Solitary Plover Reading Series: Summer 2022 edition
2022-11-15 17:30 - 18:30 (America/Chicago)
Hear The Solitary Plover
Tuesday, November 15 at 6:30 p.m. Central Time
The Friends of Lorine Niedecker invites you to this special poetry event. The poets published in the Summer 2022 issue of “The Solitary Plover” will join us for a reading of their work. This reading will be moderated by Plover poetry editor Tom Montag, who will also read from his latest work.
Poets who will be reading their poetry are:
Lauren Carlson, Margaret Coombs, Tyler Farrell, Donna Fleischer, Mary Fry, Ronnie Hess, Angela Hoffman, Jeffrey Leisgang, Stephen Manuel, John Martone, Marilyn K. Moody, Elizabeth Harmatys Park, Jean Preston, Mary Rowin, Jeanie Tomasko, and Michael Dylan Welch.
You can join us by clicking on this Zoom link at the time of the program.
The Solitary Plover is the newsletter of the Friends of Lorine Niedecker. It is issued twice each year, in winter and in summer. You can sign up to receive The Plover in your email, read the Summer 2022 issue and previous issues on the Friends of Lorine Niedecker website here.

North Central Reading Series: Shannon Tharp & Noah Zanella
2023-03-26 17:00 - 18:00
Friends of Lorine Niedecker (FoLN) present the first in a biannual series of North Central virtual readings on Sunday, March 26, 2023 at 5pm CST. Our inaugural readers will be Shannon Tharp (Denver, CO) and Noah Zanella (Chicago, IL).

Shannon Tharp is the author of The Cost of Walking (Skysill Press, 2011) and Vertigo in Spring (The Cultural Society, 2013). She’s also co-editor with Sommer Browning of Poet-Librarians in the Library of Babel: Innovative Meditations on Librarianship (Library Juice Press, 2018). Her poems and essays have appeared in Blazing Stadium, The Brooklyn Rail, Coldfront Magazine, The RS 500, SALT, Typo, and The Volta, among others. She lives in Denver, where she’s a librarian at the University of Denver.

Noah Zanella is a Chicago based writer and musician. He works as a professor at Carthage College, an editor at MASKS literary magazine, and a teaching artist at Hugo House. He’s also a cofounder of Gourd magazine, which will be releasing its first issue in the fall. He credits Lorine Niedecker‘s writing with teaching him how to write poems, and he reads her collected work every summer.

Solitary Plover Reading Series: Winter 2023 edition
2023-04-13 17:00 - 18:00
Hear The Solitary Plover
Thursday, April 13 at 6:00 p.m. Central Time
The Friends of Lorine Niedecker invites you to this special poetry event. The poets published in the Winter 2023 issue of “The Solitary Plover” will join us for a reading of their work. This reading will be moderated by Plover poetry editor Tom Montag, who will also read from his latest work.
Poets who will be reading their poetry are:
Angela Hoffman, Donna Fleischer, Ronnie Hess, Stephen Hemenway, Joel Van Haaften, Michael Nickels-Wisdom, Julia Wagner, Elizabeth Robinson, Lakshman Bulusu, Mike Sikkema, Katrina Serwe, and Gary Hotham.
You can join us by clicking on this Zoom link at the time of the program.
The Solitary Plover is the newsletter of the Friends of Lorine Niedecker. It is issued twice each year, in winter and in summer. You can sign up to receive The Plover in your email and read issues on the Friends of Lorine Niedecker website here.

Hear the Solitary Plover Summer 2023
2023-08-24 18:00 - 19:00 | Virtual on Zoom, WI, United States
The FoLN have scheduled the next Hear the Solitary Plover reading. This reading will be held virtually on Zoom. Click here to join the reading. Poets reading will be many of the poets published in the Summer 2023 issue of The Solitary Plover. The reading will be moderated by Tom Montag, Poetry Editor. Some of those reading their works include: Angela Hoffman, Donna Fleischer, Lakshman Bulusu, Ronnie Hess, Nancy Shea, Lisa Vihos, Linda Voit, and Gary Hotham.

