Woodland Pattern

MAY EVENTS—We'd love to see you during our last month of programming at our home on Locust Street! ❤️ Details at the link in bio. Sun. May 3 | 7 pm CDT | $15 ($13 Members) | In person & Online—Concert: Alternating Currents Live presents Mai Sugimoto Trio Thurs. May 7 | 7 pm CDT | In person & Online—Poetry Reading: Alan Felsenthal and Kendra Sullivan Sat. May 9 | 2 pm CDT | In person and open to the public at MPL Central Branch—Special Event: Milwaukee Youth Poet Laureate Finals Fri. May 15, Sat. May 16, & Sun. May 17 | Screenings will take place at 5 pm and 7 pm CDT each day | In person—Screening: aCinema Screening Series Thurs. May 21 | 7 pm CDT | $10 | In person & Online—Concert: Formations Series for New & Improvised Music presents an Improvising Orchestra Fri. May 22 | 7 pm CDT | In person & Online—Reading: A Homecoming Farewell Weekend with Soham Patel, Mauricio Kilwein Guevara, and Brenda Cárdenas Sat. May 23 | 1, 3, & 7 pm CDT | In person & Online—Readings: A Homecoming Farewell Weekend with Bryon Cherry, Siwar Masannat, Bethany Price, Small-Press Appreciation: pitymilk press, and Native Writers in the 21st Century: Sherwin Bitsui, Kimberly Blaeser, Franklin K.R. Cline, and Jake Skeets—plus an Old School “Poetry Marathon” Potluck at 5 PM. Sun. May 24 | 2-5 pm CDT | In person and open to the public—Closing Reception for Art That Keeps on Singing: Work by Anne Kingsbury Thurs. May 28 | 7 pm CDT | In person & Online—Poetry Reading: Janet Jennerjohn and Michele Kotler Fri. May 29 | 7 pm CDT | In person and open to the public—Open Mic: resound return Sun. May 31 | 12-8 pm CDT | Open to the public—Join us for our final Locust Street Festival and help us lighten our moving load during our biggest book sale! PLUS Ping Pong Book Club and Readshops!

For years, our organization has been working to address the shortcomings of our beloved yet aging building in Riverwest, which has structural issues, is inaccessible to wheelchair users, and lacks sufficient space for our staff, programs, books, and the public. In 2019, we began renovation planning with architecture firm HGA, but then boom—the world shut down. By the time our work could resume (2021) and renderings were complete (2023), costs had skyrocketed. Worse, the price tag was going to keep rising. So, we hit the pause button—or rather the pause button hit us. Now we’ll fast forward to 2025, when we were—to our surprise—ready to seize a bittersweet opportunity when it appeared in a different neighborhood: Bay View. The Bindery—a former partner—closed its doors last summer, and owner Zach Lifton put the 8,896 sq. foot space on the market. Fully accessible and historically tied to book making, it offered a spacious, turnkey solution for a fraction of the cost of our renovation plans. Even better, it required a single move (as opposed to two)—reducing disruption to programs and requiring no long-term displacement. So, after 46 years in Riverwest, Woodland Pattern is moving, and we’re all emotional about it. Fortunately there’s time for a long goodbye and a slew of events that will pay homage to this incredible place. And there is one more thing we’d like to say. As the caretakers of an Upper Midwest poetry center, our hearts have been in Minneapolis/St Paul all week, especially as we think about the poet Renee Good and her wife, Becca, whose statement about Renee’s death both sears and uplifts us.   “Renee lived by an overarching belief: there is kindness in the world and we need to do everything we can to find it where it resides and nurture it where it needs to grow… We honor her memory by living her values: rejecting hate and choosing compassion, turning away from fear and pursuing peace, refusing division and knowing we must come together to build a world where we all come home safe to the people we love.” Woodland Pattern is a house of poetry that tends these values, one that is created by all of you. Thank you for helping make our house a home.

