event

Celebration of Saara Myrene Raappana

November 12 @ 8:00 pm – 9:00 pm EST

The Notebooks Collective invites you to an evening of poetry and remembrance hosted by Eric Doise, husband of late poet Saara Myrene Raappana. Eric will be joined by Lauren K. Carlson and Halley Cotton, all of whom will read from Saara’s collected work, Chamber After Chamber, which was awarded the Juniper Prize for Poetry. Saara was also the author of the chapbooks A Story of America Goes Walking (Shechem Press) and Milk Tooth, Levee, Fever (Dancing Girl Press).

A gifted poet and teacher, Saara left a legacy of not only powerful and award-winning poetry, but also as an educator, mental health pioneer and animal lover. Her great warmth, intelligence and kindness was evident to all who knew her and will be celebrated in this one-of-a-kind reading.

This event is free and all are welcome; we also invite you purchase her book. Please use the code CHAMBER at checkout to receive a 30% discount. A donor has offered to contribute $10 for every book purchased at a reading to her scholarship fund. If you already have her book, we also invite you to make a gift in her honor by donating to her scholarship fund.

This event is virtual. RSVP to receive the Zoom link.

Free

About the Readers

Lauren K. Carlson is the author of the chapbook Animals I Have Killed (Comstock Review Chapbook Prize 2018). Her work has recently appeared in Crab Creek Review, Salamander Magazine, Terrain, The Windhover and Waxwing. In 2021 she won the Levis Stipend from Friends of Writers for her full-length collection Steelhead (forthcoming 2025). Lauren currently serves as editor for Tinderbox Poetry Journal and holds an MFA in poetry from the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers.

Halley Cotton is the managing editor of the Birmingham Poetry Review, contributing editor for NELLE, and production manager for both publications. Her work has appeared in places such as The Greensboro Review, Poetry South, and Smokelong Quarterly, among others. Cotton teaches in the English department at UAB. When she’s not busy kayaking or finding four-leaf clovers, she’s studying folklore and writing/reading poetry.

Eric Doise is an associate professor of English at Southwest Minnesota State University. His work has appeared in The Routledge Companion to Literature and Trauma and journals including South Central Review, Extrapolation, and Film Criticism.

About Saara

Born and raised in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, Saara Myrene Raappana served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in southern China before moving to Southwest Minnesota. Her newest book, Chamber After Chamber, won the 2023 Juniper Prize and was nominated for the National Book Award. She also wrote the chapbooks A Story of America Goes Walking (in collaboration with artist Rebekah Wilkins-Pepiton, Shechem Press, 2016) and Milk Tooth, Levee, Fever (Dancing Girl Press, 2015). Her poem “Letter To My Teenaged Self: You Are a House, You Are a Hammer, You’re the Momentum of the Nail” was selected as a Best of the Net Winner by Kazim Ali. She received grants and scholarships from the Minnesota State Arts Board, the Southwest Minnesota Arts Council, and the Sewanee Writers’ Conference.

In Conversation: Leah Umansky & Melissa Fite Johnson

We welcomed poets Leah Umansky & Melissa Fite Johnson to The Notebooks Collective to celebrate their new books on May 14, 2024. They talked about their love of pop culture, forms, how they cultivate their writing practice, and more.

About Of Tyrant

“What does it mean to live in a country at war with itself–historically, spiritually, politically? Where does this sickness originate? In poems both personal and sweeping in scope, Umansky opens the door to all the possible answers, pointing outward but also in, to the twists and turns of our collective psyche.”

About Midlife Abecedarian

“Midlife Abecedarian is a nostalgic collection that takes the reader on a journey through time. It provides a template for a life well-lived, even if you’re only halfway through. Conjuring memories and a sense of satisfaction and comfort, Midlife Abecedarian is a map to things remembered and things best left forgotten.”

Watch the event below!

The Notebooks Reading: Video

On April 16, 2024, the Notebooks Collective held its first collective reading. We did so in honor of National Poetry Month and to celebrate the collective impact we can have when we work together. This reading will allow us to share the brilliant words of our collective while raising money for direct aid to Gaza. With the help of guests and readers, we raised $600 dollars to donate across three fundraisers. As the situation worsens, new ways to help are being added to the Operation Olive Branch spreadsheet. Please consider giving time or money to this urgent need.

