Oct/POEM/ber 2026
Throughout the month of October, participants will write one poem per day for 31 days, with an option to use a writing prompt as a guide.
Organizing a Poetry Workshop for Writing and Performance, with Jeff Kass
- Roethke House (map)
- Google Calendar ICS
Join acclaimed author and educator Jeff Kass for Organizing a poetry workshop for writing and performance, a workshop that will break down the hows, whys, do's and don'ts for teaching folks how to write and perform poems. This workshop is for writers interested in leading workshops.
Writing to Uncover and Discover, with Jeff Kass
- Roethke House (map)
- Google Calendar ICS
Join acclaimed author and educator Jeff Kass for Writing to Uncover and Discover. In this age of AI slop and doomscrolling through short-form videos, learn how to slow down the world, excavate the powerful stories residing both inside us and in the environment around us, and then voice those stories through compelling performance. Open to all levels of writing experience. Registration required.
Open Mic Poetry & Prose Night (at Book Love Bar)
- Book Loves Bar (map)
- Google Calendar ICS
Join Friends of Roethke at an Open Mic and Poetry Night at Books Loves Bar in Ypsilanti on Oct. 9!
Open House
- Friends of Theodore Roethke (map)
- Google Calendar ICS
The Friends of Theodore Roethke Invite You to the 6th Annual Open House!
Join us for an afternoon enveloped in the spirit of Theodore Roethke with Tours of Ted’s Childhood Home, meeting with Local Poets and Artists at our Artist Showcase, enjoying Cider and Donuts, and closing the night with the Annual Open Mic beginning at 4:30 pm, hosted by Jared Morningstar.
Pre-Register Now to Participate in the Open Mic!
Pre-Registration is not required. Walk-ins welcome!
Pre-Register now to participate in the 6th Annual Open Mic at the Friends of Roethke Open House!
The Open Mic will begin around 4:30 pm. This event is Free and Open to the public, but donations are greatly appreciated.
Spoken Word Workshop
- Roethke House (map)
- Google Calendar ICS
NOTE THE NEW DATE of Aug 14. Join Floet, Keairra, and Sher for an evening of writing and sharing. All skill levels welcome.
Spoken Word Workshop
- Roethke House (map)
- Google Calendar ICS
EVENT CANCELED. Unfortunately, due to the air quality in our area this week, we're canceling our Friday event. We don't want to encourage anyone, including our workshop leaders and regular attendees, to be out in this weather if it's not necessary.
Spoken Word Workshop
- Roethke House (map)
- Google Calendar ICS
Join Floet, Keairra, and Sher for an evening of writing and sharing. All skill levels welcome.
Virtual Speaker Series: Roethke's 'Words for the Wind'
- Online via Zoom (map)
- Google Calendar ICS
Please join us for an online talk from Andrew David King, “Roethke's ‘Words for the Wind’.” This is the last of four talks as part of our 2026 Virtual Speaker Series.
Virtual Speaker Series: Elegies from the Last Days of the Empire: Roethke and a New Book of Poetry
- Online via Zoom (map)
- Google Calendar ICS
Please join us for an online talk from Jan Worth, “Elegies from the Last Days of the Empire: Roethke and a New Book of Poetry.” This is the third of four talks as part of our 2026 Virtual Speaker Series.
Spoken Word Workshop
- Roethke House (map)
- Google Calendar ICS
Join Floet, Keairra, and Sher for an evening of writing and sharing. All skill levels welcome.
Virtual Speaker Series: Theodore Roethke and the Birth of Cascadian Poetry
- Online via Zoom (map)
- Google Calendar ICS
Please join us for an online talk from Paul Nelson, “Theodore Roethke and the Birth of Cascadian Poetry.” This is the second of four talks as part of our 2026 Virtual Speaker Series.
Roethke Poetry Retreat 2026
- Montague Inn (map)
- Google Calendar ICS
Save the date for the third annual Roethke Poetry Retreat. Details coming soon.
Virtual Speaker Series: 'Once More, The Round': Roethke's Last Word
- Online via Zoom (map)
- Google Calendar ICS
Please join us for an online talk from William Barillas, “Once More, The Round”: Roethke’s Last Word. This is the first of four talks as part of our 2026 Virtual Speaker Series.
Spoken Word Workshop
- Roethke House (map)
- Google Calendar ICS
Join Floet, Keairra, and Sher for an evening of writing and sharing. Theme: What’s New, Sprouting Up in You? All skill levels welcome.
Scaring Up Some Poetry for National Poetry Month
- Roethke House (map)
- Google Calendar ICS
Please join the Friends of Theodore Roethke and Delta College in welcoming poet and writer Jim Daniels, 2025-2026 Michigan Author Award winner, and poet Ken Meisel, 2012 Kresge Artist Fellow in the Literary Arts recipient and Detroit. The event will be hosted by Delta College Professor and writer Jeff Vande Zande.
Wheelbarrow Books Poet Roundtable
- Hybrid event: Roethke House AND via Zoom (map)
- Google Calendar ICS
Special event! Join us for a conversation with Anita Skeen, Thomas Lynch, and Julia McConnell about poetry, fiction, publishing, judging awards, and more. Live at the Roethke House and streamed via Zoom. Join us however works best for you.
Considering Craft: The Sonnet with Ruelaine Stokes
- Zoom Meeting (map)
- Google Calendar ICS
Join us for the final installment of our Considering Craft Series featuring poet Ruelaine Stokes and the Sonnet.
In the Moment: Haiku Writing and Indoor Forest Bathing
- Online via Zoom (map)
- Google Calendar ICS
Forest bathing practices help participants slow down, tune in to their senses, and connect with the environment around them. Haiku captures moments of observation or awareness in the natural or human world. What could be a better combination? In this workshop we will tune into our senses through a series of forest bathing “invitations,” and we will learn about the structure of contemporary haiku and practice writing our own haiku.
Considering Craft: The Abecedarian with Leila Chatti
- Zoom Meeting (map)
- Google Calendar ICS
Join us for the third installment of our Considering Craft Series featuring poet Leila Chatti and the Abecedarian.
River Junction Poetry Reading & Tours of the Roethke House
- Roethke House (map)
- Google Calendar ICS
Join us at the Theodore Roethke Home Museum, 1805 Gratiot from 1:00 to 2:00 to hear the River Junction Poets read some of their original work and discuss the influence Roethke had on the region’s longest-standing poetry group. The house is open for tours before and after the reading from 10:00am to 3:30pm.
Roethke House Tours and River Junction Poetry Reading
- Roethke House (map)
- Google Calendar ICS
Join us at the Theodore Roethke Home Museum, 1805 Gratiot in Saginaw for tours of Theodore Roethke’s childhood home. At 1:00, the River Junction Poets will read some of their original work and discuss the influence Roethke had on the region’s longest-standing poetry group.
Roethke Festival Poetry Slam
- SVSU's Whittaker Lecture Theatre (map)
- Google Calendar ICS
Join us at SVSU's Whittaker Lecture Theatre (Brown Hall 106). This poetry slam is open to adults, college students and high school students. Prizes will be awarded to the top three winners. Live music and refreshments will round out the evening.
Considering Craft: The Sestina with Toby Altman
- Zoom Meeting (map)
- Google Calendar ICS
Join us for the second installment of our Considering Craft Series featuring poet Toby Altman and the Sestina.
Considering Craft: Elevating the Triolet
- Zoom Meeting (map)
- Google Calendar ICS
Join us for the first part of our Considering Craft, featuring Jane Vincent Taylor and the Triolet.
Considering Craft Workshop Series
- Online via Zoom (map)
- Google Calendar ICS
Join us online in the month of March, a month of beginnings and March Madness, to spend four Tuesday evenings working with established poets on four different poetic forms. Hosted by Anita Skeen.
Transforming the Everyday, Part 4
- Hybrid, at Roethke House and via Zoom (map)
- Google Calendar ICS
In the final part of this series, we’ll focus on craft and editing followed by group reading: What stays and what goes. How do you make choices in editing?
Transforming the Everyday, Part 3
- Online via Zoom (map)
- Google Calendar ICS
Part 3 of this series focuses on observation: What details are interesting? How do you lift description from the literal to the metaphoric? Is everything worthy of using in a poem? Writing Ekphrastic poems.
