Join us for a morning of First Peoples poetry with American Indian poets Kimberly Blaeser, Elise Paschen, Mark Turcotte, and Gwen Westerman, moderated by poet Gordon Henry.

This reading will be dedicated to the work of Joy Harjo, United States Poet Laureate and editor of Living Nations, Living Words, an anthology of poems by American Indian poets reflecting on themes of place and displacement. The book is the companion to her online project Living Nations, Living Words, A Map of First People’s Poetry.

More information about registration here: https://www.newberry.org/04092022-first-peoples-poetry-reading-tribute-living-nations-living-words-project

In the midst of an epidemic on MMIW, in the midst of a global
pandemic that has devastated Native communities, in the midst
of tragic revelations of mass unmarked graves at boarding
schools, why art? Why poetry, dance, or song? This program of
picto-poems and poetry, will look at how Native Arts feed
Indigenous Flourishing. Drawing on the work and statements of
Indigenous artists from Joy Harjo to James Luna, touching on
tribal traditions from the healing jingle dress dance to trickster
antics to activist poetics, Anishinaabe writer and photographer
Kimberly Blaeser will celebrate Indigenous arts and the role they
play in building relatedness and teaching survivance.