KIMBERLY BLAESER, a former poet laureate of Wisconsin, is the founding director of Indigenous Nations Poets. Her six poetry collections include Ancient Light: Poems, a 2026 National Book Foundation Science + Literature title; Résister en dansant/Ikwe-niimi: Dancing Resistance; and Copper Yearning: Poems, winner of the Edna Meudt Poetry Book Award. Her most recent book, Red Ants: Stories (Counterpoint), was longlisted for the National Book Award. Other awards include the O. Henry Prize in fiction, the Writer for Writers Award from Poets & Writers, and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writers’ Circle of the Americas. Blaeser is Anishinaabe, an enrolled member of the White Earth Nation, who grew up on the reservation in northern Minnesota. She is an MFA faculty member at the Institute of American Indian Arts and a professor emerita at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Learn more at kblaeser.org.
