We're thrilled to have our popular National Poetry Month reading series return this year! Join us down the street at the Wine Café to hear from some of Minnesota's finest established and emerging poets—and enjoy a bite or a drink while you do. The April 19 reading will feature Candace Black, Marlin Jenkins, National Poetry Series winner (and MSU professor) Michael Torres, and Lindquist & Vennum Prize winner Claire Wahmanholm. Then, on April 26, we'll welcome National Endowment for the Arts fellow Michael Bazzett, Minnesota Book Award winner Su Hwang, Max Ritvo Poetry Prize winner Michael Kleber-Diggs, and National Book Award finalist (and Gustavus professor) Matt Rasmussen. Learn more about the poets below.

Candace Black is the author of three collections of poems: The Volunteer, Casa Marina, and Whereabouts. Her creative nonfiction has appeared in several journals, including Pinyon, Great River Review, Superstition Review, Turnrow, and War, Literature & the Arts. She retired from teaching creative writing at Minnesota State University, Mankato in 2022.  

Marlin M. Jenkins was born and raised in Detroit and is the author of the chapbook Capable Monsters (Bull City Press, 2020). He studied Creative Writing and Black Studies at Saginaw Valley State University, and studied poetry in the University of Michigan’s MFA program. His poetry has been given homes by Indiana Review, TriQuarterly, Waxwing, Iowa Review, New Poetry from the Midwest, and Volume 2 of Oxidant Engine’s BoxSet Series.

Michael Torres is a VONA distinguished alum and CantoMundo fellow. He is the recipient of fellowships and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the McKnight Foundation, and the Jerome Foundation. His first collection of poems, An Incomplete List of Names (Beacon Press, 2020), was selected for the National Poetry Series, named one of NPR’s Best Books of 2020, and was featured on the podcast Code Switch. His writing has been featured in Best New Poets 2020, The New Yorker, POETRY, and elsewhere. He teaches in the MFA program at Minnesota State University, Mankato, and through the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop.

Claire Wahmanholm is the author of Meltwater, Redmouth, Night Vision, and Wilder, which won the 2018 Lindquist & Vennum Prize for Poetry, the Society of Midland Authors Award for Poetry, and was a finalist for the 2019 Minnesota Book Award. A 2020-2021 McKnight Writing Fellow, her poems have appeared widely and been featured by the Academy of American Poets.

This project is made possible with money from Minnesota’s Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the people of Minnesota for Library Legacy activities.