Campus Connection

Wisconsin Poet Laureate Kimberly Blaeser to speak at UWL, Pump House Wisconsin’s Poet Laureate will share her unique poetry at UW-La Crosse and the Pump House in September. Kimberly Blaeser will speak with a UWL English class from 3:55-5:20 p.m. Monday, Sept. 26, in 333 Wimberly Hall. The class is open to the public. Blaeser will give a public presentation Tuesday, Sept. 27, at the theater in Pump House Regional Arts Center, 119 King St. The doors open at 6:30 p.m., with the program beginning at 7. The event is free and open to the public. Blaeser’s poetry draws on Native American traditions to create contemporary harmonies between the natural world and imagination. Her poetry collections, “Absentee Indians and Other Poems” and “Apprenticed to Justice,” have earned national and international acclaim for the balance they strike between traditional Native American viewpoints and contemporary culture. The event is sponsored by the UWL English and History Departments, Explore La Crosse, Visiting Scholar/Artist of Color Program, and the UWL Foundation. For more information on Kimberly Blaeser and the Wisconsin Poet Laureate program, see www.wisconsinpoetlaureate.org. Visit to kick off citywide poetry In conjunction with Blaeser’s visit, UWL professors Ariel Beaujot, History, and William Stobb, English, will launch a local arts initiative designed to bring poetry into the award-winning Hear, Here public oral history program. Hear, Here features recordings of personal histories from the downtown La Crosse area, recorded and submitted by individual La Crosse residents. Signs in downtown direct residents to a toll-free phone number to hear the recorded histories of site-specific events. Beaujot and Stobb will announce an open call for poems chronicling downtown experiences. “Poetry, history and sense of place can intersect in ways that really energize each other,” says Stobb. “We’re excited to see those connections come alive.” Selected entries submitted before the project deadline in March 2017 will be included in the Hear, Here La Crosse audio archive, published in UWL’s literary journal “Steam Ticket,” and presented at the Pump House’s spring 2017 Artspire. Cash and prizes will be offered to the top poems selected. For more information on Hear, Here, see www.hearherelacrosse.org.