MINNESOTANS ARE KNOWN for their generosity. And once again they showed up big time to support those affected by federal immigration enforcement in our state.
I photographed this sandwich board outside Content Bookstore in mid-February. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo February 2026)
At Content Bookstore in nearby Northfield, around $3,000 was donated to the two organizations. I was among the donors and among the many Content shoppers who visited with Allen Eskens, a writer of thrillers and mysteries from St. Peter, and Mary Bleckwehl, a Northfield children’s book author.
I got a free copy of this book for donating to one of the selected nonprofits. (Book cover sourced online)
Nearly 60 writers participated statewide in Authors for Minnesota Day, giving of their time and also giving away selected books to those who gave to the two recipient nonprofits. I snagged a soft-cover copy of Bleckwehl’s Arrrgh! Me Hate to Wait! Eskens had already given away his supply of free books by the time I arrived in mid-afternoon.
This event was about more than helping two deserving nonprofits focused on helping immigrants in Minnesota. This was also about supporting independent bookstores and Minnesota writers. Content Bookstore buzzed with shoppers browsing shelves, buying books and even standing in line to chat with Eskens and Bleckwehl.
To see this level of interest and support was encouraging, but not surprising. Minnesota has repeatedly proven, in the past few months especially, that it cares about and looks out for its neighbors.
Lourey, co-organizer with author Kristi Belcamino, posted on Facebook: “I was in tears several times throughout the day seeing how many people in our community want to support small businesses and immigrant rights. Thank you to all the bookstores and authors who participated, and to everyone who showed up—we got to see the best of Minnesota today.”
Mark Heiman designed the book cover. (Image sourced online)
IN A SLIM VOLUME of poetry collected by a small town Minnesota independent bookstore and printed by a small town printer, 22 area poets raise their voices in response to the massive immigration enforcement efforts in Minnesota. The result is 26 powerful, empowering, strongly-worded poems that hold back nothing.
These poets unleash their fury, their fears, their frustrations, layers of intense emotions. “Let every poem be a witness,” writes my friend and former Northfield Poet Laureate Rob Hardy in his poem, “A Witness.” He writes that in the context of the fatal shooting of mother and poet, Renee Nicole Good, by a federal immigration agent on the streets of Minneapolis on January 7.
The poets and their poems plus an intro by Lindsay Ness, co-owner of The Grand Event Center. She introduced a “Words to Meet the Moment: Poets Against Fascism” poetry reading which preceded publication of this chapbook. If you find the title of a poem offensive, read the poem and you will understand the title. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo February 2026)
Two poems, “Last Words” by Susan Jaret McKinstry and “I’m Not Mad at You” by Marie Gery, quote Renee Good’s final words—”I’m not mad at you”—spoken to a federal immigration agent right before her fatal shooting.
The words within these 26 poems reflect not only individual poets’ thoughts but also a collective community reaction to ICE in Minnesota. Themes of anger, fear, unity, dignity, hope and light run throughout this poetry.
Colorful merchandise inside Mercado Local in Northfield, where I met Mar Valdecantos and read poetry with Becky Boling and D.E. Green. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo)
I especially appreciate the writing of two immigrants, including my friend Mar Valdecantos, who came to the U.S. from Spain many years ago. She uses humor to make a point, stating that perhaps she should cover her dark hair with a blonde wig. That would allow her to semi hide her ethnicity and allow her to feel safer while out and about in the community. Safe against racial profiling, used freely by immigration agents to stop people of color in Minnesota.
Latino immigrant Heriberto Rosas, in “Minnesota es un lugar de contrastes,” writes of whence and why he came to America, the challenges he and other immigrants have faced, and the hope and gratitude they hold. It’s an especially revealing poem written in Spanish and translated into English on the opposite page.
My poet friend D.E. (Doug) Green also writes “hope” into his poem, “A Bridge Too Far,” as he references the Civil Rights Movement and the bridge crossed, literally, “in the face of violence, cruelty and terrible hatred.” A bridge which must once again be crossed.
I picked up my copy of the chapbook at Content Bookstore after a morning of protesting in Faribault, thus the flat hair. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo by Randy Helbling)
These poems are raw, relentless, sometimes raging in content. That includes my “Fiery Resistance” and “Death of a Poet.” Words hold power. “We the people have a job to do,” writes Orick Peterson in “ICE Prowls Our Streets.” He asks us to muster our courage against the bullies, take on our neighbors’ fears, lean into each other.
Steve McCown, who died unexpectedly on the day he was to read his original poem, “Ice and Fire,” at a “Words to Meet the Moment: Poetry Against Fascism” event on January 18 in Northfield, summarizes everything well in the final line of his poem: “We can build a fire on ice.” Let me repeat his final line, with emphasis: “We can build a fire on ice.”
