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.

In this special evening of poetry, members of the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets (WFoP); Wisconsin's Poet Laureate Kimberly Blaeser; Madison’s Poets Laureate, Sarah Busse and Wendy Vardaman; and other invited poets will read original works inspired by Eric and Heather ChanSchatz: 22nd Century.

You too are encouraged to share your vision(s) of the city through Twitter using #writeyourmadison. All tweets sent by February 15 will contribute to a group collage poem that will be performed at the event. Write Your Madison is a digital place-making project by Madison's Poets Laureate and Cowfeather Press that invites collaboration and conversation through poetry about Madison. Learn more at Cowfeather Press.

Poets Respond to Madison is organized in conjunction with Eric and Heather ChanSchatz: 22nd Century and the artists’ project, Madison: A Cooperative Almanac, by MMoCA’s education department in partnership with the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets (WFoP) and Madison’s Poets Laureate.

MMoCA Nights admission $10/Members free.