Featuring!

The reading features the work of Quintin Collins, Sara Moore Wagner, Lisa Allen, Claire Schwartz, Sarah Ghazal Ali, Kathi Aguero, Jessica Johnson, Suzanne Frank, Anne-Marie Oomen, Meg Kearney, jason b crawford, M. Soledad Caballero, Marcia Karp, Eileen Cleary, Rebecca Kirk Connors, Karen Rigby & Jessica Cuello.

In Conversation: Trish Bogle & Shu Tu

From the Introduction:

This is new for us at The Notebooks Collective. We’ve never hosted an artist before. We’re doing so tonight because Shu and Trish have collaborated on an exhibit that’s currently on display at the Hamilton Grange Library in New York City. Titled In a Garden of Small Dreams, Art + Poetry in Conversation, the exhibit is a study in collaboration, concision, and compromise in the best possible way.

It’s also about the blossoming of a friendship that started with a shared love of, well, gardens. And art. And words and the worlds we can enter when we speak to each other through art, through poetry, through the beauty and shine of life, the fear and underbelly of the darkness we all sometimes feel.

As individual creatives, Trish and Shu are accomplished, focused, fiercely loyal to their respective crafts. As collaborators, they learned to speak yet another language, one in which they learned to listen to and see each other not just as friends, but as artists with something to say. Together, they said those things in a way they may not have have, had they not accepted an invitation from Isaac Sorell at Hamilton Grange Library to display their work as an ekphrastic exhibit. 

And this is why they’re here tonight: to talk about the genesis of this collaboration, how they worked together, what they learned from one another and how their friendship changed–or didn’t–through the process. 

In Conversation: Michael Kleber-Diggs & Danusha Laméris

November 7, 2023 @ 7:30 pm – 9:00 pm EST

Poets and essayists Michael Kleber-Diggs and Danusha Laméris will read from their collected works and discuss the writing life. Learn more about these poets in the bios below.

About Michael Kleber-Diggs

Michael Kleber-Diggs (KLEE-burr digs) (he / him / his) is currently writing a memoir about his complicated history with lap swimming called My Weight in Water (forthcoming with Spiegel & Grau). He is a 2023-2025 Jerome Hill Artist Fellow in Literature, a poet, essayist, literary critic, and arts educator. His debut poetry collection, Worldly Things (Milkweed Editions 2021), won the Max Ritvo Poetry Prize, the 2022 Hefner Heitz Kansas Book Award in Poetry, the 2022 Balcones Poetry Prize, and was a finalist for the 2022 Minnesota Book Award. Michael’s essay, “There Was a Tremendous Softness,” appears in A Darker Wilderness: Black Nature Writing from Soil to Stars, edited by Erin Sharkey (Milkweed Editions, 2023). His poems and essays appear in numerous journals and anthologies. Michael is married to Karen Kleber-Diggs, a tropical horticulturist and orchid specialist. They are proud of their daughter who recently graduated from SUNY Purchase with a BFA in Dance Performance with a Concentration in Composition.
Photo credit: Ayanna Muata

About Danusha Laméris

Danusha Laméris, a poet and essayist, was raised in Northern California, born to a Dutch father and Barbadian mother. Her first book, The Moons of August (2014), was chosen by Naomi Shihab Nye as the winner of the Autumn House Press Poetry Prize and was a finalist for the Milt Kessler Book Award. Some of her work has been published in: The Best American Poetry, The New York Times, Orion, The American Poetry Review, The Kenyon Review, Ploughshares, Poetry, and Prairie Schooner. Her second book, Bonfire Opera, (University of Pittsburgh Press, Pitt Poetry Series), was a finalist for the 2021 Paterson Poetry Award and recipient of the Northern California Book Award in Poetry. She was the 2018-2020 Poet Laureate of Santa Cruz County, California, and is currently on the faculty of Pacific University’s low residency MFA program. Her third book, Blade by Blade, is forthcoming from Copper Canyon Press.

