ONLINE: Kimberly Blaeser
John Fisher
Kimberly Blaeser, a professor at UW-Milwaukee and 2015-16 Wisconsin poet laureate.
press release: Kimberly Blaeser, writer, photographer, and scholar, served as Wisconsin Poet Laureate for 2015-16. She is the author of five poetry collections—most recently Copper Yearning, Apprenticed to Justice, and the bi-lingual Résister en dansant/Ikwe-Nimi: Dancing Resistance published in 2020; and editor of Traces in Blood, Bone, and Stone: Contemporary Ojibwe Poetry. An Anishinaabe activist and environmentalist from White Earth Reservation, Blaeser is a Professor at UW—Milwaukee and MFA faculty member for the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe. In 2020 she founded In-Na-Po: Indigenous Nations Poets. She lives in the woods and wetlands of Lyons Township, Wisconsin.
Since 2011 Shake Rag Alley has partnered with the Council for Wisconsin Writers (CWW), Wisconsin People & Ideas, and the Wisconsin Poet Laureate Commission through the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters to offer week-long residencies to their annual writing contest winners.
In the tradition established by Edenfred, the Terry Family Foundation’s artist residence in Madison, writers and poets are provided with a week of uninterrupted time to focus on a project of their choice.
Between the months of December through March, writers stay in Shake Rag Alley’s inspiring lodging facilities surrounded by the nurturing environment of historic Mineral Point’s artistic community. Visiting writers participate in workshops, readings, and/or community outreach activities, including Wednesday evening Winter Writers Reading Series author talks and discussions.
2020-21 readings and discussions offered virtually via Zoom.