To culminate Lyricality’s “Read Poetry 2021” program, guest poets Heid Erdrich, Su Hwang and Paige Riehl will join Louise K. Waakaa’igan via Zoom and Facebook Live, to read poems and talk about the important work poetry does to liberate us and to connect us. Central Minnesota Somali-American poets Abdi Mahad, Anisa Hagi-Mohammed, and Halima Hagi-Mohammed will also join the conversation.

“In this eagerly anticipated volume Anishinaabekwe poet Louise K. Waakaa’igan lets us hear the “winds of flutes” even as she writes from “concrete plains” of prison. In the tradition of political prisoners Leonard Peltier and Marilyn Buck, this poet lets word fly through and beyond prison walls. A multilayered origin story, This is Where refuses to duck the contradictions of time, place, belonging. She writes, “I’m from women with the same last name / and a father/ none of us knew.”–Becky Thompson.

The program is co-sponsored by Lyricality and Great River Regional Library.
Read Poetry 2021 is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Central MN Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.