“Trim Green Thought”: A Public Discussion of Lorine Niedecker’s fiction and poetics
2023-09-10 14:00 - 15:00 | Hoard Museum, Fort Atkinson, 401 Whitewater Ave., Fort Atkinson, WI, 53538, United States
Jenny Penberthy, Kate Colby, and Flora Coker will engage in a public discussion of Lorine Niedecker’s published fiction and poetics with emphasis on Niedecker’s ‘The evenings automobiles’
Jenny Penberthy’s research and writing have focused on the poetry of Lorine Niedecker. She edited Niedecker’s poems—New Goose (Listening Chamber, 2003), Lorine Niedecker: Collected Works (University of California Press, 2002), and Harpsichord & Salt Fish (Pig Press, 1991) —and her letters—Niedecker and the Correspondence with Zukofsky 1931-1970(Cambridge University Press, 1993)—along with a collection of essays and letters, Lorine Niedecker: Woman & Poet (National Poetry Foundation, University of Maine, 1996). In 2016 she edited Kenneth Cox: The Art of Language for Flood Editions in Chicago. Currently, she is working on a collection of previously unpublished Niedecker letters and on a book about Fulcrum Press.
Kate Colby’s nine books of poetry and essays include I Mean, Dream of the Trenches, and, most recently Reverse Engineer. She has received awards and fellowships from the Poetry Society of America, Rhode Island State Council for the Arts, the Dodd Research Center at University of Connecticut, and Harvard’s Woodberry Poetry Room. She grew up in Massachusetts, where she helped found and establish the Gloucester Writers Center, and currently lives in Providence. “I have written at length about Oppen, Creeley, Stein, Olson, William Carlos Williams and other adjacent poets, so writing about Niedecker was overdue. I grew up in New England, which shapes and deeply informs my work, so I have a particular interest in other poets who write less about than from place.”
“Flora Coker was a founding member of Theater X. For 35 years she kept company with the likes of actors John Schneider, Willem Dafoe, Deborah Clifton, Victor DeLorenzo, John Kishline, Marcy Hoffman and Rick Graham. She has played in nearly 200 productions over the course of her acting career, but Coker describes herself as a quiet person.” —Jackie Reid Dettlof

Kate Colby & Richard Meier Poetry Reading & Class Discussion
2023-09-13 18:00 - 19:30 | Carthage College, 2001 Alford Park Dr., Kenosha, WI, 53140, United States
Kate Colby’s nine books of poetry and essays include I Mean, Dream of the Trenches, and, most recently Reverse Engineer. She has received awards and fellowships from the Poetry Society of America, Rhode Island State Council for the Arts, the Dodd Research Center at University of Connecticut, and Harvard’s Woodberry Poetry Room. She grew up in Massachusetts, where she helped found and establish the Gloucester Writers Center, and currently lives in Providence. “I have written at length about Oppen, Creeley, Stein, Olson, William Carlos Williams and other adjacent poets, so writing about Niedecker was overdue. I grew up in New England, which shapes and deeply informs my work, so I have a particular interest in other poets who write less about than from place.”
Richard Meier has published five books of poetry: A Duration (Wave Books, 2023), February March April April (Oxeye Press, 2017), In the Pure Block of the Whole Imaginary (Omnidawn, 2012), Shelley Gave Jane A Guitar (Wave Books, 2006), and Terrain Vague, selected by Tomaz Salamun for the Verse Prize and published by Verse Press in 2001. In recent years he has practiced and taught workshops on writing and walking and other daily and durational writing practices. He is Professor of English and Writer-in-Residence at Carthage College and lives in Somers and Madison, WI.