Program 4 | history as heavy as light 7:00 PM | Saturday, May 16th 2026 | Woodland Pattern Palm Sunday, Nathan Swann, 3min 15 sec // Excuse Me, Miss! Cherlyn Hsing-Hsin Liu, 13min // A Thousand Waves Away, Helena Wittmann, 10min // Tiger Lily Mountain Pass, Nate King, 5min 15sec // Recollections in three movements, Joa Heikkinen, 7min 45sec // A Brave New World, Arnold Tam, 9min //

Program 3 | an open hand gathers the wind 5:00 PM | Saturday, May 16th 2026 | Woodland Pattern Warren King: King of Cardboard, Curtis Chin, 15min 45 sec // echoes of a zephyr, Josh Weissbach, 3min 15sec // Usulca İç Çeker [sighing softly], Süheyla Noyan, 14min // Objectionable Fruit, Hogan Seidel (in collaboration with filmmaker Gabby Follett), 15min // Parallel, Rosanna Lee, 9min 30sec //

aDifferent Program 2 | a rose on the dark side of the moon 7:00 PM | Friday, May 15 2026 | Woodland Pattern Afterwards, Gizem Tonbak, 43 sec // distant bison, Asuka Lin, 8 min 27 sec // Hurricane Season, Michelle Trujillo, 6:22 // The Story of The Cricket Queen, Natalie Peracchio, 3 min 57 sec // Ghost Protists, Sasha Waters, 4 min 27 sec // The Swirl Of The Shine Pierced, Rankin Renwick, 3 min // Resistance Meditation, Sara Wylie, 4 min 58 sec // The Teachers’ Sauna, Natasha Cantwell, 2 min 33 sec // bby influencer / síntesis del rosa, Antimemoria Colectivx, 7 min 19 sec // Uyghur Christmas song, Intizor Otaniyozova, 3 min 5 sec // Chance, Natasha Mabille, 7 min 40 sec // Komboloi, Krista Leigh Steinke, Meg Cook, Courtney Starrett, 7 min 12sec //

aDifferent Program 1 | invisible cities 5:00 PM | Friday, May 15th 2026 | Woodland Pattern To Be A Day, Eva Claus, 8 min // The Collector and the Tamer of the Wind, Hannah Papacek Harper, 9 min 50 sec // what does it feel like to live inside a pomegranate? Kamyar Mohsenin, 4 min 41 sec // End, Rita Casdia, 2 min 35 sec // The Stream XIV, Hiroya Sakurai, 8 min 17 sec // Dream Trio, Abigail Hendrix, 9 min // You Do Not Exist, Dwayne LeBlanc, 8 min // An Impression of Everything, Millefiore Clarkes, 5 min 23 sec

The countdown is almost over!!! aCinema | Season 10 kicks off tomorrow! Help us celebrate ten years and send off @woodlandpattern from Riverwest to their new home in Bay View! 6 Programs, 41 Films, 3 Days! All programs are free to attend with a give what you can donation option at the front desk. We can’t wait to share the films with you!

🌻 A Homecoming Farewell: A Weekend of Readings and Reunions in Riverwest 🌻 [Links in bio] ~~~ FRI. May 22 *HYBRID* In person & Online 7 pm CDT: 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. ~~~ SAT. May 23 *HYBRID* In person & Online 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. 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 pitymilk press for Pitymilk Presents: a History. To celebrate Woodland Patterns’ move from Riverwest, Pitymilk is excited to present an adjacent history - with performances, storytelling and archival footage of some of the moments that formed Pitymilk itself alongside founders Chelsea Tadeyeske and Edie Roberts. Small-Press Appreciation is an ongoing series celebrating publishers doing passionate and exemplary cultural work outside the mainstream. 5 pm CDT: Old School “Poetry Marathon” Potluck—Bring a dish, share a dish. 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. ~~~ SUN. May 24 *IN PERSON* and open to the public 2-5 pm CDT: 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! 👋💖👋