Transforming the Everyday, Part 2
- Online via Zoom (map)
- Google Calendar ICS
Part two of this series focuses on memory: How do we transform memory into poetry? What makes it universal? Is that important? Does a poem need to be faithful to a memory?
Transforming the Everyday: An Online Poetry Workshop Series
- Online via Zoom (map)
- Google Calendar ICS
In this four-part workshop, we will explore how to transform the ordinary elements around us (memories, observation, the external world) into linguistically alive and exciting to read poetry. The series includes three online classes with distinct themes and a concluding hybrid meeting at which participants are invited to share their work with Carol live at the Roethke House or remotely.
Writing Toward Wisdom, with Anita Skeen
- Online via Zoom (map)
- Google Calendar ICS
A series of five online meetings with Anita Skeen
Events Archive
2024
Join acclaimed author and educator Jeff Kass for Organizing a poetry workshop for writing and performance, a workshop that will break down the hows, whys, do's and don'ts for teaching folks how to write and perform poems. This workshop is for writers interested in leading workshops.
Join acclaimed author and educator Jeff Kass for Writing to Uncover and Discover. In this age of AI slop and doomscrolling through short-form videos, learn how to slow down the world, excavate the powerful stories residing both inside us and in the environment around us, and then voice those stories through compelling performance. Open to all levels of writing experience. Registration required.
Join Friends of Roethke at an Open Mic and Poetry Night at Books Loves Bar in Ypsilanti on Oct. 9!
NOTE THE NEW DATE of Aug 14. Join Floet, Keairra, and Sher for an evening of writing and sharing. All skill levels welcome.
EVENT CANCELED. Unfortunately, due to the air quality in our area this week, we're canceling our Friday event. We don't want to encourage anyone, including our workshop leaders and regular attendees, to be out in this weather if it's not necessary.
Join Floet, Keairra, and Sher for an evening of writing and sharing. All skill levels welcome.
Please join us for an online talk from Andrew David King, “Roethke's ‘Words for the Wind’.” This is the last of four talks as part of our 2026 Virtual Speaker Series.
Please join us for an online talk from Jan Worth, “Elegies from the Last Days of the Empire: Roethke and a New Book of Poetry.” This is the third of four talks as part of our 2026 Virtual Speaker Series.
Join Floet, Keairra, and Sher for an evening of writing and sharing. All skill levels welcome.
Please join us for an online talk from Paul Nelson, “Theodore Roethke and the Birth of Cascadian Poetry.” This is the second of four talks as part of our 2026 Virtual Speaker Series.
Please join us for an online talk from William Barillas, “Once More, The Round”: Roethke’s Last Word. This is the first of four talks as part of our 2026 Virtual Speaker Series.
Join Floet, Keairra, and Sher for an evening of writing and sharing. Theme: What’s New, Sprouting Up in You? All skill levels welcome.
Please join the Friends of Theodore Roethke and Delta College in welcoming poet and writer Jim Daniels, 2025-2026 Michigan Author Award winner, and poet Ken Meisel, 2012 Kresge Artist Fellow in the Literary Arts recipient and Detroit. The event will be hosted by Delta College Professor and writer Jeff Vande Zande.
Special event! Join us for a conversation with Anita Skeen, Thomas Lynch, and Julia McConnell about poetry, fiction, publishing, judging awards, and more. Live at the Roethke House and streamed via Zoom. Join us however works best for you.
Join us for the final installment of our Considering Craft Series featuring poet Ruelaine Stokes and the Sonnet.
Forest bathing practices help participants slow down, tune in to their senses, and connect with the environment around them. Haiku captures moments of observation or awareness in the natural or human world. What could be a better combination? In this workshop we will tune into our senses through a series of forest bathing “invitations,” and we will learn about the structure of contemporary haiku and practice writing our own haiku.
Join us for the third installment of our Considering Craft Series featuring poet Leila Chatti and the Abecedarian.
Join us at the Theodore Roethke Home Museum, 1805 Gratiot from 1:00 to 2:00 to hear the River Junction Poets read some of their original work and discuss the influence Roethke had on the region’s longest-standing poetry group. The house is open for tours before and after the reading from 10:00am to 3:30pm.
Join us at the Theodore Roethke Home Museum, 1805 Gratiot in Saginaw for tours of Theodore Roethke’s childhood home. At 1:00, the River Junction Poets will read some of their original work and discuss the influence Roethke had on the region’s longest-standing poetry group.
Join us at SVSU's Whittaker Lecture Theatre (Brown Hall 106). This poetry slam is open to adults, college students and high school students. Prizes will be awarded to the top three winners. Live music and refreshments will round out the evening.
Join us for the second installment of our Considering Craft Series featuring poet Toby Altman and the Sestina.
Join us for the first part of our Considering Craft, featuring Jane Vincent Taylor and the Triolet.
Join us online in the month of March, a month of beginnings and March Madness, to spend four Tuesday evenings working with established poets on four different poetic forms. Hosted by Anita Skeen.
In the final part of this series, we’ll focus on craft and editing followed by group reading: What stays and what goes. How do you make choices in editing?
Part 3 of this series focuses on observation: What details are interesting? How do you lift description from the literal to the metaphoric? Is everything worthy of using in a poem? Writing Ekphrastic poems.
Part two of this series focuses on memory: How do we transform memory into poetry? What makes it universal? Is that important? Does a poem need to be faithful to a memory?
In this four-part workshop, we will explore how to transform the ordinary elements around us (memories, observation, the external world) into linguistically alive and exciting to read poetry. The series includes three online classes with distinct themes and a concluding hybrid meeting at which participants are invited to share their work with Carol live at the Roethke House or remotely.
2020-2023
Date: Wednesday, November 8
Time 10:00 a.m. ET
Location: The Roethke House (1805 Gratiot Avenue, Saginaw, Michigan 48602)
Cost: Free, donations welcome
About the event:
Dow Visiting Artist Mary McDonnell hosts a discussion along with Masumi Azu and Austin Brown of the Japanese Cultural Center as well as Samantha Engel and Haley Hill of the Dow Gardens. The discussion will focus on exploring the relationship, influences, and connections between creativity, gardening, and the natural world.
The event is free and open to the public, but space is limited so please RSVP.
About Mary McDonnell:
Mary McDonnell b. Saginaw, MI is a contemporary American artist best known for her process-driven paintings rooted in materiality and a direct physical engagement. She works collaboratively with composers, musicians, poets, dancers, and visual artists, to examine ideas of connection and deepening perceptions. She’s participated in artist residencies from Malta to Sleeping Bear Dunes in Michigan, and has received awards, including a Distinguished Alumni Award and a Joseph Robert Foundation Award. Her work is included in The Brooklyn Museum, The Krannert Art Museum, the Portland Art Museum, the Davis Museum at Wellesley College, and the Blanton Museum of Art, among other public and private collections. Exhibitions of her work have been presented nationally and internationally. She currently lives and works in the Catskill region of New York.
To register for the event:
Select the registration type (either no donation or with a donation) and quantity.
Click “Add to cart”.
Click on your cart in the bottom right corner.
Complete the checkout process.
Once you’ve completed check out, you will receive a confirmation email. If you do not receive this email, contact us at info@friendsofroethke.org.
Date: Thursday, November 2
Time 7:00 p.m. EST
Location: At the Roethke House (1805 Gratiot Avenue, Saginaw, Michigan 48602) and online via Zoom.
Cost: Free, donations welcome
About the event:
George Orwell is often read as being disinterested in philosophy at best, hostile to it at worst. But Orwell was more than just interested in important philosophical concepts, including truth and justice. A study of materials in the George Orwell Archive at University College London reveals that Orwell was much more comfortable with philosophical arguments and methodology than some of his readers have appreciated. Orwell, who did not normally annotate his books, did annotate some popular works in philosophy, including Bertrand Russell's A History of Western Philosophy, suggesting a special interest that arguably informed some of his most important works.
During this event, Peter Brian Barry will discuss this interest of Orwell’s along with findings from his most recent book, George Orwell: The Ethics of Equality. It can be ordered through Oxford University Press or Amazon.