In Conversation: Tricia Bogle & Shu Tu

September 12, 2023 @ 7:30 pm – 9:00 pm EDT

Poet Tricia Bogle and Artist Shu Tu will discuss their current ekphrastic exhibit, In a Garden of Small Dreams: Art + Poetry in Conversation, at the Hamilton Grange branch of the New York Public Library. Learn more about this poet and artist in the bios below. 

Free

About Shu Tu

Shu Tu has earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Parsons School of Design and studied fashion accessories at the Cordwainers, London College of Fashion. For over 25 years, she held positions as a creative director and leader in the advertising and beauty industries. In recent years, she has expanded her work as an artist. This journey has enabled her to produce deeply personal work that communicates her story through multiple mediums, including traditional and digital art, floral arrangement, ceramics, and metalsmithing.

Shu is currently residing in Upper Manhattan. You might often spot her in the company of her children, Ander and Percy, engaging in the silliest conversations and sharing the wildest laughter.

www.shutucreative.com | hello@shucreative.com | IG @beingshu2

About Tricia Bogle

Tricia Bogle (Trish) has called NYC home since 1991. She holds a BA in Creative Writing & Philosophy from Loyola Baltimore, and an MA and PhD (in Political Theory and Philosophy) from Fordham University. For over two decades, she taught advanced courses in Writing, Philosophy, Bioethics, Political Science, and Great Books at various institutions, including Montclair State University, Stevens Institute of Technology, Fordham University, and the Johns Hopkins University CTY program.

In recent years she has expanded her work as a poet, exploring many of the same themes through poetry that engaged her for decades as an academic philosopher. Trish currently lives and writes in Washington Heights, and can often be spotted in Highbridge Park, watching the sunrise over the Bronx while sipping café con leche and reading translations of Basho out loud to the trees.

boglepoetry@gmail.com | IG & Twitter @boglepoetry

In Conversation: Mark Turcotte & Suzanne Frank

August 15, 2023 @ 7:30 pm – 9:00 pm EDT

Poets Mark Turcotte and Suzanne Frank will read from their collected works and discuss the importance of friendship and community in the writing life. Learn more about these poets in the bios below.

Bonus: Each poet has graciously offered to gift one signed copy of their book to an attendee! Anyone who asks/chats a question during the Q&A segment of the program will be eligible to be randomly selected to receive either a signed copy of Exploding Chippewas by Mark Turcotte or Double Vision: Reflections on the Coastal Forest and the City We Love by Suzanne Frank and Angela Just.

Free

About Mark Turcotte

Writer Mark Turcotte (Turtle Mountain Band Anishinaabe) is author of four collections, including The Feathered Heart and Exploding Chippewas. His poetry and prose have appeared in TriQuarterly,
POETRY, Kenyon Review, Ploughshares, The Missouri Review and other journals, and is included in the first Norton Anthology of Native Nations poetry. He has been the recipient of awards from the Lannan Foundation and the Wisconsin Arts Board. He lives in Chicago where he is Distinguished Writer-In-Residence in the English Department at DePaul University.

About Suzanne Frank

Suzanne Frank has been writing and reading her poetry in Chicago for over 30 years. She has been a Chicago Poetry Slam team finalist, a two-time Puchcart Prize nominee, and her work has been published in many poetry journals and anthologies, including Sow’s Ear, Another Chicago Magazine, Stray Bullets, Power Lines, Appleseeds Anthology of Americana Poetry, Birds Thumb,
HAMMERS Magazine, and Arts Alive: A Literary Review.

She has featured in poetry venues across the city, from the infamous Green Mill Lounge to Printers Row Book Fair to the Guild Literary Complex where she directed and performed in the Women in Verse poetry cabaret.
She completed, with writer Angela Just, a residency at Shotpouch Cabin in the Oregon Coast Range, granted by Oregon State University’s Center for Ideas, Nature and the Written Word, which resulted in the publication of their chapbook of poems, prose and photographs, Double Vision (2019). Most recently, her collection of travel poems, All On the Same Blue Planet, was featured in Nowhere Magazine. Currently, Suzanne is finalizing a poetry collection, Woundwood, that gives voice to women whose lives were hijacked in the 1960s when flower children and free love collided with puritanical laws, unreliable birth control and backstreet abortions.

She has been writing with the Egg Money Poetry Collective for over 15 years.