MANKATO — Heid E. Erdrich, the inaugural poet laureate of Minneapolis and one of Minnesota’s best-known poets, writes to inspire community of place.
“We are all called to be here, drawn here, or we did not have a choice but we remain here, together. What if we are here because of this very place? This earth, this water, this sky — these lakes, rivers and gathering places that hold us,” she writes.
This Minnesota-driven approach makes Erdrich an exciting visiting author for the Good Thunder Reading Series. She will be at Minnesota State University on Thursday, Oct. 16, to host a writing workshop at 10 a.m. in the Memorial Library and a craft talk at 3 p.m. in Room 203A of the Performing Arts Building.
She also will take part that evening in a reading alongside Robert C. Wright Award winner Haven Sory-Steel at the Carnegie Art Center on Broad Street in Mankato. The reading begins at 7:30 p.m.
Erdrich is a curator, teacher and author of nine books. She edited the anthology “New Poets of Native Nations” and co-edited the newly published “Boundless: Abundance in Native American Art and Literature.” Erdrich is Ojibwe, enrolled at Turtle Mountain.
Her most recent collection of poetry is “Verb Animate: Poems and Prompts from Collaborative Acts,” published by Minnesota-based publisher Trio House Press. The collection is in collaboration with choreographers, visual artists, filmmakers, galleries and others all in the Twin Cities. Accompanying the poems are reflections and generative prompts so readers can join in the conversation, making collaboration a continuous act.
Erdrich writes of the refrain of Mino Miinikaan/Good Seeds: “This is an old story from everyone everywhere.” The passage calls upon the generational act of storytelling and reminds us that art has always been an act of life and togetherness — a seed planted we must nourish so it grows.
“I say yes (to collaboration) when I sense I am about to create beyond the page, when I want to put poetry into forms that reach different audiences,” Erdrich writes.
Her inventive forms allow her to infuse reflection and emotion into the white spaces between words and lines, making each poem lift off the page and become a visceral thing to experience. Of constructing her poetry, she explains, “My poems feel like sculptures to me. I build them.”
Erdrich’s National Poetry Series-winning “Little Big Bully,” published by Penguin Books in 2020, presents similarly vibrant and inventive language and form. Themes of resistance, destruction and ignorance raise questions about abuse, oppression and the cost of silence.
“When nothing is said the story gets starved,” she warns on “Story of the Charismenace.”
In the author’s note, Erdrich explains her hope is that if we could understand the abuse, then we could stop it. These allegorical poems are written for an expansive audience, both Native American readers and non-Native audiences, and each poem serves as a vision for a world where missing and murdered Indigenous women are no longer ignored.
Megan Eralie-Henriques is attending the MFA program at MSU and is a graduate of Utah State University’s Master of English program. She is editor-in-chief of The Turning Leaf Journal and editor for the Blue Earth Review. Her poetry and creative nonfiction can be found in Phoebe, Rust & Moth, Exponent II and elsewhere.