About Peter Brian Barry:
Peter Brian Barry is Professor of Philosophy and the Finkbeiner Endowed Professor in Ethics at Saginaw Valley State University. He is the author of three books, including his most recent book George Orwell: The Ethics of Equality, published by Oxford University Press. as well as multiple papers in ethics, broadly conceived. He lives in Saginaw, MI with his wife, Felicia, and rather too many cats.
To register for the event:
Select the registration type (either no donation or with a donation) and quantity.
Click “Add to cart”.
Click on your cart in the bottom right corner.
Complete the checkout process.
Once you’ve completed check out, you will receive two emails: a confirmation email and an email containing the Zoom link for the event. If you do not receive these emails, contact us at info@friendsofroethke.org.
Date: Saturday, October 14
Time 7:00 p.m. EST
Location: At the Roethke House (1805 Gratiot Avenue, Saginaw, Michigan 48602) and online via Zoom.
Cost: Free, donations welcome
About the event:
From environmental devastation to the economic wreckage of the 21st Century, join us for the launch of RS Deeren's debut collection of linked stories, Enough to Lose. Deeren will read from the book and discuss how Michigan's rural working class inspired these stories. Deeren will also have books available for sale during the event.
Praise for Enough to Lose:
"This book is the best thing I’ve read lately, with its dead-on depictions of rural life, both beautiful and heart-wrenching. Some of Deeren's characters live so close to the edge that the failure of a freezer might mean going hungry, while others move closer to the edge to feel alive or to grieve fully. Deeren’s strong, sure, authentic voice sings the songs of Michigan, and you should listen."
– Bonnie Jo Campbell, author of Mothers, Tell Your Daughters
"Enough to Lose is compulsively readable. Like Denis Johnson, Richard Russo, and Daniel Woodrell, Deeren’s stories reflect the often brutal reality of working-class, rural life, punctuated by moments of beauty and brilliance."
– Donald Quist, author of For Other Ghosts and To Those Bounded
About RS Deeren:
A native "Thumbody" from Caro, Michigan, RS Deeren is an assistant professor of creative writing at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, Tennessee. His research interests include contemporary fiction, US working-class studies, and rural-urban dynamics. His fiction, nonfiction, and poetry have appeared in periodicals including The Great Lakes Review, Joyland, Midwestern Gothic, and more. While a student at Saginaw Valley State University, he worked as a line cook, landscaper, lumberjack, and substitute teacher. He earned his MFA from Columbia College Chicago and his PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. The last time he was in this house, he was a high school freshman in Mrs. Ransford's English class.
To register for the event:
Select the registration type (either $0 or with a donation) and quantity.
Click “Add to cart”.
Click on your cart in the bottom right corner.
Complete the checkout process.
Once you’ve completed check out, you will receive two emails: a confirmation email and an email containing the Zoom link for the event. If you do not receive these emails, contact us at info@friendsofroethke.org.
Date: Saturday, October 7
Time 7:00–8:00 p.m. EST
Location: At the Roethke House (1805 Gratiot Avenue, Saginaw, Michigan 48602) and online via zoom.
Cost: Free, donations welcome
About the Event:
Join us for the launch of Jared Morningstar’s newest release, Lost in America. Morningstar will read from excerpts, share stories about the writing process, and take questions from the audience.
During the event, we’ll have a drawing for all registered attendees and one lucky winner will receive a free copy of the book!
Praise for Lost in America:
“Morningstar’s poems are a bombastic wake-up call for the Everyman satisfied with their routine grind and weekly McDonald’s treat. But don’t let that turn you off from these well-crafted poems, for each one is a spark ready to ignite change in any reader’s heart.”
– Josh Crummer, author of We are the Raiders
“There’s just something about Jared Morningstar’s poetry that is real, true, and, yes, American. His poems are elegant and powerful, tapping into our overall humanness.”
– LB Sedlacek, author of Swim
“The poems of Lost in America are both trapped and enchanted by the mirrors of middle-class and midwestern American existence. It is a tight, tenacious, and welcome set by a talented and open-hearted poet.”
– Andrew/Sunfrog, author of Broken Megaphones
To register for the event:
Select the registration type and quantity.
Click “Add to cart”.
If you’d like to make an optional donation please repeat steps 1 & 2 with the “Optional Donation” type selected.
Click on your cart in the bottom right corner.
Complete the checkout process.
Once you’ve completed check out, you will receive two emails: a confirmation email and an email containing the Zoom link for the event. If you do not receive these emails, contact us at info@friendsofroethke.org.
Date: Thursday, October 5
Time 7:00 p.m. EST
Location: At the Roethke House (1805 Gratiot Avenue, Saginaw, Michigan 48602) and online via zoom.
Cost: Free, donations welcome
About the event:
This talk will explore the relationship between writing and the future of culture. It will discuss major authors of books on the future, like Alvin Toffler and Faith Popcorn, as well as examine how journalists shape cultural understandings about the future. The talk will also explore ways that every one of us can write our own futures.
About Devon Powers:
Devon Powers is Professor of Communication and Media at the University of Michigan. Her research explores historical and contemporary consumer culture and the dynamics of cultural intermediation, circulation, and promotion. She is the author of On Trend: The Business of Forecasting the Future (University of Illinois Press, 2019), Writing the Record: The Village Voice and the Birth of Rock Criticism (University of Massachusetts Press, 2013), and co-editor of Blowing Up the Brand: Critical Perspectives on Promotional Culture (Peter Lang, 2010). Her academic work has appeared in Communication Theory, New Media & Society, Journal of Consumer Culture, and Creative Industries Journal, among others; she has also written for Wired, Atlantic Monthly, the Washington Post, and other popular venues.
Thank you to the SVSU Visiting Dow Scholars and Artists program for funding this public talk.
To register for the event:
Select the registration type and quantity.
Click “Add to cart”.
If you’d like to make an optional donation, please repeat steps 1 & 2, for just the “Donation" amount you wish to give.
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Complete the checkout process.
Once you’ve completed check out, you will receive two emails: a confirmation email and an email containing the Zoom link for the event. If you do not receive these emails, contact us at info@friendsofroethke.org.
Date: Saturday, September 23, 2023
Time: 6:00–7:00 p.m. EST
Location: The Roethke House (1805 Gratiot Avenue, Saginaw, Michigan 48602)
Cost: This event is free and open to the public—donations are always welcomed.
About the Open House:
Stop by our two-day Open House event! Get a tour of the Roethke house, browse our gift shop, attend our family oriented poetry workshop, and listen to a poetry reading. See the full Open House agenda »
About the Poetry Reading:
Charles “Floet” Townsel—better known as FLOET—has been writing and performing spoken word poetry since 2007 as a member of a poetry group known as the YEP Organization, which first thrust him into the public eye. As a child, he wanted to be a “rapper” but chose the path of poet or spoken word artist because of his love of words, the effect they have, and their meanings. Floet has also appeared in many poetry slams around the country, such as Rustbelt Regional Poetry in Columbus Ohio and in Madison Wisconsin; The Apache Cafe in Atlanta, Georgia, and many others. He aspires to finish his publishing work as well as musical spoken word as well in the near future, so be on the lookout!
If you’d like to attend the reading, please follow the registration instructions below.
To register for the Poetry Reading:
Select an option.
Click “Add to cart”.
Click on your cart in the bottom right corner.
Complete the checkout process.
Once you’ve completed check out, you will receive an email confirming your purchase. If you do not receive this email, contact us at info@friendsofroethke.org.
Date: Saturday, September 23, 2023
Time: 4:00–5:00 p.m. EST
Location: The Roethke House (1805 Gratiot Avenue, Saginaw, Michigan 48602)
Cost: This event is free and open to the public—donations are always welcomed.
About the Open House:
Stop by our two-day Open House event! Get a tour of the Roethke house, browse our gift shop, attend our family oriented poetry workshop, and listen to a poetry reading. See the full Open House agenda »
About the Poetry Panel:
Local experts will discuss their experiences in publishing and answer questions posed from the audience. If you’d like to attend virtually, please follow the registration instructions below.
Registration for this event is not required, but if you would like to register in advance or register with a donation, please follow the instructions below.
To register for the Poetry Reading:
Select an option.
Click “Add to cart”.
Click on your cart in the bottom right corner.
Complete the checkout process.