Kate Colby & Nick Gulig Poetry Reading
2023-09-15 19:30 - 20:30 | Write On Door County, 4210 Juddville Road, Fish Creek, WI, 54212, United States
Kate Colby’s nine books of poetry and essays include I Mean, Dream of the Trenches, and, most recently Reverse Engineer. She has received awards and fellowships from the Poetry Society of America, Rhode Island State Council for the Arts, the Dodd Research Center at University of Connecticut, and Harvard’s Woodberry Poetry Room. She grew up in Massachusetts, where she helped found and establish the Gloucester Writers Center, and currently lives in Providence. “I have written at length about Oppen, Creeley, Stein, Olson, William Carlos Williams and other adjacent poets, so writing about Niedecker was overdue. I grew up in New England, which shapes and deeply informs my work, so I have a particular interest in other poets who write less about than from place.”
Nicholas Gulig was appointed Poet Laureate of Wisconsin through 2024. He is a Thai-American native of Eau Claire. Gulig is the author of Orient (Cleveland State University Poetry Center Open Book Competition, 2018), Book of Lake (CutBank, 2016), and North of Order (YesYes Books, 2015). A 2011 Fulbright Fellow, Gulig has received numerous other accolades for his work including the Rushkin Art Club Poetry Award, the Black Warrior Review Poetry Prize, the Grist ProForma Award, and the CSU Open Book Poetry Prize. Currently, he works as Associate Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater and lives with his wife and two daughters in Fort Atkinson.

Kate Colby & Chuck Stebelton Poetry Reading
2023-09-17 14:00 - 15:30 | Woodland Pattern, 720 E. Locust St., Milwaukee, WI, 53212, United States
Kate Colby’s nine books of poetry and essays include I Mean, Dream of the Trenches, and, most recently Reverse Engineer. She has received awards and fellowships from the Poetry Society of America, Rhode Island State Council for the Arts, the Dodd Research Center at University of Connecticut, and Harvard’s Woodberry Poetry Room. She grew up in Massachusetts, where she helped found and establish the Gloucester Writers Center, and currently lives in Providence. “I have written at length about Oppen, Creeley, Stein, Olson, William Carlos Williams and other adjacent poets, so writing about Niedecker was overdue. I grew up in New England, which shapes and deeply informs my work, so I have a particular interest in other poets who write less about than from place.”

Chuck Stebelton is author most recently of One Hundred Patterns & Three Heuristics (Green Gallery Press in 2023). His previous poetry collections include An Apostle Island (Oxeye Press, 2021), The Platformist (Cultural Society, 2012) and Circulation Flowers (Tougher Disguises, 2005). He served as Literary Program Director at Woodland Pattern from 2005 to 2017, and returned as Interim Book Center Manager in 2023. As a Wisconsin Master Naturalist volunteer, he has led workshops and field trips for nonprofit organizations and conservancy groups including Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters; Milwaukee Public Library; Woodland Pattern Book Center; Friends of Lorine Niedecker; and Lynden Sculpture Garden.

North Central Reading Series: Tirzah Goldenberg & Joshua Beckman
2023-10-01 17:00 - 18:00
Friends of Lorine Niedecker (FoLN) present the second in a biannual series of North Central virtual readings on Sunday, October 1, 2023 at 5pm CST. October readers will be Tirzah Goldenberg (Puget Sound, WA) and Joshua Beckman (Red Hook, NY).

Winter 2024 Hear the Solitary Plover
2024-02-29 18:30 - 19:30 | Virtual on Zoom, WI, United States
The Friends of Lorine Niedecker will host a reading by the poets published in the Winter 2024 Solitary Plover on Thursday, February 29 at 6:30 p.m. CST.
We invite you to join us for this virtual reading conducted on Zoom.
Join Zoom Meeting by clicking here
Meeting ID: 864 9007 9677
Passcode: [REDACTED]

