“Well April snowstorms bring May?...” says Stan Kusunoki, co-host/curator of the Literary Bridges reading series.  “...May poets, of course! This month’s roster promises a wide-ranging, yet interconnected group of writers. It will be fun to chase all the threads of connection—in other words, a classic Literary Bridges!”

The roster includes:

Claire Wahmanholm is the author of Wilder (Milkweed Editions 2018), Redmouth (Tinderbox Editions 2019), and most recently, Meltwater (Milkweed Editions 2023). Her work has most recently appeared in, or is forthcoming from, Cream City Review, TriQuarterly, Sierra, Ninth Letter, Blackbird, Washington Square Review, Copper Nickel, and Beloit Poetry Journal. She was a 2020-2021 McKnight Writing Fellow, and her poem, "Glacier," won the 2022 Montreal International Poetry Prize.

Lynette Reini-Grandell is the author of Wild Things: A Trans Glam Punk Rock Love Story, (Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2023) and the poetry collections Wild Verge (Holy Cow! Press, 2018); Approaching the Gate (Holy Cow! Press, 2014), winner of the 2015 Northeastern Minnesota book award for poetry. She teaches English and creative writing at Normandale Community College and the Loft and has received support for her work from the Finlandia Foundation and the Minnesota State Arts Board. A multidisciplinary collaborator, she performs at spoken word venues with the Bosso Poetry Company and the jazz collective, Sonoglyph, and her poetry is part of a permanent installation at the Carlton Arms Art Hotel in Manhattan. She lives in Minneapolis on the ancestral homeland of the Dakota people.

Bryan Thao Worra presents internationally on science fiction poetry and the Southeast Asian diaspora. He has presented at the Singapore Writers Festival, the Smithsonian Asian American Literature Festival, the Library of Congress, the League of Minnesota Poets, Poets House, Kearny Street Workshop, the 2012 London Summer Games, and more. His newest collection is American Laodyssey (2023) from Sahtu Press as his community marks 50 years since the end of CIA Secret War in Laos.

Marion Gómez is a poet and teaching artist based in Minneapolis. She has been awarded grants from the Minnesota State Arts Board and the Loft Literary Center. Her work has appeared in La Bloga, Mizna, Waterstone Review, Saint Paul Almanac among others. She is a member of the Latinx spoken word collective Palabristas.

Moheb Soliman is an interdisciplinary poet from Egypt and the Midwest who's presented work at literary, art, and public spaces in the US, Canada, and abroad with support from the Joyce Foundation, Banff Centre, Minnesota State Arts Board, and diverse other institutions. He has degrees from The New School for Social Research and University of Toronto and lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he was Program Director for the Arab American lit and film organization Mizna before receiving a multi-year Tulsa Artist Fellowship and this year a Milkweed Editions fellowship. His debut poetry collection HOMES (Coffee House Press, 2021), explores nature, modernity, identity, belonging, and sublimity through the site of the Great Lakes bioregion / borderland. Moheb has been a finalist for the Minnesota Book Awards, Heartland Booksellers Award, and others, and was showcased in Ecotone's annual indie press shortlist and the Poets & Writers annual 10 debut poets feature. See more of his work at www.mohebsoliman.info.