Once you’ve completed check out, you will receive an email confirming your purchase. If you do not receive this email, contact us at info@friendsofroethke.org.
Date: Friday, September 22, 2023
Time: 7:00–8:00 p.m. EST
Location: The Roethke House (1805 Gratiot Avenue, Saginaw, Michigan 48602)
Cost: This event is free and open to the public—donations are always welcomed.
About the Open House:
Stop by our two-day Open House event! Get a tour of the Roethke house, browse our gift shop, attend workshops, listen to poetry readings, and participate in a poetry slam. See the full Open House agenda »
About the Poetry Open Mic:
Grab a chair and get those fingers ready to snap! Our Open House Poetry Open Mic has cultivated a supportive, creative community since its start, and we will continue that tradition in 2023. Join local poet Jared Morningstar on stage to share your favorite poem, or one you’ve written yourself. This event is open to all experience levels.
ONLINE REGISTRATION IS CLOSED. Please sign up in person when you arrive! We look forward to seeing you.
Date: Saturday, September 9, 2023
Time: 2:00–4:00 p.m. EST
Location: Virtual (via Zoom) and in-person at the Roethke House (1805 Gratiot Avenue, Saginaw, Michigan 48602)
Cost: A $10 donation is required for adults to attend this event. If a donation is a hardship right now, please reach out to us at info@friendsofroethke.org.
About the event:
Learn about the art of performing poetry in this facilitator-led workshop. You’ll have an opportunity to perform your piece in front of a group—perfect practice before our Poetry Slam on September 23, 2023, part of the third annual Friends of Theodore Roethke Open House.
About the facilitators:
Kelly "Native Child" Mays, licensed therapist, author, and Westland, MI's Poet Laureate, empowers domestic violence survivors, gracing Fox 2 Detroit, Hour Magazine, and stages for DV nonprofits. Honored with the 2020 Distinguished Volunteer award, her advocacy journey continues with 2022 and 2023 nominations for Michigan humanities and NAMI-MI Honors Advocacy awards. In 2023, she's also recognized among Crain's Business Detroit's most notable healthcare leaders. A published author, spoken word artist, and slam poet, Kelly's creativity shines through Button Poetry, 2023 Motown spoken word finals, and a 2017 Round Robin win. Her cherished verses are her daughter's Celeste and Cheyenne.
Jenifer DeBellis, M.F.A., is author of New Wilderness (Cornerstone Press), Warrior Sister, Cut Yourself Free (Library Tales Publishing), and Blood Sisters (Main Street Rag). She edits Pink Panther Magazine and directs aRIFT Warrior Project and Detroit Writers’ Guild (501c3). She's featured in Psychology Today and Seattle's My Independence Report and her writing appears in CALYX, the Good Men Project, Medical Literary Messenger, Solstice, and other fine journals. A former Meadow Brook Writing Project fellow, JDB facilitates summer workshops for Oakland University as well as teaches writing throughout metro Detroit. JeniferDeBellis.com.
To register for the event:
Select an option.
Click “Add to cart”.
Click on your cart in the bottom right corner.
Complete the checkout process.
Once you’ve completed check out, you will receive an email confirming your purchase. If you selected the virtual option, you will also receive an email with the zoom link. If you do not receive this email, contact us at info@friendsofroethke.org.
Date: Saturday, August 26, 2023
Time: 2:00–4:00 p.m. EST
Location: Virtual (via zoom) and in person at the Roethke House (1805 Gratiot Avenue, Saginaw, Michigan 48602)
Cost: A $10 donation is required for adults to attend this event. If a donation is a hardship right now, please reach out to us at info@friendsofroethke.org.
About the event:
Wanting to fine-tune something you wrote at one of our workshops? Or perhaps you have a few other pieces in mind that need a bit of polishing. In this workshop, you’ll have an opportunity to work with professional writers as you revise your pieces.
To register for the event:
Select an option.
Click “Add to cart”.
Click on your cart in the bottom right corner.
Complete the checkout process.
Once you’ve completed check out, you will receive an email confirming your purchase. If you do not receive this email, contact us at info@friendsofroethke.org.
Date: Monday, August 7, 2023
Time: 6:00-7:30 p.m. EST
Location: The Roethke House (1805 Gratiot Avenue, Saginaw, Michigan 48602)
Cost: A $10 donation is required for adults to attend this event. If a donation is a hardship right now, please reach out to us at info@friendsofroethke.org.
About the event:
In this workshop, poet and educator Donny Winter encourages writers to explore the landscape around the Roethke Museum and in their memories to unearth what makes nature imagery central to Theodore Roethke’s work. This workshop will explore the metaphorical intersections between self-sovereignty and nature conservation, emphasizing ways poetry can help promote eco-awareness. Through short form styles like haiku and tanka, writers can enjoy tapping into their inner selves to plant poetic seeds of their own for the benefit of our planet’s well-being.
A LIGHT DINNER IS INCLUDED. Sandwiches, chips, and cookies will be provided. Please email sherrin@friendsofroethke.org if you have any dietary restrictions.
About the facilitator:
Donny Winter, M.A., is a local LGBTQ+ author and educator residing in Midland, MI. He is the author of three collections of poems, Carbon Footprint (2020), Feats of Alchemy (2021), and Casting Seeds (2022), published by Alien Buddha Press. All of his collections have debuted at the top of Amazon’s LGBTQ+ and Nature poetry lists, garnering him three Pushcart Prize nominations and one Best of the Net nomination. His poems have been published in numerous journals and magazines, including: Awakened Voices Magazine, CultureCult Magazine, and Flypaper Lit. For more information, visit: donnywinter.com.
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Date: Tuesday, August 1, 2023
Time: 6:00-8:00 p.m. EST
Location: The Roethke House (1805 Gratiot Avenue, Saginaw, Michigan 48602)
Cost: A $10 donation is required for adults to attend this event. If a donation is a hardship right now, please reach out to us at info@friendsofroethke.org.
About the event:
In this workshop, published poet and former Michigan Creative Writing Teacher of the Year Jared Morningstar will lead participants through an exploration of spoken word poetry in an attempt to discover what makes the art form so powerful. Stylistic choices will be discussed, as will content that often creates memorable spoken word poems. Sometimes, it’s the political, and sometimes, it’s the personal, but it’s always passionate. Participants will engage in a discussion of spoken word poems, generate their own works, and, finally, be given an opportunity to share and give feedback to others.
A LIGHT DINNER IS INCLUDED. Sandwiches, chips, and cookies will be provided. Please email sherrin@friendsofroethke.org if you have any dietary restrictions.
About the facilitator:
Jared Morningstar is a high school English teacher, an adjunct English professor, and a commissioned Kentucky Colonel. He writes about his interests and observations of the world around him. Morningstar’s latest collection of poetry, Lost in America, will be released on August 7th via Alien Buddha Press, as have his three previous collections of poetry and prose (American Fries, American Reality, and A Slice of American Pie). Morningstar was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2020. He lives in Mount Pleasant with his wife and children.
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Date: Friday, July 14, 2023
Time: 10:00 a.m. EST
Location: The Roethke House (1805 Gratiot Avenue, Saginaw, Michigan 48602)
Cost: A $10 donation is required for adults to attend this event. Children attend free. If a donation is a hardship right now, please reach out to us at info@friendsofroethke.org.
About the event:
Join us to read, write, and share poems inspired by the work of poets Theodore Roethke and Lorine Niedecker. We'll focus on how jokes, games, nonsense, and other forms of play can lead to unique insights about places that matter. This generative workshop warmly welcomes participants of all ages and backgrounds. It will be led by visiting poets Caryl Pagel and Zach Savich.
About the speakers:
Caryl Pagel is the author of three books of poetry—Free Clean Fill Dirt (University of Akron Press, 2022), Twice Told, and Experiments I Should Like Tried at My Own Death—as well as a collection of essays, Out of Nowhere Into Nothing (FC2, 2020). She’s currently writing about Lorine Niedecker and the Great Lakes.
Zach Savich is the author of ten books, including the poetry collection Daybed and the memoir Diving Makes the Water Deep. His work has appeared in American Poetry Review, Boston Review, Kenyon Review, and elsewhere, including pieces on Theodore Roethke for Georgia Review and Poetry Northwest. He teaches at the Cleveland Institute of Art. His latest collection is the chapbook The Motherwell Sonnets (The Economy Press, 2023).