North Central Reading Series: Merrill Gilfillan
2024-03-31 17:00 - 18:00 | Virtual on Zoom, WI, United States
Friends of Lorine Niedecker (FoLN) are delighted to host poet and essayist Merrill Gilfillan for a solo virtual reading on Sunday, March 31st, 2024 at 5pm CST. This event will be hosted on the Zoom platform (see the event description below for the URL) and will be recorded.
Merrill Gilfillan was born in Mount Gilead, Ohio, in 1945 and studied literature at the Universities of Michigan and Iowa. His first book of poems appeared in 1970. Recent publications include A Walkable Rain (Oxeye Press, 2024) and Stars Seen Then (Partly Press, 2020). Selected Poems will be published by Flood Editions in 2024. Merrill’s previous books with Flood Editions include Talk Across Water: Stories Selected and New, The Bark of the Dog, and Red Mavis, as well as a collection of alfresco essays, The Warbler Road. He lives in Asheville, North Carolina.
North Central is a virtual reading series providing a space to gather and hear living poets who connect in various ways to the poetry of Lorine Niedecker. The series takes its title from North Central (London: Fulcrum Press, 1968), the third book of poems published in Niedecker’s lifetime. The readings are curated by Chuck Stebelton and Richard Meier and supported by the Friends of Lorine Niedecker. Past readers have included Joshua Beckman, Tirzah Goldenberg, Noah Zannella, and Shannon Tharp. Readings are held twice per year, in October and March.

Summer 2024 Solitary Plover Reading
2024-08-08 18:30 - 19:30
The Friends of Lorine Niedecker will host a reading by the poets published in the Summer 2024 Solitary Plover on Thursday, August 8 at 6:30 p.m. CST.

We invite you to join us for this virtual reading conducted on Zoom.

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81761798711

North Central Reading Series: Sara Ellen Fowler & José Felipe Alvergue
2024-10-20 17:00 - 18:00
Friends of Lorine Niedecker (FoLN) are delighted to host poets Sara Ellen Fowler and José Felipe Alvergue for a virtual reading on Sunday, October 20th, 2024 at 5pm CST.

Sara Ellen Fowler’s first book, Two Signatures (University of Utah Press, 2024) was selected by Joan Naviyuk Kane as winner of the Agha Shahid Ali Poetry Prize. Sara is a writer, artist, and educator living in California. Her writing has appeared in The Offing, X-TRA Contemporary Art Journal, Interim, and Gigantic Sequins, among others. Her work has been supported by The Frost Place, the Ashbery Home School, and Community of Writers. In 2023, she was awarded a California Arts Council Individual Artist Fellowship. Sara holds a BFA in Sculpture from Art Center College of Design and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of California, Riverside.

José Felipe Alvergue is the author of three books, most recently scenery. His book of sonnet-essays, en el norte/soy del sur, is forthcoming with Omnidawn. José teaches at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire.

North Central is a virtual reading series providing a space to gather and hear living poets who connect in various ways to the poetry of Lorine Niedecker. The series takes its title from North Central (London: Fulcrum Press, 1968), the third book of poems published in Niedecker’s lifetime. The readings are curated by Chuck Stebelton and Richard Meier and supported by the Friends of Lorine Niedecker. Past readers have included Merrill Gilfillan, Joshua Beckman, Tirzah Goldenberg, Noah Zannella, and Shannon Tharp. Readings are held twice per year, in October and March.

Niedecker's Binoculars: A virtual talk by Patrick Morrissey
2024-11-10 17:00 - 18:00
Friends of Lorine Niedecker (FoLN) are delighted to host poet and essayist Patrick Morrissey for a virtual talk delivered via Zoom on Sunday, November 10, 2024 at 5pm CST. This event will be recorded.

This talk will consider the significance of double vision, shifting scales, and embarrassment in the poetry of Lorine Niedecker. Through close consideration of a few favorite poems and some speculation about the value of poetry, Morrissey hopes to open up a conversation about Niedecker’s ways of seeing and some ways we might “carry our clarity with us.”

About the Speaker

Patrick Morrissey’s third book of poems, Light Box, was published by Verge Books in 2023. His essays have appeared recently in Annulet: A Journal of Poetics, Chicago Review, and Textual Practice. He teaches at the University of Chicago.