FYI: The 42-page chapbook, Words to Meet the Moment: Poetry Against Fascism, is for sale only at Content Bookstore in Northfield. Cost is $10. The bookstore will ship domestically at a cost of $4.99, the media mail book rate, with an additional $1 charge for each book ordered.
Content Bookstore published the chapbook with printing By All Means Graphics. The original print run is 300 books. Once expenses are paid, proceeds from sale of the chapbook will go to the Northfield Community Action Center.
THE MINNESOTA WRITING COMMUNITY has always impressed me as talented, prolific and generously giving.
Now add united activism to that list as 50-plus Minnesota authors join from noon to 4 p.m. Saturday, February 28, in an Authors for Minnesota Day event at 24 independent bookstores across the state. Their efforts focus on “A Day of Books, Community, and Support for Immigrant Rights.”
I could not be more proud of these writers and booksellers who are publicly raising awareness of the challenges our immigrant neighbors, our communities and small businesses (including indie bookstores) have faced, and continue to face, in the wake of massive federal immigration enforcement throughout Minnesota.
These authors and bookstore owners are taking their support to the next step—action. Anyone who makes an on-site donation to the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota and/or the Women’s Foundation of Minnesota Immigration Rapid Response Fund on Saturday will get a free, signed copy of a participating author’s book, while supplies last. (See online donation options at the end of this post.)
Bestselling mystery writer William Kent Krueger will be at Once Upon a Crime bookstore in Minneapolis along with Allan Evans and Patrick Barb. (Graphic sourced online)
Saturday it will be all about community and supporting community as book lovers meet with authors in bookshops across Minnesota. While most host sites are located in the metro, three are in greater Minnesota—Drury Lane Books in Grand Marais, in the far northeastern corner of Minnesota; Hey Darling in Austin near the Iowa border; and then Content Bookstore in Northfield, south of the metro and a 20-minute drive from my home.
(Book cover sourced online)
Bestselling mystery and thriller author Allen Eskens of nearby St. Peter, and one of my favorite Minnesota writers, will be at Content Bookstore signing his latest novel, The Quiet Librarian, now out in paperback. Northfield writer Mary Bleckwehl will also be at Content with her children’s picture book, ARRRGH! Me Have to Wait.
Signage on Content Bookstore along Division Street in downtown Northfield. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo February 2026)
Here’s a complete list of independent bookstores hosting Authors for Minnesota Day from noon to 4 p.m. Saturday: Avant Garden (Anoka), Big Hill Books (Minneapolis), Birchbark Books (Minneapolis), Black Garnet Books (St. Paul), Comma, a Bookshop (Minneapolis), Content Bookstore (Northfield), Cream & Amber (Hopkins), Drury Lane Books (Grand Marais), The Enchanted Quill (North Branch), Excelsior Bay Books (Excelsior), Hey Darling (Austin), Inkwell Booksellers (Minneapolis), Irreverent Bookworm (Minneapolis), Lake Country Booksellers (White Bear Lake), Moon Palace (Minneapolis), Next Chapter Booksellers (St. Paul), Niche Books (Lakeville), Once Upon a Crime (Minneapolis), Red Balloon (St. Paul), Scout and Morgan (Cambridge), Subtext (St. Paul), Tropes and Trifles (Minneapolis), Valley Bookseller (Stillwater), and Well Read Books (Elk River).
“Words to Meet the Moment,” published by Content Bookstore, Northfield, Minnesota, and printed by Northfield-based By All Means Graphics.(Book cover designed by Mark Heiman)
POETRY HOLDS POWER. And perhaps no time has that been more evident in Minnesota than during the massive federal immigration enforcement, Operation Metro Surge.
In January, poets from my area of southern Minnesota gathered to read original poetry at a “Words to Meet the Moment: Poetry Against Fascism” event in Northfield. I was in Wisconsin, unable to attend. But a poet friend, Becky Boling, read my two poems, “Death of a Poet” and “Fiery Resistance.”
T-shirts for sale at Content Bookstore. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo February 2026)
Now those two poems and others read at The Grand Event Center in January have been printed in a chapbook, Words to Meet the Moment, published by Content Bookstore. That’s an independent, socially-conscious bookshop in the heart of historic downtown Northfield. Once printing costs have been covered, all proceeds from chapbook sales will be donated to the Northfield Community Action Center, a nonprofit serving the community.
The work of 20 poets, some of whom I know personally (and have read poetry with) or whom I’ve heard read, are printed therein. These are gifted poets, many with their own published collections of poetry. Several were previous poet laureates in Northfield.
I picked up this zine when I was recently at Content Bookstore. It includes three poems, “Ice and Fire” by Steve McCown, “Last Words for Renee Nicole Good” by Susan Jaret McKinstry and “A Witness” by Rob Hardy. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo February 2026)
All of us wrote in response to ICE’s presence in Minnesota and/or in reaction to the fatal shooting of Renee Good by a federal immigration agent on January 7. This was prior to the second fatal shooting, that of Alex Pretti, by ICE agents. Good was a poet, which makes this new chapbook especially meaningful.