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Date: Thursday, July 13, 2023
Time 7:00 p.m. EST
Location: At the Roethke House (1805 Gratiot Avenue, Saginaw, Michigan 48602) and online via zoom.
Cost: A donation is required to attend this event. Please select either $10, $5, or $1 donation based on your financial capabilities. If a donation is a hardship right now, please reach out to us at info@friendsofroethke.org.
About the event:
Visiting poets Caryl Pagel, Hilary Plum, and Zach Savich will read from their newest collections. The reading will be followed by a discussion of publishing across genres and of their work as editors with the Cleveland State University Poetry Center and the independent publisher Rescue Press.
About the speakers:
Caryl Pagel is the author of three books of poetry—Free Clean Fill Dirt (University of Akron Press, 2022), Twice Told, and Experiments I Should Like Tried at My Own Death—as well as a collection of essays, Out of Nowhere Into Nothing (FC2, 2020). She’s currently writing about Lorine Niedecker and the Great Lakes.
Hilary Plum is a writer, editor, and teacher. Her recent work includes Excisions, a volume of poetry; Hole Studies, an essay collection; and the novel Strawberry Fields, which won the Fence Modern Prize in Prose. With Zach Savich she edits the Open Prose Series at Rescue Press. She teaches at Cleveland State University, and she serves as associate director of the CSU Poetry Center.
Zach Savich is the author of ten books, including the poetry collection Daybed and the memoir Diving Makes the Water Deep. His work has appeared in American Poetry Review, Boston Review, Kenyon Review, and elsewhere, including pieces on Theodore Roethke for Georgia Review and Poetry Northwest. He teaches at the Cleveland Institute of Art. His latest collection is the chapbook The Motherwell Sonnets (The Economy Press, 2023).
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Date: Wednesday, June 14, 2023
Time: 7:00 p.m. EST
Location: Virtual (Zoom)
Cost: A donation is required to attend this event. Please select either $10, $5, or $1 donation based on your financial capabilities. If a donation is a hardship right now, please reach out to us at info@friendsofroethke.org.
About the event:
Alice Derry will present from her new book of poems, Asking (Moonpath Press 2022) and her essay “The Most Precious Fit”— A Dialogue with C.S. Lewis’ A Grief Observed, ” which appeared in Widow’s Words: Women Write on the Experience of Grief, The First Year, the Long Haul, and Everything in Between, edited by Nan Bauer-Maglin and published in 2019 by Rutgers University Press. Derry’s poems, written over several years after her husband died, ask the many questions of being, as she navigates acute grief and the life forward. As sources for her essay, Derry drew on the journal she kept at the time of her husband’s death and on C.S. Lewis’ A Grief Observed. This slim volume gave her unexpected comfort during the first years of her grief as she found that Lewis’ path matched her own.
In these years of national grief, as COVID-19 has stolen so many from us, Derry’s particular experience may provide comfort and healing to many.
Tess Gallagher, Roethke student and scholar, has written of the poems:
“Asking is what our entire country is doing—asking how to bear up under the loss of so many, these absences of our dearly beloveds. These poems answer by more than memory—by joining the beloved to the present in a way that makes asking itself an answer. An exceptional mind is at work here, lyrically, and with suppositional insistence, making a framework in poetry to approach and re-approach the death and the love—its successes and daily quandaries, its deep companioning—this is what really makes this book sing.”
– Tess Gallagher, author of Is, Is Not
About Alice Derry:
Derry is the author of six volumes of poetry, most recently Asking (Moonpath 2022), along with three chapbooks, including translations of poems by Rainer Rilke. She taught for 30 years at Peninsula College where she curated the Foothills Poetry Series, holding some 12-15 readings per year. Since retirement, she has been active in helping local tribal members access poetry and has taught community workshops in poetry. She has printed the first in a series of essays on native plants, Around the Salish Sea, collaborating with artist Fred Sharpe. Raymond Carver chose her first poetry manuscript, Stages of Twilight, for the King County Arts Prize in Seattle. Strangers to their Courage was a finalist for the Washington Book Award. In July 2022 she was faculty at the Port Townsend Writers’ Conference. She lives and works on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula. Her website is www.alicederry.com.
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Date: Tuesday, May 23, 2023
Time: 7:00 p.m. EST
Location: Virtual (Zoom)
Cost: A donation is required to attend this event. Please select either $10, $5, or $1 donation based on your financial capabilities. If a donation is a hardship right now, please reach out to us at info@friendsofroethke.org.
About the event:
The title poem of Theodore Roethke’s last and posthumously published book alternates between two settings: Michigan’s Saginaw Valley, site of the poet’s childhood, and the Pacific Northwest, the region where he lived during the last decade and a half of his life. In his ecocritical reading of “The Far Field,” one of the six long poems in Roethke’s “North American Sequence,” Quetchenbach demonstrates how Roethke “maintains the dignity of the commonplace by expanding the net of connections in all directions. . . .” The “journeying self in ‘The Far Field’ emerges into a vision of comprehensive ecological connectedness.” Quetchenbach will present his interpretation of this poem and then take questions and comments from the audience.
About Bernard Quetchenbach:
Bernard Quetchenbach is the author of Back from the Far Field: American Nature Poetry in the Late Twentieth Century (2000). His other publications include Accidental Gravity (2017), an essay collection, and The Hermit’s Place (2010), a volume of poems. He edited The Bunch Grass Motel (2017), a posthumous collected poems of Randall Gloege, who studied with Theodore Roethke at the University of Washington, and co-edited the forthcoming book The Routledge Companion to Ecopoetics. He is a professor of English at Montana State University Billings.
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Date: Tuesday, May 16, 2023
Time: 7:00 p.m. EST
Location: Virtual (Zoom)
Cost: A donation is required to attend this event. Please select either $10, $5, or $1 donation based on your financial capabilities. If a donation is a hardship right now, please reach out to us at info@friendsofroethke.org.
About the event:
Roethke’s short poem “Night Crow” is the subject of Sarah-Kate Moore’s contribution to A Field Guide to the Poetry of Theodore Roethke (2021), edited by William Barillas and published by Ohio University Press. “Night Crow” envisions a bird that is both actual and symbolic, existing in the shared world and within the human mind. Moore discusses how Roethke’s poem “begins with a concrete image perceived by the outer, physical eye” but then turns inward “into the depthless abyss of the unknown inner self.” Moore will present her interpretation of this poem and then take questions and comments from the audience.
About Sarah-Kate Moore:
Sarah Kathryn Moore holds an MFA and a PhD from the University of Washington; her poems have appeared in Electric Lit, Tupelo Quarterly, Poetry Northwest, and elsewhere. She lives in Seattle and online at sarahkathrynmoore.com.
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Date: Tuesday, May 9, 2023
Time: 7:00 p.m. EST
Location: Virtual (Zoom)
Cost: A donation is required to attend this event. Please select either $10, $5, or $1 donation based on your financial capabilities. If a donation is a hardship right now, please reach out to us at info@friendsofroethke.org.
About the event:
While imagery of plants, both domestic and wild, is central to Theodore Roethke’s poetry, he also wrote memorably about wild animals. Scholar Aaron Moe contributed an essay on one of Roethke’s animal poems, “The Pike,” to A Field Guide to the Poetry of Theodore Roethke (2021), edited by William Barillas and published by Ohio University Press. Employing zoopoetics, which he defines as the study of “animal presences in the gestures of a poem,” Moe suggests how “the form of this poem emerges from an attentive engagement with another species.” In his talk, Moe will touch on this and Roethke’s other animal poems and relate them to the animal presences in the poetry of Walt Whitman, one of Roethke’s key influences. Moe will present his interpretation of this poem and then take questions and comments from the audience.
About Aaron Moe:
Aaron M. Moe is the author of the book of poems, exhalations (2021), and two scholarly books—Ecocriticism and the Poiesis of Form: Holding on to Proteus (2019) and Zoopoetics: Animals and the Making of Poetry (2014)—along with several chapters and articles on ecopoetics / zoopoetics. In 2015, he published a leaflet of aphorisms, Protean Poetics. His creative work can also be found at Twenty Bellows, in Counterclaims: Poets and Poetries, Talking Back, and is forthcoming in the projects Traces: Symphyses of Snow and Sand and The Despairimentalist Manifesto. He and his family live near the foothills of the Colorado Rockies where they hike, climb, run trails, and write.
