By SALINA POST
The 38th Salina Spring Poetry Series is not just an ordinary gathering of poets.
This year's series features a lineup of socially minded poets brought together by Kansas Poet Laureate Huascar Medina. Sponsored by Salina Arts & Humanities, the poetry series is scheduled for 7 p.m. Tuesdays in April in the courtyard of Homewood Suites, 115 E. Mulberry Street, and in the first-floor atrium of The Temple, 336 S. Santa Fe Avenue.
The reading are open to the public at no charge. A cash bar will be available for refreshmens at all the readings, Salina Arts & Humanities noted.
"It is exciting to have Kansas's Poet Laureate, Huascar Medina, curating this year's lineup," said Brad Anderson, executive director of Salina Arts & Humanities. "Salina Arts & Humanities greatly values the poetry series’ role over the last four decades, bringing a diverse collection of voices to the community."
Medina selected poets with a broad range of perspectives featuring experiences from working with incarcerated populations to human's relationship with soil and the prairie, according to information from Salina Arts & Humanities.
"Salina has a real gem in the Salina Spring Poetry Series," said Medina. "It's a long-standing poetry event in Kansas that continues to grow in popularity and notoriety. I'm honored to be a curator and humbled to be a part of this poetic tradition."
Following is information about this year's poets, as provided by Salina Arts & Humanities.
Bobby LeFebre
7 p.m. April 5, the courtyard at Homewood Suites, 115 E. Mulberry Street
Bobby LeFebre is an award-winning writer, performer, and cultural worker. He fuses a non-traditional multi-hyphenated professional identity to imagine new realities, empower communities, advance arts and culture, and serve as an agent of provocation, transformation, equity, and social change. LeFebre's work has appeared in The New York Times, Huffington Post, The Guardian, American Theater Magazine, NPR, and Poets.Org. In 2019, LeFebre was named Colorado's 8th Poet Laureate, making him the youngest and first person of color to be appointed to the position in its 100-year history. LeFebre holds a bachelor's degree in psychology from the Metropolitan University of Denver and a master's degree in art, literature, and culture from the University of Denver.
Michael Kleber-Diggs
7 p.m. April 12, the first-floor atrium at The Temple, 336 S. Santa Fe
Michael Kleber-Diggs is a poet, essayist, and literary critic. His debut poetry collection, Worldly Things (Milkweed Editions, 2021), won the Max Ritvo Poetry Prize. Among other places, Kleber-Diggs' writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Poem-a-Day, Poetry Daily, Poetry Northwest, Potomac Review, Hunger Mountain, Memorious, and various anthologies. Since 2016, Michael has been an instructor with the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop. He also teaches creative writing in Augsburg University's low-res MFA program and at Saint Paul Conservatory for Performing Artists. He was born and raised in Kansas and now lives in St. Paul, Minn.
Megan Kaminski
7 p.m. April 19, the courtyard at Homewood Suites, 115 E. Mulberry Street
Megan Kaminski is a poet and essayist and the author of three books of poetry, Gentlewomen (Noemi, 2020), Deep City (Noemi Press, 2015), and Desiring Map (Coconut Books, 2012). Prairie Divination, her forthcoming illustrated collection of essays + oracle deck with artist L. Ann Wheeler, turns to the prairie's plants, animals, and geological features as guides for living in good relation to each other, re-aligning thinking towards kinship, community, and interdependence. An associate professor in English at the University of Kansas, she specializes in poetry and poetics, plant studies, queer ecology, somatics, eco-arts practices, and the environmental humanities. Her work is informed by interdisciplinary research in social welfare, evolutionary biology, philosophy, and previous work in the healing arts and at non-profit environmental organizations.
Huascar Medina
7 p.m. April 26, the courtyard at Homewood Suites, 115 E. Mulberry Street
Huascar Medina is the current Poet Laureate of Kansas (2019-2022), Lit Editor for seveneightfive magazine, creator/host of Kansas is Lit on 785live.com, a staff editor at South Broadway Press, and a freelance writer. He's published two collections of poetry, Un Mango Grows in Kansas (2020) and How to Hang the Moon (2017). His words have appeared in The New York Times, Latino Book Review, Flint Hills Review, and elsewhere.