Winter 2025 Solitary Plover Reading
2025-03-13 18:30 - 20:00
The Friends of Lorine Niedecker are pleased to host a reading by the poets published in the Winter 2025 Solitary Plover at 6:30pm (Central Time) on Thursday, March 13. Poets will read their work from the latest edition of the Solitary Plover and share a favorite poem of Niedecker’s.

The event will be hosted on Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81018971193

North Central Reading Series: Lisa Fishman & Jordan Dunn
2025-04-06 17:00 - 18:00
Friends of Lorine Niedecker (FoLN) are delighted to host poets Lisa Fishman and Jordan Dunn for a virtual reading on Sunday, April 6th, 2025 at 5pm CST.

Lisa Fishman is the author of eight books of poetry, a short story collection, and several chapbooks. Her newest poetry book is One Big Time, out on Wave Books in spring, 2025. World Naked Bike Ride was published in Canada by Gaspereau Press in 2022 and was a finalist for the Canadian ReLit Award in short fiction. Other Wave poetry titles are Mad World, Mad Kings, Mad Composition (2020) and 24 Pages and other poems (2015). She continues to live primarily on the farm she and her husband started in 1999 in Orfordville, Wisconsin, dividing her time between Wisconsin and Canada. She is a dual US/Canadian with earlier roots in both the Detroit area and Montreal.

Jordan Dunn is the author of Notation (Third Hand Books, 2024) and Physical Geography as Modified by Human Action (Partly Press, 2022) as well as various chapbooks and ephemeral prints including Common Names, Reactor Woods, and A Walk at Doolittle State Preserve. He lives with his family in Madison, WI, where he edits and publishes Oxeye Press.

North Central is a virtual reading series providing a space to gather and hear living poets who connect in various ways to the poetry of Lorine Niedecker. The series takes its title from North Central (London: Fulcrum Press, 1968), the third book of poems published in Niedecker’s lifetime. The readings are curated by Chuck Stebelton and Richard Meier and supported by the Friends of Lorine Niedecker. Past readers have included Merrill Gilfillan, Joshua Beckman, Tirzah Goldenberg, José Felipe Alvergue, and Shannon Tharp. Readings are held twice per year.

This event will be recorded. Please join us Sunday, April 6th at 5pm CST on Zoom

Summer 2025 Solitary Plover Reading
2025-08-14 18:30 - 19:30
The Friends of Lorine Niedecker will host a reading by the poets published in the Summer 2025 Solitary Plover on Thursday, August 14 at 6:30 p.m. CST.

We invite you to join us for this virtual reading conducted on Zoom.

Community Screening of 'Welcome Poets' from PBS Wisconsin at the Hoard Historical Museum
2025-09-12 17:00 - 21:00
Join us at the Hoard Historical Museum for two consecutive special community screenings of the brand new Welcome Poets from PBS Wisconsin. This narrative series of six documentary shorts follows former Wisconsin Poet Laureate Nicholas Gulig in a reflective homecoming, interwoven with the life and work of Fort Atkinson’s own Lorine Niedecker (1903–1970). Through shared landscapes, memory, and poetry, Welcome Poets explores identity, place and the power of poetry to give voice to community.

The first screening will start promptly at 5 p.m. followed by a second screening at 7 p.m. Please RSVP for the screening you plan to attend.

After each screening, stay for a brief Q&A and connect with fellow poetry lovers and neighbors. We look forward to seeing you there!

Event Date & Time:Friday September 12, 2025*two consecutive screening opportunitiesFirst screening: 5pmSecond screening: 7pmEvent Location:Hoard Historical Museum401 Whitewater AvenueFort Atkinson, WI 53538

(920) 397-9914info@hoardmuseum.org

PBS Wisconsin broadcast premiere of 'Welcome Poets' on March 1 at 6:30 p.m. Central
2026-03-01 18:30 - 19:30
After its debut as a digital-only series last fall, Welcome Poets is heading to the airwaves! Catch the broadcast premiere on PBS Wisconsin on Sunday, March 1 at 6:30 p.m., with several additional opportunities to tune in throughout the month:

Saturday, March 7 at 12:30 p.m.

