin Writers’ Niedecker and Posner Prizes, as well as a Pushcart. Do-It-Yourself Paper Airplanes, her most recent chapbook, was published in 2015 by Five Oaks Press. Sarah teaches online at the Loft, at the University of Iowa’s Summer Writing Festival, and occasionally elsewhere. These days you can find her blogging at Dowsing for Divinity on the Patheos Pagan channel, and occasionally posting articles, pictures and notes of interest on her website.
Emilio DeGrazia, a long-time resident of Winona, Minnesota, founded Great River Review in 1977. A first collection of short fiction, Enemy Country (New Rivers Press), was selected by Anne Tyler for a Writer’s Choice Award, and a novel, Billy Brazil (New Rivers Press), was chosen for a Minnesota Voices award. A second story collection, Seventeen Grams of Soul, received a Minnesota Book Award in 1995, and a second novel, A Canticle for Bread and Stones, appeared in 1996. In the past few years DeGrazia published Burying the Tree, his first collection of essays; a memoir (of sorts) called Walking on Air in a Field of Greens; Seasonings, a first collection of poetry; and Eye Shadow, creative non-fiction. He also has served two terms as Winona’s Poet Laureate.
Ken McCullough was born in Staten Island NY but spent most of his childhood in Newfoundland. He regards the mountains of Montana and Wyoming as his spiritual home. In 1992 he was adopted into the Minneconjou band of the Lakota nation. McCullough is a graduate of the Iowa Writers Workshop. He was Poet Laureate of Winona, MN for three terms. His most recent books of poetry are Dark Stars and Broken Gates, both from Red Dragonfly Press, his ninth and tenth books. He has also published fiction, reviews and illustrations, and his work has received several awards. McCullough translated the poetry of Pol Pot survivor U Sam Oeur (Sacred Vows--a bilingual edition) and collaborated with U on his memoir (Crossing Three Wildernesses) both with Coffee House Press. McCullough lives with his wife Lynn, a playwright, on a farm just outside Winona, where he plans to make his stand.
Oscar Mireles is the first Latino Poet Laureate (2016-18) of the City of Madison. He is the editor of three anthologies titled I Didn't Know There Were Latinos in Wisconsin in which the last edition featured 40 Latino writers. He published a chapbook titled Second Generation in 1985. He has read poetry at the Detroit Institute of Art, Chicago Cultural Center and The Loft in Minneapolis. He has been the Executive Director of Omega School for the past 22 years, which provides GED preparation for young adults in Dane County.
Wendy Vardaman (wendyvardaman.com) is the author of Reliquary of Debt (LitFest Press 2015) and Obstructed View, co-editor of Local Ground(s)--Midwest Poetics and Echolocations, Poets Map Madison, founding co-editor of Cowfeather Press, and one of Madison's two Poets Laureate (2012-2015).
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Arts + Literature Laboratory is located at 111 S. Livingston Street #100, Madison, Wisconsin, 53703.
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