Collection
Reading
662 Collection Items
- War diary helps a daughter know the father she never met
Morning Edition’s Cathy Wurzer interviews Linda McBrayer of St. Paul, who discusses her late father, and his war diary found decades after his death. Cpl. Thomas Soliz, a radio operator, was killed in Vietnam on Sept. 6, 1967, just three months after McBrayer was born. Segment includes a reading from diary. McBrayer is one of more than 400 people that have contributed to “Minnesota Remembers Vietnam: The Story Wall” project.
- Bill Holm shares memories, music from Minnesota Christmas past
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.
- St. Paul's Donte Collins named Most Promising Young Poet
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.
- Gerald Vizenor satirically imagines the future of the White Earth constitution
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.
- Remembering Jim Northrup
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.”
- Community reading for Black Poets Speak Out at Penumbra
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.
- Kaddish: Reflections on the Holocaust in Music and Words
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.
- Black women Minnesota writers perform readings at The Loft
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.”
- Poetry anthology celebrates Lake Superior
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.
- Minnesota poet Jim Lenfesty seeks source of 1400-year-old poems - and finds himself
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.