Minnesota Prairie Roots

UNITED WE READ at Content Bookstore in Northfield. Earlier this evening six Rice County poets, including me, shared our poetry. Not just any poetry, but poems we’ve penned mostly themed to what’s unfolded in America with immigration enforcement, the war in Iran, threats to our democracy…

Anger. Frustration. Hope. Truth. Passion. Those topics threaded through poems by Northfield poets Becky Boling. D.E. (Doug) Green, Rob Hardy and Dougie Padilla and Faribault poets Larry Gavin and me. I read two poems on-topic and two off.

It was an honor to be in the presence of such fine creatives who use the power of their words to raise their voices. I encourage you to listen to a recording of the event on the Content Bookstore Facebook page by clicking here.

I am grateful to this independent bookstore for supporting writers not only through the sale of books, but also through readings. Listening to a poet read adds a depth to a poem that you don’t get simply by reading it in print. Emotion, word emphasis, volume and more factor into that.

To the attentive and appreciative audience, thank you for coming out on a Thursday evening to listen, to encourage the six of us in our poetry and to support your local independent bookstore.

United we write. United we read. United we raise our voices.

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FYI: Many of the poems read this evening were published by Shipwreckt Books in Lost Lake Folk Opera, Volume 10, Winter of ICE with the subtitle of A Literary Struggle to Preserve Our Democratic Republic. Other poems published in Content Bookstore’s chapbook, Words to Meet the Moment: Poetry Against Fascism. Both are available for purchase at the bookstore.

© Copyright 2026 Audrey Kletscher Helbling