What if a better world is ahead of us? How can our imaginations lead us to action? Curator Chris Fischbach invites four local writers to collaborate on imagining a climate and ecological future, not shaped by doomsaying, but rather a roadmap of storytelling and poetry that visualizes a world worth fighting for. Victoria Blanco, Seth Bockley, Douglas Kearney, and Halee Kirkwood present their projections of the future of the Twin Cities and beyond, inspiring all of us to see ourselves as a coalition of the possible.
Birchbark Books will be hosting a curated pop-up shop beginning at 6 pm. The program will start at 6:30 pm.
The Green Roof Poetry series returns on three Thursday evenings between June and August. Green Roof Poetry brings together some of the Twin Cities’ most dynamic writers for literary evenings at the Walker. Grab your picnic blanket and relax on the hillside for these fresh air readings.
About the Participants
Victoria Blanco’s first book, Out of the Sierra, is forthcoming from Coffee House Press. Her field research with the Rarámuri people of Chihuahua, Mexico, has been supported by a Fulbright Award and fellowships from the University of Arizona, which also awarded her a Digital Borderlands grant. In 2020, she was the recipient of the Citizen Diplomacy Action Fund for a traditional sewing project coled with Amalia Holguin, one of the Rarámuri governors of El Oasis. Her writing has been published in the New York Times, Guernica, Catapult, and others. She is from El Paso, Texas.
Seth Bockley is a writer of stories, plays, and screenplays, as well as a theater artist specializing in literary adaptation. He serves as Writer-in-Residence at the Amsterdam-based environmental nonprofit Sovereign Nature Initiative, and his first film, The Cartographer, will be streaming in summer 2022. He teaches at the University of Chicago and is at work on a novel about outsider art. Follow him online at @sboke on Twitter and sethbockley.com.
Event curator Chris Fischbach is a literary agent, producer, curator, and consultant at Fischbach Creative. Prior to that, he was the publisher and executive director of Coffee House Press, where he worked for 25 years. While there, he acquired and edited Karen Tei Yamashita, Valeria Luiselli, Ben Lerner, Hernan Diaz, Kao Kalia Yang, and many others. He serves on the board of the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop and the Grand Marais Art Colony.
Douglas Kearney has published seven collections, including the National Book Award finalist Sho (Wave Books, 2021) and Buck Studies (Fence Books, 2016), winner of the Theodore Roethke Memorial Poetry Award and a California Book Award silver medalist. The recipient of numerous awards, residencies, and fellowships, Kearney currently teaches creative writing at the University of Minnesota.
Halee Kirkwood is a 2022 Inaugural In-Na-Po Poetry Fellow, a 2022 Minnesota State Arts Board grant recipient, and a 2019–2020 Loft Mentor Series Fellow. They received their MFA from Hamline University. Their work has been published in the Academy of American Poets Poem-A-Day series, Water~Stone Review, Lunch Ticket, Pinwheel Poetry, Muzzle Magazine, Cream City Review, and others. Kirkwood is a proud first-generation college student and a direct descendant of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe.
Event Information
Please check back closer to the date for program details and current COVID-19 guidelines. For weather updates please call the Box Office at 612-375-7600.
Admission is free on Thursday nights, 5–9 pm. Gallery admission tickets must be reserved separately, quantities are limited. Mask-wearing is encouraged indoors for visitors aged 2 and older.
This event may be documented with photography. By attending, you consent to having your image documented.
Accessibility
Follow the paved path on the hillside for an accessible route to the event.
Green Roof Poetry on Thursday, August 4, will have ASL interpretation.
For more information about accessibility or to request additional accommodations, call 612-375-7564 or email access@walkerart.org.
For more information about accessibility at the Walker, visit our Access page.
Attendance Requirements
Masks are strongly encouraged inside the museum for all visitors ages 2 and older regardless of vaccination status. On Free First Saturdays and Sensory Friendly Sundays, we require visitors ages 2 and older to wear face masks inside the building to support the safety and comfort of families and attendees.
If you have questions or require additional assistance, please email orders@walkerart.org or call 612-375-7600.
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