Readings: A Homecoming Farewell—Saturday

1 pm CDT: Bryon Cherry, Siwar Masannat, and Bethany Price—We begin a tremendous final day of programs on Locust Street with three inimitable poets, each of whom have been steady fixtures of Woodland Pattern’s programming and community for many years.

Bryon Cherry is a poet and musician. He is the author of two chapbooks of poetry, (Aquarius Press/Willow Books, 2023) and (The Quail Press, 2019), and a full-length collection of poems, (Anarcho Welfare Press, 2019). His work was also featured in Return to the Gathering Place of the Waters anthology (VA Press) and South Florida Poetry Journal. Born and raised in Milwaukee, he is of and shaped by his evolving home city. He is guided by what he considers the magical forces of listening and love.

Jordanian writer Siwar Masannat is the author of (Georgia Review Books, 2024) and (Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 2015). A former Woodland Pattern volunteer, Masannat holds a PhD in English from UW–Milwaukee, where she was a Distinguished Dissertation R1 Fellow and a Distinguished Graduate Student Fellow. Masannat now lives in Providence, Rhode Island, where she works as Managing Editor of the Caribbean Poetry Book Series: Calabash and Assistant Director of the African Poetry Book Fund. She teaches Literary Arts at Brown University.

Bethany Price is a woman of many hats, just like everyone. She is from Wisconsin, but currently lives in upstate NY. Find her work through the small publishers Papeachu Press, VA Press, and pitymilk press. She feels most at home around palm trees.

3 pm CDT: Small-Press Appreciation: pitymilk press—For our final installment of Small-Press Appreciation on Locust Street, we could not be happier to feature the fearless and homegrown-in-Riverwest . Join us for readings and conversations with TBA pitymilk authors curated by editors edie roberts and Chelsea Tadeyeske. Small-Press Appreciation is an ongoing series celebrating publishers doing passionate and exemplary cultural work outside the mainstream.

edie roberts is a poet and facilitator living in Detroit. They are a bookmaker who has been editing and publishing since 2009 under the umbrellas of , , and . They earned a Masters in Creative Writing from Miami University, where they taught writing and composition courses and helped curate a reading series. They have hosted readings and other events across the Midwest and are currently hosting a monthly series at 27th Letter Books in Detroit. Their own books include Thank You, (pitymilk press, 2020), (Bathmatics, 2019), and others.

Chelsea Tadeyeske lives, works, and plays in Milwaukee, where she co-edits and curates poetry readings in her apartment, The Bell Tower. She is the author of several chapbooks including If You Bend It Backwards Nothing Really Happens (Rabbit Catastrophe Press, 2017), (Bathmatics, 2019), and The Floor of a Cage Floating Above the Floor of a House (Bathmatics, 2020). In the spring of 2022, she completed a month-long artist residency at Gamlí Skolí on Hrísey Island, Iceland, where she finished two poetry projects, What If Loving You Wasn’t About Me? (with edie roberts, Bathmatics, 2022), and Island Weather (pitymilk press, 2023). She is a Virgo sun, Libra rising, and Aquarius Moon, born in the Year of the Snake.

5 pm CDT: Old School “Poetry Marathon” Potluck—Bring a dish, share a dish. We’ll provide utensils, bowls, and plates, and we’ll have some beverages on hand. Crockpots galore and Locust Street lore, in memory of so many Marathons past.

7 pm CDT: Native Writers in the 21st Century—Befittingly, Woodland Pattern’s longest-running reading series will close out this special weekend and represent our final curated program on Locust Street. Please join us for readings by Sherwin Bitsui, Kimberly Blaeser, Franklin K.R. Cline, and Jake Skeets—all returning writers of this series, which has featured more than 100 Indigenous writers—both emerging and established—since 2007.

Sherwin Bitsui is the author of three collections of poetry, , , and . He is the recipient of a Whiting Award, an American Book Award, and the PEN Book Award. His poems have appeared in Narrative, Black Renaissance Noir, American Poet, the Iowa Review, LIT, and elsewhere. He is Diné of the Todí­ch’ii’nii (Bitter Water Clan), born for the Tlizí­laaní­ (Many Goats Clan), and has received fellowships from the Lannan Foundation and the Native Arts & Culture Foundation.

Kimberly Blaeser—founding director of Indigenous Nations Poets, a past Wisconsin Poet Laureate, and a longtime collaborator with Woodland Pattern—is the author of six poetry collections including , , and Résister en dansant/Ikwe-niimi: Dancing Resistance. Blaeser’s honors include the 2026 Science and Literature Award from the National Book Foundation, 2025 Poets & Writers’ Writer for Writers Award, Hayden’s Ferry Review’s Indigenous Poets Prize, the Masters Review Short Story Award, and a Lifetime Achievement Award from Native Writers’ Circle of the Americas. An enrolled member of the White Earth Nation, Blaeser is an Anishinaabe activist and environmentalist, a Professor Emerita at UW–Milwaukee, and an MFA faculty member at Institute of American Indian Arts. She lives in the woods and wetlands of Wisconsin and, for part of each year, in a water-access cabin near the Boundary Water Canoe Area Wilderness where she follows poems, photos, stories, and river otters—sometimes all at once. Her debut collection of fiction, Red Ants, is forthcoming from Counterpoint Press in October 2026.

Franklin K.R. Cline, a former member of Woodland Pattern’s Board of Directors, is the author of , both published by VA Press. An enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation, he is a graduate of UW–Milwaukee’s Creative Writing Program. He is based in Kansas City, Missouri, where he lives with Six and Olivia.

Jake Skeets is the author of two books of poetry, (Milkweed Editions, 2019)—winner of the National Poetry Series, an American Book Award, the Kate Tufts Discovery Award, and a Whiting Award—and his highly anticipated second collection, (Milkweed Editions, 2026). His work has appeared in journals and magazines such as Poetry, the New York Times Magazine, and the Paris Review. Other honors include an NEA Grant for Arts Projects, a Mellon Projecting All Voices Fellowship, and the 2023–24 Grisham Writer in Residence at the University of Mississippi. He is the third Navajo Nation Poet Laureate and teaches at the University of Oklahoma.

We kick off our final weekend of programs on Locust Street with a celebration of Soham Patel’s The Daughter Industry (Nightboat Books), alongside readings from Mauricio Kilwein Guevara and Wisconsin Poet Laureate, Brenda Cárdenas.

Closing Reception for Art That Keeps on Singing: Work by Anne Kingsbury: An open house and toast to Anne and her art, and to all the Woodland Patterning that has been done on Locust Street over the years. See you there! View the exhibition here:

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Woodland Pattern, 720 East Locust Street, Milwaukee, United States

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