Poetry & Literary Readings with Joyce Sutphen & July Artists-in-Residence at Anderson Center 25th Anniversary

Register Here

Poets and writers are sharing their work and chatting with guests in the Tower View Barn from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. as part of the Anderson Center 25th Anniversary Party on Saturday, July 24. Former Minnesota Poet Laureate Joyce Sutphen is reading her poetry at 1:20 p.m. Raised on a farm in Minnesota, Supthen earned a PhD in Renaissance drama from the University of Minnesota, and has taught British literature and creative writing at Gustavus Adolphus College in Saint Peter, Minnesota. Her first collection of poems, Straight Out of View (1995), won the Barnard Women’s Poets Prize. Subsequent collections include Naming the Stars (2004), winner of the Minnesota Book Award and Carrying Water to the Field: New and Selected Poems (2019). She has received a McKnight Artist Fellowship and a Minnesota State Arts Board Fellowship and served as Minnesota’s Poet Laureate from 2011-2021.

Kicking things off at 11 a.m. is Clare Boerigter, a writer, environmental communicator, and former wildland firefighter for the U.S. Forest Service. Clare is participating in a July residency at the Anderson Center through the University of Minnesota’s Gesell Writing Residency Fellowship. She holds a BA in Spanish from Grinnell College, an MA in International Education from the Universidad de Alcalá in Spain, and an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from the University of Minnesota. At the Anderson Center, Clare is conducting extensive research to will bring All the Feral, Fierce Things, a book-length manuscript about my rookie season as a wildland firefighter for the Forest Service, into deeper conversation with larger cultural and environmental discussions.

Teo Rivera-Dundas, reading at 11:35a.m., received his MFA in Creative Writing from CalArts in 2019, and currently is a PhD student in Literature at UC San Diego. He is the co-founding editor of rivulet press, an online literary journal and nascent publishing project, information about which can be found at rivulet.net. Teo’s writing deals in the messy overlap between art, labor, emotional reciprocity, communication technologies, and confusion. At the Anderson Center, Teo is developing and revising a novel called Doubt Cathedral, which weaves a performatively appalled criticism of twentieth century American life with dark, entropic humor.

Scheduled at 12:10 p.m., Gretchen Marquette is the author of May Day (2016), published by Graywolf Press, which was a 2017 Minnesota Book Award finalist in poetry. A 2017 alum of the Anderson Center Residency Program, her work has appeared in The Paris Review, Harper’s, Tin House, TriQuarterly, Paper Darts and other journals. At the Anderson Center, Gretchen is continuing the work of drafting new poems, as well as revising a completed book-length manuscript, currently titled Midheaven, which seeks to embrace the mundane world and mine it, always, for its significance.

Game designer, Affrilachian Poet, and Cave Canem fellow Keith S. Wilson is sharing his work at 12:45 p.m. His 2019 book, Fieldnotes on Ordinary Love (Copper Canyon), was recognized by the New York Times as a best new book of poetry. He is a recipient of an NEA Fellowship, was a Gregory Djanikian Scholar, his poetry and prose have appeared in Elle, Poetry, The Kenyon Review, and Crab Orchard Review, among others. At the Anderson Center, Keith is experimenting with form, lyric, and visual elements in a manuscript of poems surrounding our legacy of American violence and the way that upheaval and revolution have become an American touchstone, an almost-hallowed tradition.

Sue Gens, Executive Director of the Minnesota State Arts Board, will share remarks at 2:00 p.m. prior to the cutting of a birthday cake. “I have long believed the Anderson Center is one of the unique treasures of this state,” commented Gens.

Click here for complete details on the Anderson Center’s 25th Anniversary Party.

This event is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a Minnesota State Arts Board Operating Support grant, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund. Special thanks as well to the Anderson Center Board of Directors for all their support.

Sponsored by:
Red Wing Shoe Company, Central Research Laboratories, Xcel Energy, 3M Fall Protection, Associated Bank, Speight Anderson & Lappegaard P.A., Red Wing Chevrolet, and Sievers Creative