Heid Erdrich hit the ground running as the city of Minneapolis’ first ever Poet Laureate at the start of 2024. She began the year by reading a poem to the Minneapolis City Council, followed by a public celebration at the Loft Literary Center back in January. Since then, Erdrich, author of seven poetry collections, has had a visible presence in the city reading her work, visiting with communities, presenting at Minneapolis’s State of the City event and also being active in public conversation.
Now, the poet, curator, and educator will be taking things up a notch, thanks to a fellowship from the Academy of American Poets (AAP). She’s one of 22 2024 poet laureate fellows who is receiving the award, which includes a $50,000 fellowship. With the support from AAP, Erdrich is launching phase 2 of her poet laureate project, which she calls Poetry Service Announcement. Find out more about it in this Q and A with the poet.
The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Sheila Regan: What is it like to be a poet laureate?
Heid Erdrich: So far, I’ve just grown in my appreciation for the city. It’s been really a pleasure, and it has had responsibilities and it’s a chance for me to grow connections to communities. I find it just a wonderful position. It’s just so damn fun.
SR: What’s your favorite thing that has come out of this so far?
HE: I think the project that I did to begin with, which was just listening to other poets and getting a sense of what poetry means in various communities in Minneapolis has been super rewarding. I’ve been able to go to places I haven’t been in the city for a while. I’ve been able to learn about new poets. I’ve been able to conceive of the second phase of the project, which is to bring poets into places in Minneapolis to write about place, learn about Indigenous histories and presence in place, and then to take that out toward public art and poetry combined.
SR: Why is it so important for poets to write about a sense of place for community?
HE: I think that people forget that there’s a physical aspect to their communities. I think we think of it as social or political, but when it gets down to it, a city, and especially places like Minneapolis, is really dependent on the water, the land, the rocks, the way we see the sky, the places we feel free and comfortable to walk, the places we can gather. I really want to remind people of what Minneapolis physically is, and how that has been meaningful since the Dakota came from this place.
SR: Can you tell me about relationship building or interactions or experiences you’ve had in your time as a poet laureate with other poet laureates?
HE: It’s kind of like becoming part of a club, and then you look around and you’re like, oh, there are other poet laureates. There’s state poet laureates, there’s city poet laureates. And to begin to connect with those folks has been really fun. Some people I’ve known for a while, like Gwen Westerman, the Minnesota poet laureate. I was really happy to be able to have some conversations with her. We were able to draw Indigenous poets laureates from Wisconsin and Minnesota, and elsewhere to have a conversation at the Loft this June when the Indigenous Nations Poets were in town and compare what we have done with the poet laureate position and how we have grown and shared with the communities.
It sort of gives you, as a poet, a public artist recognition, and it just makes your job a little different from being simply a literary poet. You become more of a civic poet and more of a public poet.
SR: What do you think the difference is artistically?
HE: I don’t know if it’s artistically different for everybody, but for me, I felt a sense of audience I really wanted to speak to about Minneapolis. I wanted to speak with other voices. I’ve been building two poems while I’ve been doing this. One is “Minneapolis – Love Letter in Four Seasons” that’s really addressed to the city and to the city council, in particular. I launched with a draft of “Winter” at the opening of the City Council in January. I’ve also been building a crowd sourced poem where many politicians answer some questions for me, and those answers become part of a poem that I’m building.
SR: And can you tell me a little bit more about phase two and what it’s going to entail?
HE: The poet laureate fellowship from the Academy of American Poets allows us to spend up to $15,000 on a project. The project that I built is called Poetry Service Announcement, or PoeSA for short. I’m commissioning a number of poets and asking them to convene with me in places that are our lakes, rivers and gathering places in Minneapolis, to think about the Indigenous history and presence of those places. Then out of that, they will write a commissioned poem, and we will give presentations and readings in places that are important in Minneapolis in the four directions. We’ll have work in the north, northeast, south, southwest, and we have that sort of connection to all that landscape, the landscape that is our home.
SR: Have you already chosen the locations and poets, or is that part of the process?
HE: It’s part of the process. I’ve invited 16 poets, and I’m finding out who’s available. The timeframe is pretty short because I’m only the 2024 poet, and I will be finishing most of this work in 2024 culminating with an event at the Minneapolis American Indian Center in December for the City Council. And I will also have another event in March of 2025, at the Loft. So that’s all planned. And I’m working with you Minneapolis parks, working with organizations and businesses to host and present opportunities for me to gather poets and convene them right in the landscape.
SR: Anything you might want to share that’s going on with your career that’s not necessarily related to the poet laureate work?
HE: I’m going to have a mixed genre [chapter] book out by the end of the year— that’s my hope. And I am also working toward another book of poetry that’s hopefully coming out in 2027.
SR: Anything else you want to share that you’re excited about?
HE: I’m just really deeply gratified and thrilled to see how many poets there are coming about out of the communities that I was really interested in learning about, and those include BIPOC poets and particularly Indigenous poets, youth and elders, as well as poets who are just as impacted or experiencing the housing crisis in Minneapolis. There are just so many new voices and so many establishing voices. It’s just completely a wealth of poets in Minneapolis.
SR: You seem to be so community-oriented— as a mentor, as a curator, in my observation.
HE: Community fuels me. I don’t want to do anything alone. I love going into a situation with other Native women, especially the Asiginaak singers, the ladies hand drum group out of the Division of Indian work, have been coming to events with me, and I feel like it’s not just about me, so why should I show up alone?
Sheila Regan
Sheila Regan is a Twin Cities-based arts journalist. She writes MinnPost’s twice-weekly Artscape column. She can be reached at [email protected].