Upcoming Events

An Evening of poetry with Ethna McKeirnan & Local Poet Tom Murtha

Join us for an evening of poetry with the award winning poet Ethna McKniernan. McKiernan has been twice awarded a Minnesota State Arts Board grant in poetry, most recently in 2011 for the completion of Sky Thick With Fireflies.  McKiernan’s first book Caravan was a Minnesota Book Award Nominee. Of her second book, The One Who Swears You Can’t Start Over, The Bloomsbury Review wrote, “McKiernan seems to write because she has to, and graces her verse with resonance because she can.  She stands out among the ranks of poets for her ability to match language to subject, sound to sense.”

Ethna's latest book Swimming With Shadows returns to her earlier themes of loss --of her youngest son, of her father,  and of the pervasive losses of the homeless population with whom she works. This new collection also addresses political wounds of a bygone America--the bombings of school girls in Alabama the 1960's and the racially charged beating of Rodney King in the 1990's—as it presents poems that address the conflicts of today.  Interspersed are poems of love, praise and joy like “Thanks” and “Night Time on the Island,” poems rooted in the natural world, as well as some wickedly funny poems about the craft of poetry.

Joining Ethna this evening will be one of our store's dear friends and a local poet, Tom Murtha. Tom has been working with Ethna for some time now and will be sharing a few of his own poems.

This event is free and open to the public and we will have copies of Ethna's latest book available for purchase.