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Date: Tuesday, May 2, 2023
Time: 7:00 PM EST
Location: Virtual (Zoom)
Cost: A donation is required to attend this event. Please select either $10, $5, or $1 donation based on your financial capabilities. If a donation is a hardship right now, please reach out to us at info@friendsofroethke.org.
About the event:
Russell Brickey contributed an essay on Theodore Roethke’s poem “Big Wind” to A Field Guide to the Poetry of Theodore Roethke (2021), edited by William Barillas and published by Ohio University Press. “Big Wind,” the last poem in the greenhouse sequence in Roethke’s second book, describes one of the Roethke family’s greenhouses and the work required one night to protect it from a terrible storm. Brickey’s reading demonstrates how the poem’s biographical and formal elements create “a portrait of the Roethke nursery, which represents the taproot of emotional life, juxtaposed with the turbulent weather of Great Lakes which in turn personifies upheavals in the human psyche.” Brickey will present his interpretation of this poem and then take questions and comments from the audience.
About Russell Brickey:
Russell Brickey has poetry collections from Spuyten Duyvil Press, Wild Leaf Press, and Kelsay Books, and he is the lead editor of a composition text from McFarland. His reader’s guide Understanding Sharon Olds was published in 2016. Currently a full-time lecturer in English at Youngstown State University, he holds a BA from the University of Oregon, and an MFA and PhD from Purdue University.
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Date: Thursday, March 30, 2023
Time: 7:00p.m. EST
Location: Online via zoom and at the Roethke House (1805 Gratiot Avenue, Saginaw, Michigan 48602)
Cost: A donation is required to attend this event. Please select either $1, $5, or $10 donation based on your financial capabilities. If a donation is a hardship right now, please reach out to us at info@friendsofroethke.org.
About the event:
Join us for this hybrid speaker series event where Marion Boyer, Carol V. Davis, and host Anita Skeen will read from their recent publications.
About the speakers:
Anita Skeen is currently Professor Emerita in the Residential College in the Arts and Humanities at Michigan State University where she is the Founding Director of The RCAH Center for Poetry at MSU and the Series Editor for Wheelbarrow Books. She taught students in kindergarten through high school while working with the Kansas Arts Commission’s Artist in the Schools Program; in traditional venues such as college classrooms as a Visiting Writer and Writer in Residence; and in senior citizens’ centers, libraries, and at Ghost Ranch in New Mexico for over 40 years.
She is the author of six volumes of poetry: Each Hand A Map (1986); Portraits (1990); Outside the Fold, Outside the Frame (1999); The Resurrection of the Animals (2002); Never the Whole Story (2011); When We Say Shelter (2007), with Oklahoma poet Jane Taylor; and The Unauthorized Audubon (2014), a collection of poems about imaginary birds accompanied by the linocuts of anthropologist/visual artist Laura B. DeLind. With Taylor, she co-edited the literary anthology Once Upon A Place: Writings from Ghost Ranch (2008). Her poetry, short fiction, and essays have appeared in numerous literary magazines and anthologies. Collaboration is an important aspect of her work and she is currently involved in writing projects with poets Jane Taylor and Cindy Hunter Morgan. With linocut artist Laura DeLind, she has recently completed a poetry manuscript, Even the Least of These: The 10-line Poem in the Time of Crisis.
Marion Starling Boyer is the author of several poetry collections including Composing the Rain, which won the 2014 Grayson Books Poetry Chapbook Competition, and her most recent release, Ice Hours, winner of the 2021 Wheelbarrow Books Poetry Prize (Established). Boyer is a professor emeritus for Kalamazoo Valley Community College. She served on the executive board for the Kalamazoo Poetry Festival from 2014 through 2016, and she was the feature poet for Wisconsin’s Washington Island Literary Festival in 2018. Since moving to the Cleveland area, Boyer has served on the planning committee for the Lit Youngstown Literary Festival and conducts workshops for Lit Youngstown and Literary Cleveland.
Carol V. Davis is the author of Below Zero (Stephen F. Austin State University Press, 2023), Because I Cannot Leave This Body (Truman State Univ. Press, 2017) and Between Storms (TSUP, 2012). She won the 2007 T.S. Eliot Prize for Into the Arms of Pushkin: Poems of St. Petersburg. Her first book, It’s Time to Talk About…, was published in a bilingual English/Russian edition, (Symposium, St. Petersburg, Russia, 1997). Her poetry has been read on National Public Radio, the US Library of Congress and Radio Russia. Formerly Poetry Editor of the Los Angeles newspaper, the Jewish Journal, in 2018 she guest edited a double issue of Shirim on the theme of Contemporary Jewish American Poets. She was the 2008 Sandburg-Auden-Stein Poet-in-Residence at Olivet College, MI and teaches at Santa Monica College, California and Antioch University, Los Angeles. Twice a Fulbright scholar in Russia, she taught in Siberia, most recently in winter 2018.She was awarded a Fulbright Specialist grant for Siberia in 2020, postponed due to Covid, and then cancelled in 2022 due to the war. Her work has been translated into German and recent work is being translated into Russian in Russia and in Israel.
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Date: Friday, March 31, 2023
Time: 1–2 p.m. EST
Location: Roethke House (1805 Gratiot Avenue, Saginaw, Michigan 48602)
Cost: A donation is required to attend this event. Please select either $1, $5, or $10 donation based on your financial capabilities. If a donation is a hardship right now, please reach out to us at info@friendsofroethke.org.
About the event:
Join Anita Skeen, the series editor for Wheelbarrow Books, an imprint of MSU Press, and poets Marion Boyer, Carol V. Davis for a discussion on aspects of publishing one's original texts. This is an in-person event in the Roethke House in Saginaw, MI.
About the speakers:
Anita Skeen is currently Professor Emerita in the Residential College in the Arts and Humanities at Michigan State University where she is the Founding Director of The RCAH Center for Poetry at MSU and the Series Editor for Wheelbarrow Books. She taught students in kindergarten through high school while working with the Kansas Arts Commission’s Artist in the Schools Program; in traditional venues such as college classrooms as a Visiting Writer and Writer in Residence; and in senior citizens’ centers, libraries, and at Ghost Ranch in New Mexico for over 40 years.
She is the author of six volumes of poetry: Each Hand A Map (1986); Portraits (1990); Outside the Fold, Outside the Frame (1999); The Resurrection of the Animals (2002); Never the Whole Story (2011); When We Say Shelter (2007), with Oklahoma poet Jane Taylor; and The Unauthorized Audubon (2014), a collection of poems about imaginary birds accompanied by the linocuts of anthropologist/visual artist Laura B. DeLind. With Taylor, she co-edited the literary anthology Once Upon A Place: Writings from Ghost Ranch (2008). Her poetry, short fiction, and essays have appeared in numerous literary magazines and anthologies. Collaboration is an important aspect of her work and she is currently involved in writing projects with poets Jane Taylor and Cindy Hunter Morgan. With linocut artist Laura DeLind, she has recently completed a poetry manuscript, Even the Least of These: The 10-line Poem in the Time of Crisis.
Marion Starling Boyer is the author of several poetry collections including Composing the Rain, which won the 2014 Grayson Books Poetry Chapbook Competition, and her most recent release, Ice Hours, winner of the 2021 Wheelbarrow Books Poetry Prize (Established). Boyer is a professor emeritus for Kalamazoo Valley Community College. She served on the executive board for the Kalamazoo Poetry Festival from 2014 through 2016, and she was the feature poet for Wisconsin’s Washington Island Literary Festival in 2018. Since moving to the Cleveland area, Boyer has served on the planning committee for the Lit Youngstown Literary Festival and conducts workshops for Lit Youngstown and Literary Cleveland.
