September 22, 2014 - Poetry has long fascinated former Star Tribune editorial board member Jim Lenfestey, both as a reader and a writer. Back in 1970 a bookseller gave him a collection of poems by Han Shan, or Cold Mountain, a Chinese poet who lived 1400 years ago.
August 21, 2015 - A tiny publisher in Duluth has released an anthology of poetry about Minnesota's biggest lake, titled “Amethyst and Agate: Poems of Lake Superior.” The collection from Holy Cow! Press celebrates the many moods of Lake Superior, and the powerful connection it has to the people who live near its vast shoreline.
November 6, 2015 - MPR’s Marianne Combs profiles a group of six Black women Minnesota writers Carolyn Holbrook, Lori Young-Williams, Andrea Jenkins, Shannon Gibney, Tish Jones, and Mary Moore Easter. They gathered at the The Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis for a reading series called “More Than a Single Story.” Series was created by Carolyn Holbrook.
May 4, 2016 - A dozen years before the beginning of the Second World War, the Nazis began what would become the unparalleled slaughter of Europe’s “undesirables,” most of whom were Jews. Millions would die, but there were survivors as well, each with a unique story. Classical MPR’s Mindy Ratner has gathered a collection of conversations with some of those touched directly by the Holocaust and those conversations form the basis of Kaddish: Reflections on the Holocaust in Music and Words.
July 14, 2016 - People in our community are expressing their feelings about the death of Philando Castile in many ways. 15 local poets gathered at the Penumbra Theater in St. Paul for a community reading. It was part of Black Poets Speak Out, a poetry-driven protest that began after the death of Michael Brown in 2014. Report includes an excerpt of Michael Kleber Diggs reading his poem "St. Paul Morning."
August 2, 2016 - MPR’s Tom Crann reports on the death of Ojibwe author, poet, playwright Jim Northrup. Report includes audio clip of Northrup reading from his poem “Grandma’s Hair.”
August 9, 2016 - MPR’s Euen Kerr reports on poet, novelist and academic Gerald Vizenor’s new novel “Treaty Shirts.” Book is a satirical novel examining the impact of the document in the future, blending Ojibwe history, tradition, and dream narratives with popular culture and science technology to create a surreal but pointed view of modern native life. Report includes interview and reading from Vizenor.
September 9, 2016 - MPR’s Tom Crann interviews 20-year-old Augsburg College student Donte Collins, who was given the Academy of American Poets' Aliki Perroti and Seth Frank Most Promising Young Poet Award for his poem "What the Dead Know by Heart." Segment includes Collins reading poem.
December 23, 2016 - When Minnesota poet, author, and musician Bill Holm sat down to write a Christmas letter, he sorted through a lifetime of memories and put some of these memories in his 2009 book titled Faces of Christmas Past, published by the Afton Historical Society Press. That same year, Minnesota Public Radio produced this "Voices of Minnesota" special, with Bill Holm reading from his own book.