Join the poet laureate of the Navajo Nation Jake Skeets, Center Circl, and In-Na-Po for our 2025 keynote!

This event is part of the 2025 Indigenous Nations Poets mentoring retreat. This year’s retreat theme, Spirit Lines and Visual Poetics, considers the many ways Indigenous poetics allude to and embody spiritual knowledge and traditions, and the visual experimentations poets employ to break the bounds of text.

Jake Skeets is the author of Eyes Bottle Dark with a Mouthful of Flowers, winner of the National Poetry Series, American Book Award, Kate Tufts Discovery Award, and Whiting Award. His work has appeared in journals and magazines such as Poetry, The New York Times Magazine, and The Paris Review. Other honors include an NEA Grant for Arts Projects, a Mellon Projecting All Voices Fellowship, and the 2023-2024 Grisham Writer in Residence at the University of Mississippi.  He is from the Navajo Nation and teaches at the University of Oklahoma.

Founded in 2020, In-Na-Po—Indigenous Nations Poets—is a national Indigenous poetry community committed to mentoring emerging writers, nurturing the growth of Indigenous poetic practices, and raising the visibility of all Native Writers past, present, and future. In-Na-Po recognizes the role of poetry in sustaining tribal sovereign nations and Native languages.

Join the Minnesota Humanities Center for an engaging and interactive online poetry craft talk and workshop! Featuring her most recent collection, “Verb Animate,” this workshop will be led by esteemed writer and the first poet laureate of the City of Minneapolis, Heid E. Erdrich.

In this session, participants will dip into creative activities using poems and prompts from “Verb Animate.” Heid will also read poems from this collection and share more about its creation; each poem included arose from a collaborative act with another poet or artist. Whether you are a seasoned poet or just beginning, don’t miss this opportunity to write and learn more about community centered, collaborative poetry.

On Tuesday, April 15, we’ll be at the Tulsa Historical Society & Museum to celebrate the release of Elise Paschen’s newest poetry collection BLOOD WOLF MOON, an exploration of her identity and Osage roots. This free event will start at 7pm and is open to all!

Celebrate Elise Paschen’s book release for Blood Wolf Moon and Poetry guest editor Esther Belin’s special March issue on Diné Poetics. Osage artists June Carpenter and Lydia Cheshewalla will also give artist talks.The presentation will be followed by a reception. 

POWER LINES FROM THE POETS:

“ 𐓧𐓪 ̄ 𐓡𐓪 ̋ 𐓱𐓘 lǫǫhóohtą We thunder

𐓡𐓣 ̋ híi while our teeth

𐓣́𐓟 íe talk.”

—Elise Paschen, 𐓷𐓘𐓧𐓟́𐓺𐓟/Waléze/Stationery

Kimberly Blaeser Reading with Elise Pachen & Kenzie Allen

Center for Indigenous Futures,
56 W Adams St,
Chicago, IL

IN PERSON: KINSALE DRAKE BOOK LAUNCH WITH HEID E. ERDRICH

Please join us as we welcome debut poet KINSALEDRAKE to Milkweed Books to read from her collection The Sky Was Once a Dark Blanket. She will be joined by Minneapolis Poet Laureate HEID E. ERDRICH. 

ABOUT THE BOOK

The Sky Was Once a Dark Blanket traverses the Southwest landscape, exploring intricate relationships between Native peoples and the natural world, land, pop culture, twentieth-century music, and multi-generational representations. Oscillating between musical influences, including the repercussions of ethno-musicology, and the present/past/future, the collection rewrites and re-rights what it means to be Indigenous, queer, and even formerly-emo in the…