Milkweed Presents: The (Near and Far) Future of Poetry with Chris Santiago

Join Milkweed Editions as we welcome Chris Santiago back to Minneapolis! He will be joined by poets and artists Kathryn Nuernberger, MC Hyland, & Rebecca Lehmann, and will talk broadly about pressures to (and possibilities for) poetry, everything from AI to changes in publishing and academic institutions to the new political climate for creative arts.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Chris Santiago’s debut collection Tula was selected by A. Van Jordan as the winner of the Lindquist & Vennum Poetry Prize and was a finalist for the Minnesota Book Award. His poems have appeared in Poetry Magazine, Copper Nickel, Conduit, The Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day, and American Public Media’s The Slowdown. His collaboration with composer Lembit Beecher and ethnographer Todd Lawrence, Say Home, was commissioned by the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and received its world premiere in 2019. A Loft Poetry Mentor and Fellow of the McKnight Foundation, the Mellon Foundation/ACLS, and Kundiman, he received his PhD from the University of Southern California and recently joined the Faculty of the School of Critical Studies at CalArts in Santa Clarita, CA. He lives in Pasadena.

Kathryn Nuernberger is the author of the poetry collections, RUE, The End of Pink and Rag & Bone. She has also written the essay collections The Witch of Eye and Brief Interviews with the Romantic Past. Her awards include the James Laughlin Prize from the Academy of American Poets, an NEA fellowship, and “notable” essays in the Best American series. She has received fellowships from the H. J. Andrews Research Forest, the Bakken Museum of Electricity in Life, and the American Antiquarian Society for her creative writing about science and the history of science. She is a University of Minnesota RIO Artist-in-Residence — inspired by Marlene Zuk’s research on the Pacific field cricket Teleogryllus oceanicus and its parasitic fly she is writing poems about cricket behaviors, songs, and the nature of togetherness. HELD: Essays in Aftermaths, a collection of flash essays about symbiotic mutualisms and ways of being together, will be published by Sarabande Books in November 2025.

MC Hyland is a poet, publisher, scholar, teacher, and public artist. Her poems and critical writings have been published in journals in the US, UK, Canada, and Australia. She has published two full-length books of poetry—THE END (Sidebrow, 2019) and NEVERAGAINLAND (Lowbrow/ H_NGM_N)—and a dozen poetry chapbooks and artist books. Her third book, a collection of short essays called The Dead the Living and the Bridge, is forthcoming from Meekling Press in April 2025. The founding editor of DoubleCross Press, she has taught and created programs at Minnesota Center for Book Arts and The Center for Book Arts in New York. Both through DoubleCross and independently, she’s produced small-edition handmade books and letterpress poetry broadsides. Her work has been supported by grants from NYU, the University of Alabama, the Mellon Foundation, the Minnesota State Arts Board, and Art Shanty Projects. She lives in St. Paul with her partner, Jeff and their kitty, Dakota.

Rebecca Lehmann is a poet and essayist. Her third book of poetry, The Sweating Sickness, just came out with the University of Pittsburgh Press. Her second book, Ringer, won the prestigious Donald Hall Prize in Poetry from the Association of Writers and Writing Programs and her first book, Between the Crackups, was published by Salt in 2011. Her poems and essays have been published and featured widely, including in Ploughshares, Tin House, Copper Nickel, The Iowa Review, The Georgia Review, The Missouri Review, “The Slowdown” with Tracy K. Smith and the New York Public Library’s “Poem in Your Pocket” program. She teaches at Saint Mary’s College in Notre Dame, IN.