“This month is National Poetry Month,” says Stan Kusunoki, co-host/curator of the Literary Bridges Reading Series. “And no better way to celebrate than with a roster of fabulous writers—this will be a classic Literary Bridges reading!”

The roster includes:

Diane Jarvenpa is the author of The Way She Told her Story, The Tender Wild Things, Divining the Landscape, swift, bright, drift and Ancient Wonders, The Modern World . Her new book, Shy Lands  has been published by Blue Light Press. She has received The Midwest Independent Publishers Association Award. She is a teaching artist with the Alzheimer’s Poetry Project MN and St Paul’s East Side Arts Council. As a singer-songwriter performing under the name Diane Jarvi she has received a McKnight MacPhail performing fellowship and awarded a Minnesota Arts and Cultural Fund grant.

Dralandra Larkins she/her/hers is a spoken word artist, healer, and community leader based in the Twin Cities, MN. She began writing poetry at just 10 years old, being influenced by historical figures and the soulful sounds of R&B. By age 14, she began performing at venues across the city, including competing in poetry slam competitions. Through creative arts, her mission is to cultivate a space that leads to radical self-love, liberation, and healing! To support her work, visit her social media @Dralandra22 for the debut release of her blog, "Revealing is Healing" in December 2022.

Lora Robinson is a poet, photographer and public health nursing student from Salisbury, Maryland. She is a poetry reader for Cobra Milk and an alumni of Art Farm Nebraska. Her work has appeared in The Meadow, The Shore, The West Review, Superfroot, Hooligan, and San Pedro River Review, among others. In her spare time, you can find her hiking, fly-fishing, plant shopping, singing to her two cats, and reading. Her first book, An Essential Melancholy, is available now through akinoga press.

John Medeiros is a memoirist, poet, editor, and lawyer. His memoir, Self, Divided (Howling Bird Press) is the winner of the Howling Bird Press Nonfiction Prize. It was selected as a Finalist for a 2022 Minnesota Book Award in the Memoir and Creative Nonfiction category, and won Honorable Mention for the 2021 Forward INDIES Book of the Year Award. An excerpt of the memoir has been named a Notable Essay by Best American Essays and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He is also the winner of the Gulf Coast Prize for Nonfiction and the Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP) Intro Journals Award. He has been a Finalist for numerous literary awards, including the Loft/McKnight Literary Prize, Saturnalia Books Poetry Prize, Sport Literate Nonfiction Prize, and the Brenda Ueland Prize for Nonfiction.
Formerly a Writer-in-Residence for the Banfill-Locke Center for the Arts and co-curator of the Queer Voices Reading Series of Intermedia Arts for twelve years, John is the recipient of two Minnesota State Arts Board grants (one for poetry and one for creative nonfiction) and he has served as a literary judge for both the Minnesota State Arts Board and the Jerome Foundation.
He holds a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing, and his work is published in literary journals throughout the United States.
 
Michael Moos has published four poetry books, most recently, The Idea of the Garden (winner of the Richard Snyder Poetry Prize, Ashland Poetry Press).  His new poems have appeared in Great River Review, Atlanta Review, Midwest Quarterly, Cottonwood, Briar Cliff Review, Notre Dame Review, and A 21st Century Plague: Poetry from a Pandemic.  He’s been a poet-in-residence for The Academy of American Poets and has an M.F.A. from Columbia University.  He has received poetry awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, Minnesota State Arts Board, and The Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis.  He lives in St. Paul, MN.