
Poetry Day
Leader: Morgan Grace Willow
Date: May 16, 2026
Time: 10:00 am - 12:00 pm
Location: Bethlehem Lutheran Church – Commons Room
41st and Lyndale, Minneapolis
Morgan will do a retrospective reading, a sort of live-time selected and new gathering of poems highlighting work from different periods in her life as a poet. She will also share examples of her explorations into the book arts, including her artist book Collage for Mina Loy and Stitch by Stitch, the anthology which accompanied the Quilt, Not Quilt exhibition at Minnesota Center for Book Arts
Morgan has published poetry collections and chapbooks with titles such as Dodge & Scramble, Between, Silk, Oddly Enough, The Maps are Words, Arpeggio of Appetite, and Spinnerets. The journals and anthologies in which her poetry has appeared include: Ecopoetics; Resist Much/Obey Little; Queer Voices (Minnesota Historical Society Press); Water~Stone Review; Saint Paul Almanac; When We Become Weavers: Queer Female Poets on the Midwestern Experience; About Place Journal. Morgan’s creative nonfiction publications include “Riding Shotgun for Stanley Home Products” in Riding Shotgun: Women Write About Their Mothers (MHS/Borealis Books). Her essay “Signs of the Time” earned an honorable mention in the inaugural Judith Kitchen Prize in Water~Stone Review #14, and her lyric essay “(Un)Document(ing),” which appeared in Water~Stone Review #22, was nominated for a Pushcart prize. Her work has garnered awards from the Minnesota State Arts Board, the McKnight Foundation, the Jerome Foundation, and the Witter Bynner Foundation.
A student of the book arts, Morgan completed the core certificate program at Minnesota Center for Book Arts (MCBA) and exhibited her artist’s book Collage for Mina Loy in 2016. She collaborated with three other poets in composing and hand crafting the limited edition chapbook Stitch by Stitch which accompanied Quilt, Not Quit: The Afterlife, an exhibition at MCBA in 2018. Morgan’s collages have been published online in Concision Poetry Magazine as well as in print in Saint Paul Almanac, Volume 13.
Morgan serves as teaching artist with The Loft Literary Center as well as the COMPAS Artful Aging program. Currently, she is co-editing the anthology Nick of Time: Women Write about Art & Aging, forthcoming from the University of Minnesota Press in fall 2026.

