Release for poet Stanley Kusunoki’s latest book Shelter in Place, with guest poets Bryan Thao Worra, Janna Knittel and Claudia Hampston Daly.
St. Paul poet, Stanley Kusunoki will read from his new collection of poems, SHELTER IN PLACE—Poems in a Time of COVID-19, at Eat My Words Books, 214 13 th Street NE, Minneapolis, 7:00 PM, Thursday September 30. “The book is really my journal of the COVID shutdown from the initial order from the Governor, to the soft opening in May of 2020”, says, author, Kusunoki. “It covers the frustrations of trying to teach online, to the day-to-day adjustments in life we all had to make.” Joining Kusunoki for the reading are fellow poets, Bryan Thao Worra, Janna Knittel and Claudia Hampston Daly.
Bryan Thao Worra is the Lao Minnesotan Poet Laureate. In 2017 he was appointed by the Governor of Minnesota to the Council on Asian Pacific Minnesotans. In 2012, he was selected as the Lao delegate to serve as a Cultural Olympian during the London Summer Games. He is president of the international Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association. With over 20 awards, his writing is cited in over nine international textbooks including the Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics and the Historical Dictionary of Asian American Literature and. Theater.
Janna Knittel lives in Minnesota but still calls the Pacific Northwest “home.” Janna has published a chapbook, Fish & Wild Life (Finishing Line Press, 2018) and has poems published or forthcoming in Between These Shores Literary and Arts Annual, Blueline, Cottonwood, Up North Lit, North Dakota Quarterly, Split Rock Review, Cold Mountain Review, Whale Road Review, The Wild Word, and Waters Deep: A Great Lakes Anthology. Recognition includes 2021 and 2019 grants from the Minnesota State Arts Board.
Claudia Daly has spent her work and life in and around broadcasting, writing and children’s issues She created important radio documentaries as an independent producer. Her The Lives of the Children and For Kids’ Sake! Radio series earned more than fifty national and international awards, including a Robert F. Kennedy Award, New York Festivals Gold citations, and four Gabriels from UNDA USA. Earlier, Claudia served as Associate Director for Radio for the William Benton Broadcast Project at the University of Chicago. Before that, she built and managed six Minnesota Public Radio stations. Lately she has focused on poetry and essay as her means of self-expression. She is currently organizing a manuscript of collected works with hope of fashioning a literary tale of her life.
Stanley Kusunoki is the author of three collections of poetry; 180 Days, Reflections and Observations of a Teacher, Items in the News, both published by North Star Press of St. Cloud, and Shelter in Place—Poems in a Time of COVID-19, (Polaris Press, an imprint of North Star Press). He has taught creative writing to young people through programs at The Loft, Asian American Renaissance, Intermedia Arts, and S.A.S.E., The Write Place. He was the recipient of a Loft "Asian Inroads" mentorship, and was awarded a MN State Arts board "Cultural Collaboration" grant to create, write and perform "Beringia-The Land Bridge Project" with Ojibwe performance poet, Jamison Mahto at Intermedia Arts. He is co-host/curator of the Literary Bridges reading series at Next Chapter Booksellers in St. Paul. Kusunoki most recently was the High Potential Coordinator at Red Oak Elementary School in Shakopee. He lives in St. Paul with his wife, Claudia Daly.