Carol V. Davis is the author of Below Zero (Stephen F. Austin State University Press, 2023), Because I Cannot Leave This Body (Truman State Univ. Press, 2017) and Between Storms (TSUP, 2012). She won the 2007 T.S. Eliot Prize for Into the Arms of Pushkin: Poems of St. Petersburg. Her first book, It’s Time to Talk About…, was published in a bilingual English/Russian edition, (Symposium, St. Petersburg, Russia, 1997). Her poetry has been read on National Public Radio, the US Library of Congress and Radio Russia. Formerly Poetry Editor of the Los Angeles newspaper, the Jewish Journal, in 2018 she guest edited a double issue of Shirim on the theme of Contemporary Jewish American Poets. She was the 2008 Sandburg-Auden-Stein Poet-in-Residence at Olivet College, MI and teaches at Santa Monica College, California and Antioch University, Los Angeles. Twice a Fulbright scholar in Russia, she taught in Siberia, most recently in winter 2018.She was awarded a Fulbright Specialist grant for Siberia in 2020, postponed due to Covid, and then cancelled in 2022 due to the war. Her work has been translated into German and recent work is being translated into Russian in Russia and in Israel.
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Date: Friday, March 31, 2023
Time: 3:00–4:30 p.m. EST
Location: Roethke House (1805 Gratiot Avenue, Saginaw, Michigan 48602)
Cost: A $15 donation is required for this event. Capacity is limited to 12 participants.
About the event:
Join Poets Marion Boyer, Carol V. Davis, and Anita Skeen for a writing workshop that focuses on how we, as poets, can use the work of writers we admire, writers who have gone before us, to create our own poems that pay homage to their accomplishments. T.S. Eliot tells us that “Immature poets imitate because they want to be like other poets; mature poets steal because they want to be themselves, and assert their own originality in the context of the 'great tradition' of previous poetry.” So, let us gather together on this afternoon and practice thievery.
About the speakers:
Anita Skeen is currently Professor Emerita in the Residential College in the Arts and Humanities at Michigan State University where she is the Founding Director of The RCAH Center for Poetry at MSU and the Series Editor for Wheelbarrow Books. She taught students in kindergarten through high school while working with the Kansas Arts Commission’s Artist in the Schools Program; in traditional venues such as college classrooms as a Visiting Writer and Writer in Residence; and in senior citizens’ centers, libraries, and at Ghost Ranch in New Mexico for over 40 years.
She is the author of six volumes of poetry: Each Hand A Map (1986); Portraits (1990); Outside the Fold, Outside the Frame (1999); The Resurrection of the Animals (2002); Never the Whole Story (2011); When We Say Shelter (2007), with Oklahoma poet Jane Taylor; and The Unauthorized Audubon (2014), a collection of poems about imaginary birds accompanied by the linocuts of anthropologist/visual artist Laura B. DeLind. With Taylor, she co-edited the literary anthology Once Upon A Place: Writings from Ghost Ranch (2008). Her poetry, short fiction, and essays have appeared in numerous literary magazines and anthologies. Collaboration is an important aspect of her work and she is currently involved in writing projects with poets Jane Taylor and Cindy Hunter Morgan. With linocut artist Laura DeLind, she has recently completed a poetry manuscript, Even the Least of These: The 10-line Poem in the Time of Crisis.
Marion Starling Boyer is the author of several poetry collections including Composing the Rain, which won the 2014 Grayson Books Poetry Chapbook Competition, and her most recent release, Ice Hours, winner of the 2021 Wheelbarrow Books Poetry Prize (Established). Boyer is a professor emeritus for Kalamazoo Valley Community College. She served on the executive board for the Kalamazoo Poetry Festival from 2014 through 2016, and she was the feature poet for Wisconsin’s Washington Island Literary Festival in 2018. Since moving to the Cleveland area, Boyer has served on the planning committee for the Lit Youngstown Literary Festival and conducts workshops for Lit Youngstown and Literary Cleveland.
Carol V. Davis is the author of Below Zero (Stephen F. Austin State University Press, 2023), Because I Cannot Leave This Body (Truman State Univ. Press, 2017) and Between Storms (TSUP, 2012). She won the 2007 T.S. Eliot Prize for Into the Arms of Pushkin: Poems of St. Petersburg. Her first book, It’s Time to Talk About…, was published in a bilingual English/Russian edition, (Symposium, St. Petersburg, Russia, 1997). Her poetry has been read on National Public Radio, the US Library of Congress and Radio Russia. Formerly Poetry Editor of the Los Angeles newspaper, the Jewish Journal, in 2018 she guest edited a double issue of Shirim on the theme of Contemporary Jewish American Poets. She was the 2008 Sandburg-Auden-Stein Poet-in-Residence at Olivet College, MI and teaches at Santa Monica College, California and Antioch University, Los Angeles. Twice a Fulbright scholar in Russia, she taught in Siberia, most recently in winter 2018.She was awarded a Fulbright Specialist grant for Siberia in 2020, postponed due to Covid, and then cancelled in 2022 due to the war. Her work has been translated into German and recent work is being translated into Russian in Russia and in Israel.
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Date: April 11, 2023
Time: 7:00-8:30 p.m. EST
Location: Virtual Zoom
Cost: A $15 donation is required to attend this event. Capacity is limited to 12 seats.
About the event:
As April is National Poetry Month, and to follow-up on the Spring 2023 Speaker Series theme of “Sighs into Songs,” let us come together on the evening of Tuesday, April 11, at 7:00-8:30 EST to lengthen our sighs into songs. We’ll look at some poems by poets who have done just that, poets who have made art out of their questions, disappointments, losses, and longings, and see just how they did that, how applying craft to personal experience can turn it into song.
About the instructor:
Cindy Hunter Morgan is the author of Far Company (Wayne State University Press, 2022) and Harborless (Wayne State University Press), which was a 2018 Michigan Notable Book and the winner of the 2017 Moveen Prize in Poetry. She also is the author of two chapbooks, Apple Season (Midwest Writing Center Chapbook Award, 2012) and The Sultan, The Skater, The Bicycle Maker (Ledge Press Chapbook Award, 2011). She teaches creative writing at Michigan State University and is a co-founder of FILMETRY: A Festival of Poetry and Film. Her poetry has appeared in a variety of journals, including Tin House Online, Passages North, Salamander, Sugar House Review, and West Branch. She writes occasionally for Murder Ballad Monday, a blog devoted to the exploration of the murder ballad tradition in folk and popular music, and she leads various poetry workshops and book arts workshops.
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Date: Saturday, March 18, 2023
Time: 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. – House open to the public for tours;
2 p.m. to 3 p.m. – River Junction Poets reading
Location: Roethke House (1805 Gratiot Avenue, Saginaw, Michigan 48602)
Cost: This event is free and open to the public. Registration is not required, but appreciated, as it helps us plan for this and future events.
About:
In partnership with Saginaw Valley State University, the Roethke House will be open to the public all day for free tours as part of the Roethke Poetry and Arts Festival. At 2:00 p.m. EST, please join us to read poetry together with the River Junction Poets.
The Theodore Roethke Poetry & Arts Festival is a triennial celebration of the Pulitzer-winning poet Theodore Roethke, featuring various events on SVSU’s campus and throughout the Great Lakes Bay Region community. The highlight of this festival features the visit of a national poet who is the recipient of the Theodore Roethke Memorial Poetry Prize. To learn more about this festival or past winners of the prize, please visit https://www.svsu.edu/roethke/.
Date: Tuesday, March 14, 2023
Time: 7:00 PM EST
Location: Virtual (Zoom)
Cost: A donation is required to attend this event. Please select either $1, $5, or $10 donation based on your financial capabilities. If a donation is a hardship right now, please reach out to us at info@friendsofroethke.org.
Description:
Artist Laura DeLind and poet Anita Skeen will read and show images from their latest collaborative book, Even the Least of These, and explain how the physical and emotional isolation of the COVID period resulted in their individual artistic “sighs.” Those sighs lengthened into the song that ultimately became their book, full of linocuts and lines which “romp and sing/within the reach of my imagining” as Theodore Roethke writes in his poem, “Renewal.”
About Anita Skeen:
Anita Skeen is currently Professor Emerita in the Residential College in the Arts and Humanities at Michigan State University where she is the Founding Director of The RCAH Center for Poetry at MSU and the Series Editor for Wheelbarrow Books. She taught students in kindergarten through high school while working with the Kansas Arts Commission’s Artist in the Schools Program; in traditional venues such as college classrooms as a Visiting Writer and Writer in Residence; and in senior citizens’ centers, libraries, and at Ghost Ranch in New Mexico for over 40 years.
