Todd Boss, Tim Nolan, Sharon Chmielarz, Kirsten Dierking, Dore Kiesselbach, and Elizabeth Weir read from their new poetry

Join us to celebrate the work of six local poets, longstanding friends, who come together to read from their most recent work and publications.

Todd Boss is a poet, public artist and film producer in Minneapolis. His poetry collections are Tough Luck (to be published in 2017), Pitch (2012) and Yellowrocket (2008). His poems have appeared in The New Yorker, American Poetry Review, Poetry, and on NPR. He is the founding Executive and Artistic Director of Motionpoems, a nonprofit that partners with major publishers and film companies to turn great contemporary poems into short films.

Sharon Chmielarz’s latest two books are Visibility: Ten Miles, a finalist for the 2015 Midwest Book Awards in photography and poetry, and The Widow’s House, a finalist in the 2015 Next Generation Indie Book Awards. Kirkus Review wrote of it, “Spare, powerful, well-calibrated poems that perceptively anatomize grief. “

Kirsten Dierking is the author of three books of poetry: One Red Eye, Northern Oracle, and Tether. She teaches Humanities classes at Anoka-Ramsey Community College.

Dore Kiesselbach’s first collection, Salt Pier (2012, University of Pittsburgh Press), received the Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize. Other honors include a 2015 Artist Initiative Grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, the 2014 Robert H. Winner Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America, a U.S. Department of Education Jacob Javits Fellowship in creative writing, and Britain’s Bridport Prize in poetry. His work has appeared in many magazines and anthologies, including Agni, Field, Plume, Poetry and Stand (UK). He writes copy, occasionally teaches, and works as an editor in Minneapolis. His second collection, Albatross, is forthcoming from Pittsburgh next year.

Tim Nolan was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and earned a B.A. in English from the University of Minnesota, an M.F.A. in writing from Columbia University, and law degree from William Mitchell College of Law. He practices as an attorney in Minneapolis where he lives with his wife Kate and their three teenagers. Nolan is the author of The Sound of It and And Then.

Elizabeth Weir grew up in England, trained as a nurse in London and worked as an RN in South Africa, before coming to live in Minnesota with her husband and two young sons. Seeking to belong more completely in her community, she served on Medina’s planning commission and city council for 17 years and became mayor, retiring at the end of 2014. Her poetry has been published in many small presses, and she received four SASE/Jerome grants to study with established poets. She was delighted when North Star Press of St. Cloud called to say they would like to publish her first collection, High on Table Mountain.