Hello! We're re-sharing this, since it got cropped in the last post 😅: ➕ Our new Milwaukee Youth Poet Laureate Jodie Jasim will have her debut (!) reading at the Partnership for the Arts + Humanities Showcase this Friday, May 15th, which will take place 4-7PM at the North Division Highschool. ➕ Two of our teaching artists—Jackie Valadez and Eloisa Gloria—will have a bookmark customization activity at the event. The bookmarks will feature poems by the students from Woodland Pattern's after-school Youth Literary Arts Program, Poetry Camp, and an excerpt from one of Jodie Jasim's poems. Join us for an amazing art-packed day! ~~~ An Iraqi-American poet, visual artist, and advocate, Jodie is rooted in passion. Jodie's poetry explores the intersection of her two conflicting identities: an Iraqi immigrant daughter and an American teenage girl. Jodie’s poetry flourished from her visual art practice. She wanted to express and expand her work but felt constrained by the typical artist statement. Through her poetic practice, she hopes to elicit empathy and allow others to understand the complexities of an Arab American identity. We are thrilled for Jodie and feel lucky to welcome her as Milwaukee’s fourth Youth Poet Laureate. ~~~ @jodiejasiim @elogloart #JackieValadez @milwaukeerecreation #milwaukee #youth #poet #laureate #showcase #debut

Join us in congratulating Jodie Jasim, who was just named the 2026-27 Milwaukee Youth Poet Laureate at our annual MYPL competition! 🥳🥳🥳 An Iraqi-American poet, visual artist, and advocate, Jodie is rooted in passion. Jodie's poetry explores the intersection of her two conflicting identities: an Iraqi immigrant daughter and an American teenage girl. Jodie’s poetry flourished from her visual art practice. She wanted to express and expand her work but felt constrained by the typical artist statement. Through her poetic practice, she hopes to elicit empathy and allow others to understand the complexities of an Arab American identity. We are thrilled for Jodie and feel lucky to welcome her as Milwaukee’s fourth Youth Poet Laureate. A big round of applause to our finalists, Niles Janzen and Mia Lucke, and their wondrous words! And a huge thank you to our Emcee and Milwaukee Poet Laureate Shelly Conley, and this year’s judges—Alea McHatten, Jackie Valadez, and John Contreras—for their attentiveness and care! Finally, thank you so much Angela Wang for your time and energy in growing the program! It has been wonderful to see your development as a poet and leader. Without your dedication, Jodie wouldn't have known about the opportunity MYPL provides. Thank you to all of our partners for supporting us in uplifting Milwaukee youth voices! ~~~ ➕ Our new MYPL will have her debut (!) reading at the Partnership for the Arts + Humanities Showcase this Friday, May 15th, which will take place 4-7PM at the North Division Highschool. For more information, please view the poster in the last slide. 😉 ➕ Two of our teaching artists—Jackie Valadez and Eloisa Gloria—will have a bookmark customization activity at the event. The bookmarks will feature poems by the students from Woodland Pattern's after-school Youth Literary Arts Program, Poetry Camp, and an excerpt from one of Josie Jasim's poems. Join us for an amazing art-packed day! ~~~ @jodiejasiim #NilesJanzen @mialucke713 @poeticworkinprogress @angelawang0826 #AleaMcHatten #JackieValadez @johncontreras36 @aantonioov @milwaukeepubliclibrary @milwaukeerecreation #milwaukee #youth #poet #laureate #showcase #debut

Stop through and show some support and Love to the three Milwaukee Youth Poet Laureate finalists. TODAY! #poetry #youthpoetlaureate #finals #milwaukeepoetlaureate

Welcome to our 🔎 More About 🔎 series and celebrate with us the small presses, authors, and books from our Small Press Subscription Program! Presenting, our third small press, author, and book from the June Bundle, which you can sign up for by May 15th: 📚 Radiator Press 📚 "Radiator Press is rooted in poetry of refusal and imagination. We publish books that make us think deeply about social conditions imposed by capitalism and the experiences and instances of solidarity that point toward better ways of life.” ✨ Gina Myers ✨ is the author of four books of poetry. She lives in Philadelphia where she co-edits the tiny with Ebs Sanders and Cul-de-sac of Blood with J †Johnson. Photo Credit: The "launch-party" image is by Jericho Jennifer Nelson, and the other photo is by James Blocker. ⛏ Works & Days (2025) ⛏ Ebs Sanders wonderfully describes the directness and power of this book in their endorsement: “Gina Myers’ Works & Days is a serial poem of rare and startling lucidity, its clarity of thought an antidote to shit capitalist conditions that keep people sick and dying.” Check out our full micro-interview with Gina in the comments below + Take a look at our full bundle through the link in our profile! ~~~ @gmyers25 @radiator_press #SmallPressPublishing #SmallPressSubscription #Poetry