She is the author of six volumes of poetry: Each Hand A Map (1986); Portraits (1990); Outside the Fold, Outside the Frame (1999); The Resurrection of the Animals (2002); Never the Whole Story (2011); When We Say Shelter (2007), with Oklahoma poet Jane Taylor; and The Unauthorized Audubon (2014), a collection of poems about imaginary birds accompanied by the linocuts of anthropologist/visual artist Laura B. DeLind. With Taylor, she co-edited the literary anthology Once Upon A Place: Writings from Ghost Ranch (2008). Her poetry, short fiction, and essays have appeared in numerous literary magazines and anthologies. Collaboration is an important aspect of her work and she is currently involved in writing projects with poets Jane Taylor and Cindy Hunter Morgan. With linocut artist Laura DeLind, she has recently completed a poetry manuscript, Even the Least of These: The 10-line Poem in the Time of Crisis.
About Laura Delind:
Artist Laura B. DeLind has been cutting and hand-printing linocuts for over 40 years. She loves linoleum as a carving medium because it is unpretentious, has no pre-existing texture, and lends itself to spontaneous, bold images.
“I am drawn to the linocut because of its challenges and contradictions. It is an accessible medium and, thus, quite democratic in nature. At the same time, it is an elegant art form, one that requires a strong sense of composition and design as well as a keen understanding of positive and negative space. I am fascinated by black and white design and by organic shapes. Birds frequently find themselves the subject of my prints as they provide me with a ready-made ‘excuse’ to play with shape and pattern and to see the world in simple, sensitive, and often whimsical ways.”
Laura lives and works in Mason, Michigan. All her editions are numbered and hand printed on ph neutral papers. She offers printmaking workshops in the Lansing area year round and has taught at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp as well as at Ghost Ranch (Abiquiu, NM) for many years. She exhibits her work nationally and her prints appear in public and private collections across the country. The Unauthorized Audubon (MSU Press: 2014) pairs her linocuts with the poetry of Anita Skeen. Her linocuts also appear in Lavender Hill Farm by Jennifer P. Otto (Mead Hill Press: 2015) and on the cover of The Organic Movement in Michigan (MOFFA: 2016). Some recent work can be seen here on her website.
To register for the event:
Select a donation amount and registration quantity.
Click “Add to cart”.
Click on your cart in the bottom right corner.
Complete the checkout process.
Once you’ve completed check out, you will receive two emails: a confirmation email and an email containing the Zoom link for the event. If you do not receive these emails, contact us at info@friendsofroethke.org.
Date: Tuesday, February 28, 2023
Time: 7:00 PM EST
Location: Virtual (Zoom)
Cost: A donation is required to attend this event. Please select either $1, $5, or $10 donation based on your financial capabilities. If a donation is a hardship right now, please reach out to us at info@friendsofroethke.org.
Description:
In France, 1981, Jeanine studied at the Centre Jeanne d’Arc with a goal of writing a series of poems about Joan. But after 40 years, she wonders how often she can change her tune and tempo: “Elegies and odes slip into cliches. Free verse lapses into prose. Sonnets? Joan of Arc, a monarchist, died for boundaries. A friend suggested I lighten up. My sighs have acquired the lilt and singsong of limericks. There’s more than one way to tame a saint.”
During this event, Jeanine will share how her writing has transformed over the course of her project to capture Joan of Arc through poems.
About Jeanine Hathaway:
Jeanine Hathaway is the author of the novel, Motherhouse (NY: Hyperion, 1992), the 2001 Vassar Miller Poetry Prize-winning The Self as Constellation (UNT, 2002), the chapbook, The Ex-Nun Poems (Finishing Line Press, 2011), and Long after Lauds (Slant Books, 2019) which won a 2020 Catholic Book Award for Poetry. She is professor emerita of English at Wichita State University and former mentor in the Seattle Pacific University MFA Creative Writing Program. She lives in Wichita, KS.
To register for the event:
Select a donation amount and registration quantity.
Click “Add to cart”.
Click on your cart in the bottom right corner.
Complete the checkout process.
Once you’ve completed check out, you will receive two emails: a confirmation email and an email containing the Zoom link for the event. If you do not receive these emails, contact us at info@friendsofroethke.org.
Date: Tuesday, February 14, 2023
Time: 7:00 PM EST
Location: Virtual (Zoom)
Cost: A donation is required to attend this event. Please select either $1, $5, or $10 donation based on your financial capabilities. If a donation is a hardship right now, please reach out to us at info@friendsofroethke.org.
Description:
Lesbian bars, libraries, highways, churches, and oil rigs set the scene for the poems in Landlocked. Whether at work or at play, the speakers in Landlocked live in the space between longing and belonging, wanderlust and homesickness, and explore the intersection of place and identity. Like much of Roethke’s work, the poems in Landlocked ask “How does a place shape you and what changes when you choose to leave?”. During this event, Julia will share how she, like Roethke, sought to make sense of her “sighs” of longing, frustration, and joy by turning them into song.
About Julia McConnell:
Julia McConnell is a poet and a librarian. Her manuscript Landlocked was selected by Thomas Lynch as the winner of the 2022 Wheelbarrow Books Poetry Prize (Emerging). Her chapbook, Against the Blue, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2016. Julia’s publications include Whale Road Review, Shark Reef, Right Hand Pointing, Plainsongs, Lavender Review, and other journals. Originally from Oklahoma, Julia lives in Seattle with her Jack Russell Terrier.
To register for the event:
Select a donation amount and registration quantity.
Click “Add to cart”.
Click on your cart in the bottom right corner.
Complete the checkout process.
Once you’ve completed check out, you will receive two emails: a confirmation email and an email containing the Zoom link for the event. If you do not receive these emails, contact us at info@friendsofroethke.org.
Date: Tuesday, February 7, 2023
Time: 7:00 PM EST
Location: Virtual (Zoom)
Cost: A donation is required to attend this event. Please select either $1, $5, or $10 donation based on your financial capabilities. If a donation is a hardship right now, please reach out to us at info@friendsofroethke.org.
Description:
Join us for the first event in our 2023 speaker series with Colleen Anderson! As a sometimes-poet, sometimes-songwriter, Colleen’s way into songs often travels that pathway between sighing and singing. During this event, she’ll share her process for creating melodies, discuss the differences she finds between poetry and songs, and share a sample of her work.
About Colleen Anderson:
Colleen Anderson is a writer and graphic designer in Charleston, WV. Her fiction and poetry are widely published, and her songs featured on Mountain Stage and The Folk Sampler. Her children’s book, Missing: Mrs. Cornblossom, won a Moonbeam Children’s Book Award. Finishing Line Press published her poetry chapbook, Bound Stone.
To register for the event:
Select a donation amount and registration quantity.
Click “Add to cart”.
Click on your cart in the bottom right corner.
Complete the checkout process.
Once you’ve completed check out, you will receive two emails: a confirmation email and an email containing the Zoom link for the event. If you do not receive these emails, contact us at info@friendsofroethke.org.
The community is invited to participate in the Open House Poetry Slam hosted by Jared Morningstar. Come and read some of your original poetry or a published poem (maybe one of Roethke’s), bring your friends and family, and support local writers! Prizes will be awarded at the end of the Slam.
Jared Morningstar teaches English at the Saginaw Arts and Sciences Academy and writing and literature classes at Saginaw Valley State University and Delta College. He writes poetry and short stories that reflect his interests and observations of the world around him. Morningstar has written three collections of poetry and short fiction (A Slice of American Pie, American Fries, and American Reality).
Register here to put your name on the list to read. Registration will help us with planning, but you may simply show up the night-of and we will add you to the list of readers. Arrive early to be sure you can get on the list!
Poetry should be suitable for a high school and older audience. The host will manage the reader queue, may limit reading times, and has final say over all aspects of the slam. If you have questions about participation, please email info@friendsofroethke.org.
Please join us for a community open mic hosted by Floet. Everyone is invited to participate and perform/read their original work, or just come to support our community of local writers. In person at the Roethke House.