Great River Reading Series: Michael Kleber-Diggs

On Oct. 19, poet Michael Kleber-Diggs will read from of his work at Winona State University. Kleber-Diggs will give a public reading at 5pm in Science Laboratory Center 120; he will also give a reading at 7pm in the K.E.A.P. Center space in Kryszko 162. Both events are free and open to the public. These events are sponsored by WSU’s John S. Lucas Great River Reading Series and by the Office of Equity and Inclusive Excellence.Kleber-Diggs is the author of Worldly Things, which was awarded the 2020 Max Ritvo Poetry Prize. His work is described as combining moments suffused with love—teaching his daughter how to drive; watching his grandmother bake a cake; waking beside his beloved to ponder trumpet mechanics—with moments of wrenching grief: a father’s life ended by a gun; mourning children draped around their mother’s waist; Freddie Gray’s death in police custody. With uncompromising candor, Kleber-Diggs documents the many ways America systemically fails those who call it home while also calling upon our collective potential for something better. “Let’s create folklore side-by-side,” he urges, asking us to aspire to a form of nurturing defined by tenderness, to a kind of community devoted to mutual prosperity. “All of us want,” after all, “our share of light, and just enough rainfall.”Kleber-Diggs was born and raised in Kansas and now lives in St. Paul, Minnesota. His work has appeared in Lit Hub, the Rumpus, Rain Taxi, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Water~Stone Review, Midway Review, North Dakota Quarterly and a few anthologies. He teaches poetry and creative non-fiction through the Minnesota Prison Writers Workshop.