About the Event
Politics of Poetics is a series of readings and workshops that highlights influential contemporary poets whose practices traverse the political through writing, teaching, and activism. This fall, poet Heid E. Erdrich reads new work and selections from her award-winning book of poetry, Little Big Bully (2020) and Curator of Ephemera at the New Museum of Archaic Media (2017). Following the reading, Erdrich is joined in conversation with artist Andrea Carlson, whose work provides the cover art for Little Big Bully, and is the current artist in our Chicago Works series.
Later, Erdrich gives an intimate poetry workshop at the Center for Native Futures. Registration for the workshop is required; tickets are available through the Center for Native Futures.
ASL interpretation and English CART captioning are provided for the talk.
About the Speakers
Currently the inaugural Minneapolis Poet Laureate, Heid E. Erdrich is the author of numerous collections, including the forthcoming Boundless: Indigenous Abundance in Literature and Art, due out from Amherst University Press in 2025; Little Big Bully (Penguin, 2020); Curator of Ephemera at the New Museum for Archaic Media (Michigan State University Press, 2017) and four other collections. She has also edited New Poets of Native Nations (Graywolf Press, 2018). Erdrich has received two Minnesota Book Awards, as well as fellowships and awards from the Library of Congress, National Poetry Series, Native Arts and Cultures Foundation, Loft Literary Center, First People’s Fund, and others.
Erdrich has taught writing for decades, both as a professor and in community mentorships. She has visited dozens of colleges and universities, libraries, and tribal and cultural institutions as a guest speaker and teacher. Most recently, Erdrich served as the 2022 Elliston Writer-in-Residence for University of Cincinnati, and she taught a term in Native American and Indigenous Studies at Dartmouth College. Her keen interest in visual poetics and ekphrasis arises from her interdisciplinary art and curatorial work. Erdrich has produced short films and installations, and has curated dozens of exhibitions of Native American art.
Andrea Carlson is an artist based in northern Minnesota and Chicago. Carlson’s work includes multimedia artworks, works on paper, and public art projects, including a billboard project at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 2021. Recently, Carlson participated in the Toronto Biennial, completed a residency at the Joan Mitchell Center, and was selected as part of Prospect.6, an upcoming triennial organized by Prospect New Orleans. Carlson received a 2021 Chicago Artadia Award, a 2022 United States Artists Fellowship, and a 2024 Creative Capital Award. The artist’s writing has appeared in books such as Indigenous Futurisms (IAIA Museum of Contemporary Indian Arts, 2020) and Jaune Quick-to-See Smith: Memory Map (Whitney Museum of American Art, 2023), as well as in online publications such as e-flux Architecture. Carlson is a co-founder of the Center for Native Futures, an art space dedicated to the work of Native artists in Chicago.
Funding
Event
This program is made possible with funding from the Poetry Foundation. The Poetry Foundation recognizes the power of words to transform lives and works to amplify poetry and celebrate poets by fostering spaces for all to create, experience, and share poetry.
Exhibition
Lead support for Chicago Works | Andrea Carlson: Shimmer on Horizons is provided by R. H. Defares and the Zell Family Foundation.
Major support is provided by Charlotte R. Cramer Wagner and Herbert S. Wagner III of Wagner Foundation, and the Terra Foundation for American Art.
Generous support is provided by the Sandra and Jack Guthman Chicago Works Exhibition Fund.
Additional support is provided by Bockley Gallery, the Jessica Silverman Gallery, and D. Elizabeth Price and Lou Yecies.
This exhibition is supported by the MCA’s Women Artists Initiative, a philanthropic commitment to further equity across gender lines and promote the work and ideas of women artists.
Chicago Works | Andrea Carlson: Shimmer on Horizons is part of Art Design Chicago, a citywide collaboration initiated by the Terra Foundation for American Art that highlights the city’s artistic heritage and creative communities.
