Putting poetry in its proper place: Lyons woman named poet laureate

By Jennifer Eisenbart

Editor

Somewhere along the line, Kimberly Blaeser explains, poetry got a bad rap.

“I feel that sometimes, when poetry’s presented in the classroom, it is presented with too many opportunities to be wrong,” Blaeser said. “Students will see poetry as difficult, as complicated.

“Instead of being taught in a way that encourages students to be excited about it, it’s presented as a complicated assembly of rules,” Blaeser added. “People become frightened, then, of poetry, and they think they don’t get poetry.”

Blaeser also knows that people miss how much poetry they already understand, mainly through music.

“Poetry’s more of a part of our lives than we realize,” she said.

Blaeser was recently named the Wisconsin Poet Laureate for 2015 and 2016. A resident of Lyons, Blaeser has been writing poetry since she was a child.

“Not to say it was good, but I’ve been writing that long,” Blaeser said.

Encouraged to apply

The poet laureate process calls for applications, submittal of work and curriculum vitae – the equivalent of a poet’s resume – with awards and publications.

Blaeser wasn’t going to apply, but people who knew her work kept “suggesting, asking, inviting me to fill out an application,” she said.

She was named one of four finalists, and came in for a panel interview as well as a performance of her work.

“They said it would be x amount of time, but later they told me they made the decision that day,” Blaeser said. “They didn’t announce it until Jan. 7.”

Blaeser, who was reading her poetry at an independent bookstore in Milwaukee had a member of the commission approach and ask to speak with her afterward.

“It was a really nice moment,” Blaeser said about finding out. “It was really sweet. But immediately after telling me, I was sworn to secrecy.”

The title given to Blaeser lasts for two years, during which time she will receive funding, marketing and other support from the Wisconsin Poet Laureate Commission. Blaeser receives a $2,000 stipend for each year, a weeklong residency at Shake Rag Alley – a center for the arts in Mineral Point – and a commemorative broadside print of her work.

University professor

In addition to all of that, Blaeser remains a professor at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, where she teaches creative writing and Native American literature and Native American writing.

Blaeser grew up on the White Earth Reservation in northwest Minnesota, a member of the Anishinaabe tribe. Her early experiences there – and her native roots – connect strongly to her writing.

“When I began writing about that, I felt a sort of compulsion,” Blaeser said. “It seemed as if many of the stories of Native American people were neither honored nor told.”

Blaeser said the people she had known had stories that needed to be shared.

“I also felt that part of my work was correcting misrepresentations,” she added. “I’m also engaged in resistance to injustice.”

Her most recent volume of poetry is titled, “Apprenticed to Justice,” and deals with people’s connections to both contemporary and history issues.

“In many ways, (it’s) calling people to action,” Blaeser said.

Living her words

Blaeser has stepped up as well. Her first foray into reading poetry may have been at Notre Dame University, but her real exposure came traveling with Winona LaDuke – a fellow Native American – to work raising funds for the White Earth Land Recovery Project.

Much of the reservation land, Blaeser said, has been tied up in court for years. LaDuke is working to buy back the land, and Blaeser found her start as a published poet during that process in the 1990s when someone heard her and wanted to publish a poem.

From there, the network has grown – and so has Blaeser’s repertoire. Her current project involves what she calls “picto-poems” – the combination of her poetry, her photography and the Native American tradition of pictographs.

“I’m inspired by that,” she said. “I have layers of image and text.”

Blaeser is married to Len Wardzala, and the couple have two children. She continues to use her maiden name, however.

“I have some investment in that family name,” she said.