On October 8, the East Grand Forks Campbell library will host Verse Junction: An Evening of Poetry and Music beginning at 6:30pm. Verse Junction will feature readings by members of two Upper Midwest poetry collectives, The Poetry Bus (Twin Cities/Central MN) and Prairie Sea Flotilla (Grand Forks/East Grand Forks). The event will also feature a musical interlude by Grand Forks cellist Naomi Welsh. 

The Poetry Bus is a group of four poets from the Twin Cities and central Minnesota. Poetry is their vehicle for communicating the sorrow and the sweet of ordinary lives. Since 2024, they have traveled to communities across the state offering free public readings in formal and informal places. Traveling on the bus to East Grand Forks will be Sara Dovre Wudali, Athena Kildegaard, and Michael Kleber-Diggs. Kleber-Diggs is the author of Wordly Things (Milkweed Editions, 2021), winner of the Max Ritvo Poetry Prize and the Poetry Center Book Award. Kildegaard is the author of six books of poetry, most recently Prairie Midden (Tinderbox Editions, 2022), which won the 2023 WILLA Literary Award for poetry. Wudali is a mentor with the Minnesota Prison Writers Workshop and the poet-in-residence at Café Marguerite in Minneapolis. 

Poetry Sea Flotilla is a local editorial collective and micropress. They create limited-run handmade books using a combination of digital and letterpress printing technologies. Floating over to the library on the 8th will be Casey Fuller, Matt Bruflodt, Shilo Previti, Grant McMillan, and Brendan Stermer. 

Light refreshments will be served, and books will be available for sale.