Kimberly Blaeser at Western Oregon University
On May 16, 2024, Kimberly Blaeser read and discussed her work to a standing-room-only audience in WOU’s Willamette Room, where she was introduced by university president, Jesse Peters. Dr. Peters remarked on how the poet’s “life and work have affected me deeply.” As a professor of Native American literature, Peters worked with Blaeser and other Anishinaabe writers, including Gordon Henry, on projects such as Crow Commons. President Peters read an excerpt from Blaeser’s 2007 collection, Apprenticed to Justice—“A book I love and have taught many times.”
Accompanied by projections of her own photos and graphics, the poet read, told stories, spoke about her life and work, and raised urgent environmental, social, and political concerns in the context of Native American and collective global activism.
Professor Blaeser also visited Henry Hughes’ American Literature class at WOU, reading from her newest collection, Ancient Light, and discussing the forces that shape her writing, photography and her efforts to “defend the dignity of people and create better relationships with nature.” Blaeser shared stories about growing up on the White Earth Reservation in northwest Minnesota and voiced her concerns about continued discrimination and the challenges faced by Native Americans, women, and people of color throughout the country.
Aleta Debolt, a senior in English at WOU, told Write Place: “I was so moved by Kim Blaeser’s poems, how her language lets us enter and better understand the lives of people we may not know—but should know. She has a right to be angry about the abuse and indignity her people have suffered, but there’s also great hope in her work. She shines.”
The Reading
The Q&A Session
Kimberly Blaeser (center) celebrates poetry with WOU students (right to left) Jasper Beck, Sophie Borgstahl, Madison Wang, Fontelle Witten, Daryn Heim and Kady Taylor. The reception took place at the Monmouth, Oregon home of Chloe and Henry Hughes.
About Kimberly Blaeser
An Anishinaabe writer, scholar, activist, photographer and environmentalist enrolled at White Earth Nation in northwestern Minnesota, Kimberly Blaeser is the founding director of Indigenous Nations Poets, a professor emerita at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and MFA faculty at the Institute of American Indian Arts. A past Wisconsin Poet Laureate, she is the author of six poetry collections, including Ancient Light, published this year by the University of Arizona Press. Dr. Blaeser holds this year’s Mackey Chair in Creative Writing at Beloit College and is a Tatlock Fellow at Vassar College. She is the recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writers’ Circle of the Americas.