Sunday, March 8 at 9 a.m.

Monday, March 9 at 8:30 p.m.

Wednesday, March 11 at 11:30 p.m.

Saturday, March 14 at 10:30 a.m.

Can’t make it to your TV? The full 6-chapter documentary — plus bonus web content — is available to stream anytime at pbswisconsin.org/welcomepoets.

***Welcome Poets is a documentary from PBS Wisconsin that weaves together the stories of two Wisconsin poets connected by the city of Fort Atkinson. Former Wisconsin Poet Laureate Nicholas Gulig serves as narrator and guide, reflecting on how the life and work of the 20th-century poet Lorine Niedecker shaped his own path as a writer and his decision to make her hometown his home. Drawing on archival materials, documentary footage, and personal reflection, the doc explores themes of place, belonging and the enduring power of poetry.

Winter 2026 Solitary Plover Reading - March 12 at 6:30 p.m. [Virtual]
2026-03-12 18:30 - 19:30
The Friends of Lorine Niedecker will host a virtual reading by the poets published in the Winter 2026 Solitary Plover. Poets will read their work from the new issue and share a favorite poem of Niedecker’s.Click on the “Zoom link” button below to join the meeting. If you are prompted for a Meeting ID, use: 878 6937 1538Our thanks to Woodland Pattern who generously partner with us to host and administer the Zoom reading.

The Friends of Lorine Niedecker is dedicated to preserving and expanding the legacy of Lorine Niedecker. The organization offers access to research archives and educational materials, and publishes The Solitary Plover, a semiannual newsletter, and What Region, a monograph series.

North Central: A Virtual Reading Series presents Ed Roberson & Joel Felix
2026-03-27 19:00 - 20:00
The Friends of Lorine Niedecker welcome two innovative poets for a free, virtual poetry reading and discussion, open to all, on Friday, March 27, 2026 at 7 p.m. Central.

Ed Roberson is the author of numerous poetry collections, including Asked What Has Changed (Wesleyan University Press, 2021), a finalist for the Griffin Poetry Prize. His most recent publications include the chapbook Five Poems for a Quartet (Foolscap Poetry, 2025) and found poem(s) (Corbett vs. Dempsey, 2024), a collaboration with photographer Ken Taylor. Since 2023 he has served as a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. Roberson’s varied career has seen him working in Pittsburgh steel mills, in an advertising graphics agency, as a limnologist’s assistant, and as a Rutgers University administrator. His extensive travels have taken him to the Aleutian Islands of Alaska, Mexico, the Peruvian and Ecuadorian Andes, and West Africa. Since moving to Chicago in 2004, he has held teaching positions at Columbia College, the University of Chicago, and Northwestern University. His many honors include the Jackson Poetry Prize, the Shelley Memorial Award, the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Writers’ Award.

Joel Felix awoke in the shadow of Ford Motor’s River Rouge plant, birthplace of automation. His most recent publication is Holograms of Dawn (selva oscura press). He is currently being raised by children in Lake City, Seattle.

North Central is a virtual reading series providing a space to gather and hear living poets who connect in various ways to the poetry of Lorine Niedecker. The series takes its title from North Central (London: Fulcrum Press, 1968), the third book of poems published in Niedecker’s lifetime. The readings are supported by the Friends of Lorine Niedecker. Past readers have included Merrill Gilfillan, Joshua Beckman, Tirzah Goldenberg, Noah Zannella, and Shannon Tharp. Readings are held twice per year, in the fall and the spring.

This virtual event will take place on Zoom and will be recorded.

Click for Zoom Event Link

Learn information about the Friends of Lorine Niedecker.

Visit our YouTube playlist to view past events in the North Central reading series.

For more information about this event, contact David Pavelich: david.pavelich@gmail.com
