Appearances

Event Information:

  • Mon
    18
    Jan
    2021

    Woodland Pattern Poetry Reading: Gordon Henry Jr., Roberta Hill, Cedar Sigo, & Tanaya Winder, hosted by Kimberly Blaeser

    7:00 pmZoom
    Poetry Reading in celebration of When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through: A Norton Anthology of Native Nations Poetry edited by Joy Harjo, LeAnne Howe, and Jennifer Elise Foerster. Featuring readings by Gordon Henry Jr., Roberta Hill, Cedar Sigo, and Tanaya Winder, and hosted by Kimberly Blaeser.
    Sun. Jan. 17 | 7 pm CT | $Give What You Can
    Presented in partnership with In-Na-Po (Indigenous Nations’ Poets), this reading is part of our series Native Writers in the 21st Century, which is made possible with support from the National Endowment for the Arts.
    An Anishinabe poet and novelist, Gordon Henry, Jr. is an enrolled member of the White Earth Chippewa Tribe of Minnesota. His poetry has been published in anthologies such as Songs From This Earth On Turtle's Back: Contemporary American Indian Poetry (Greenfield Review Press, 1983) and Returning the Gift: Poetry and Prose from the First Native American Writers (University of Arizona Press, 1994). His novel The Light People (University of Oklahoma Press, 1994) was awarded The American Book Award in 1995. He has also co-authored the textbook The Ojibway (2004), to which he contributed a number of essays on Native American culture. A professor of English at Michigan State University and editor of the American Indian Studies Series at Michigan State University Press, Henry teaches courses in American literature, creative writing, and American Indian literature.
    Roberta Hill, an enrolled member of the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin, is the author of the poetry collections Cicadas: New & Selected Poems (2013), Star Quilt (1984, 1999), and Philadelphia Flowers: Poems (1995), all out from Holy Cow Press. Her work has been anthologized in Harper’s Anthology of Twentieth Century Native American Poetry (1988), The Third Woman: Minority Women Writers of the United States (Houghton Mifflin, 1980), and Carriers of the Dream Wheel: Contemporary Native American Poetry (Harper & Row, 1975). A recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts grant, Hill has taught English and American Indian studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and in Poets-in-the-Schools programs in various states, including Minnesota, Arizona, and Oklahoma.
    Cedar Sigo was raised on the Suquamish Reservation in the Pacific Northwest and studied at The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at the Naropa Institute. He is the author of eight books and pamphlets of poetry, including Royals (Wave Books, 2017), Language Arts (Wave Books, 2014), Stranger in Town (City Lights, 2010), Expensive Magic (House Press, 2008), and two editions of Selected Writings (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2003 and 2005). He has taught workshops at St. Mary’s College, Naropa University, and University Press Books. He is currently a mentor in the low-residency MFA program at the Institute of American Indian Arts. He lives in Lofall, Washington.
    Tanaya Winder was raised on the Southern Ute reservation in Ignacio, Colorado. An enrolled member of the Duckwater Shoshone Tribe, her background includes Southern Ute, Pyramid Lake Paiute, Diné, and Black heritages. She is the author of Words Like Love (West End Press, 2015) and the chapbook Why Storms are Named After People and Bullets Remain Nameless (Poetic Fire, 2018). Poems from her manuscript Love in a Time of Blood Quantum were produced and performed by the Poetic Theater Productions Presents Company in NYC. Winder has taught writing courses at Stanford University, UC-Boulder, and the University of New Mexico and is the Director of the University of Colorado at Boulder’s Upward Bound Program, which services Native American youth from 5 states, 12 high schools, and 5 reservations across the country. Winder is also a co-founder of As/Us: A Space for Women of the World and Sing Our Rivers Red, a traveling earring exhibit to raise awareness about murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls. (Tanaya Winder photo credit: Natahnee Winder)
Kim at Returning the Gift Festival, 2012 in Milwaukee, Indian Summer Stage.

Kim at Returning the Gift Festival, 2012 in Milwaukee, Indian Summer Stage.

 

Past Events

Event Information:

  • Fri
    29
    Oct
    2021

    2021 Winona Poetry Walk: Opening Reading

    5:00 pmPeter’s Biergarten at 54 East Second Street

    2021 Winona Poetry Walk - Print Version (1)

    To celebrate the opening of the 2021 edition of the Winona Poetry Walk, the Winona Fine Arts Commission is very pleased to announce a
    reading of the selections for the second year of the public art initiative. This project consists of original poetry stamped into sidewalks and
    installation of the poems downtown. Each of the ten selected poets will read their excerpts or short poems, and the public will be invited to take
    the Poetry Walk with a map provided or digitally available at the City of Winona website. The free reading will be at the new wonderful
    Peter’s Biergarten at 54 East Second Street beginning at 5pm with the reading at 5:30.
    The FAC requested submissions of original short poems (or parts of poems) and received a wonderful variety of responses. Nine poems were
    selected by the following poets: Jerome Christenson, Michael William Doyle, Dan Eastman, Parker Forsell, Nancy Kay Peterson, Marcia
    Ratliff, Steve Schild, Sabrina Schlichting, and Lucas Stangl. The Fine Arts Commission continued their inclusion of one professional poet of
    renown or public title with a work by former Wisconsin Poet Laureate Kimberly Blaeser. The mission of the WINONA Poetry Walk is to
    celebrate local writers, make the creativity of our residents more visible, and aesthetically and intellectually enrich our city.
    In addition to their scheduled installation locations, Winona residents have the opportunity to have a contractor borrow a poetry stamp and
    place a poem in the sidewalk outside their residence.
    The selections were judged by a panel of local citizens with expertise in the arts and poetry chosen by the Fine Arts Commission. The Fine Arts
    Commission would like to thank the panel of judges for their wonderful work: Dante DeGrazia, John Kerr, Caitlin McCoy, LaShara Morgan,
    Kathy Peterson, Paul Stern, and Tricia Wehrenberg.