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.

“Songs at the Confluence: Indigenous Poets on Place,” Digital Poetry Event, December 4^th, 7 p.m. Eastern (6 Central, 5 Mountain).

Curated by In-Na-Po, Indigenous Nations Poets. Sponsored by Tippet Rise Art Center and Adrian Brinkerhoff Poetry Foundation.  The evening's program will include short films by emerging and celebrated Indigenous poets, in which they will read their own work and recite other poems from the anthology.

Readers will include Kimberly Blaeser (Anishinaabe–White Earth Nation), Jake Skeets (Diné), Brandy Nalani McDougall (Kanaka Maoli), Sy Hoahwah (Yapaituka Comanche and Southern Arapaho), Layli Long Soldier (Oglala Lakota) and M. L. Smoker (Assiniboine and Sioux). Poems by the late poets Adrian Louis (Lovelock Paiute), b: william bearheart (Anishinaabe–St. Croix), and Louis Little Coon Oliver (Mvskoke) will also be performed.

A discussion between LeAnne Howe (Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma) and Jennifer Foerster (Mvskoke (Creek) Nation of Oklahoma), two of the anthology's editors, will also be featured, as well as video of Tippet Rise's inspiring landscape and musical programs.

The program on December 4 will stream on YouTube, the Tippet Rise website, and the Adrian Brinkerhoff Poetry Foundation website. We hope you can make it!

https://tippetrise.org/news/december-4-songs-at-the-confluence-indigenous-poets-on-place