WINONA POET JAMES ARMSTRONG READS FROM HIS NEWEST COLLECTION, EMPIRE

James Armstrong will read from his latest book of poems, Empire.  Wisconsin Poet Laureate Kimberly Blaeser has said of Empire that it “lays bare truths of our oldest plagues” while also offering “poems of beauty and brash love for the planet’s smallest gifts.”  Albert Goldbarth, two-time winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award and author of 40 books, calls Armstrong’s poems “photographically exact and wildly imaginative at once,” and praises their “ability to compact large-scale ideas” in deft phrases, adding “These are tomorrow’s adages in the making.” Michael Kleber-Diggs, author of Worldly Things and winner of Milkweed’s Max Ritvo Poetry Prize, writes that “Empire is expertly crafted by a skilled and brilliant hand. James Armstrong sees the current and historical landscape fully and well, the natural climate and the national one.” 

Armstrong was named Winona’s first Poet Laureate in 2004.  During that time he worked to bring poetry to local schools and organizations.  One of his lasting contributions has been the founding of the Maria W. Faust Sonnet contest, a project which began as a local venture with the Great River Shakespeare Company and has grown into an international contest with entrees from all around the world.  Armstrong is the author of two previous poetry collections, Monument in a Summer Hat (New Issues Press) and Blue Lash (Milkweed Editions).  Poems from his term as Poet Laureate are included in the anthology Crossings: An Anthology of the Poets Laureate of Winona, Minnesota (Shipwreckt Books).

Armstrong taught poetry and creative writing for 24 years Winona State University’s English Department. 

BIO

James Armstrong is the author of three poetry books: Monument in a Summer Hat (New Issues Press), Blue Lash (Milkweed Editions) and, most recently, Empire (Shipwreckt Books).  He is also the co-author with Kim Chapman of a book of essays, Nature, Culture and Two Friends Talking (North Star Press). His work has appeared in many journals and anthologies, including Where Once Voice Ends Another Begins: 150 Years of Minnesota Poetry; Undocumented: Great Lakes Poets Laureate on Social Justice; Amethyst and Agate: Poems of Lake Superior; Rewilding: Poems for the Environment; and The Wonder of Small Things: Poems of Peace and Renewal.  A Professor of English at Winona State University for 24 years, Armstrong was the city of Winona’s first Poet Laureate, during which time he helped found the Maria W. Faust Sonnet Contest (http://sonnetcontest.org/).  You can read more about him at https://jamesarmstrongpoet.com/