Whether you like poetry or not, this is one collection you should read to better understand how we as Minnesotans, we as poets, have been feeling these past few months. Poetry holds power. It is a way to raise our voices against injustice, a way to express our thoughts, our feelings. A way to make a difference. A way to meet the moment.
FYI:To pre-order/order Words to Meet the Moment: Poetry Against Fascism, click here. The chapbook is priced at $10. Content Bookstore will ship the chapbook domestically for an additional cost of $4.99, the media mail book rate, plus an additional $1 per book shipped. Only one printing is planned, unless the chapbook sells quickly. Books will also be available for purchase in the store.
Northfield, typically a welcoming community, has not welcomed ICE as seen in this sign downtown. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo February 2026)
THE DAY AFTER BORDER CZAR (anyone dislike that title as much as me?) Tom Homan announced a draw-down of federal immigration agents in Minnesota, I’m feeling, as Governor Tim Walz said, “cautiously optimistic.” Recent history has proven that we can’t necessarily believe or trust what federal government officials tell us. But I’m trying to be hopeful.
T-shirts for sale at Content Bookstore in Northfield. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo February 2026)
For more than two months, 3,000 immigration enforcement agents have been working in Minnesota. And if anyone still believes that they are/were doing only targeted enforcement, arresting “the worst of the worst,” then I have some lakefront property to sell you.
Let’s go back to Thursday morning, when Homan made his draw-down announcement complete with praise for his agents and the success of their mission in Minnesota. I couldn’t listen any more. I’d heard enough.
Buttons for sale at Content Bookstore, an independent bookshop in Northfield. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo February 2026)
I had an appointment in neighboring Northfield anyway so off I went to this college town that, like Faribault, has been recently inundated by ICE. Except in Northfield, a decidedly blue city, the business community is publicly vocal about its opposition to ICE’s presence unlike in my decidedly red city.
Empowering signage in the window of a downtown Northfield business. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo February 2026)
In the heart of downtown Northfield, on one side of a block along Division Street, nearly every business has posted an anti-ICE sign and/or uplifting signage. I felt the strength of those shopkeepers willing to stand up for and encourage others. There’s power in raising united voices in opposition to wrong.
Buy a sticker at Content and help Northfield’s children. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo February 2026)
Inside Content Bookstore, where I stopped to shop for a baby shower gift, I discovered even more messaging and ways in which the Northfield community is stepping up to help their immigrant neighbors, including children affected by ICE’s actions. Monies from the sale of Minnesota state flag and “Rebel Loon” (our state bird) stickers will go toward books and activities for those kids. Content is also collaborating on a poetry chapbook, Words to Meet the Moment: Poetry Against Fascism, releasing soon.
Strong words for ICE posted on a downtown Northfield business. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo February 2026)
As ICE supposedly ends Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota (which also encompassed cities and small towns outside the metro like my city of 25,000), we are left with a mess. Let me define that. The personal toll is huge. Trauma has been inflicted upon thousands. “Generational trauma,” Governor Walz said.
Another inspirational message posted at a Northfield business. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo February 2026)
I worry about the kids who witnessed family members being taken or who saw armed, masked immigration officers with guns outside their schools (with classmates taken by ICE), outside their daycares, outside or inside their homes, at their bus stops, on the streets. It’s hard enough for adults to see such threatening power, aggression and use of excessive force. But our children? The mental health of all Minnesotans concerns me, especially that of the youngest among us.
Northfielders have stepped up to help one another as seen in this sign. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo February 2026)
And then there is the financial fall-out with people now unable to pay their bills, including rent, facing eviction because they haven’t gone to work out of fear of ICE. Again, legal status matters not as anyone with brown or black skin has been targeted. These same individuals and families have relied on community members and nonprofits to help with rent payments and to bring them groceries. This is not long-term sustainable.
Against the backdrop of the Minnesota state flag, the message is clear on a Northfield business: ICE OUT. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo February 2026)
Until we are all confident that ICE is really, truly gone and is doing only targeted enforcement of “the worst of the worst,” we will all remain on edge. Rebuilding trust, restoring life to normalcy will assuredly take time.
A great quote from Maya Angelou fits the strength and resilience of Minnesotans. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo February 2026)
Likewise, the Minnesota economy has suffered severe damage, especially small businesses. Governor Walz has proposed a $10 million forgivable loan recovery plan to help the business community and is also hoping for help from the federal government. Good luck with that.
While on the Riverwalk in Northfield, I spotted this graffiti on the pedestrian bridge over the Cannon River. I don’t condone this graffiti, but I certainly understand it. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo February 2026)
While in Northfield on Thursday, I learned that ICE agents recently went along Division Street, asking for employment records at some businesses. I don’t know details. But in my mind, I envision these armed, masked officers as a threatening presence in the heart of this picturesque, riverside American city. This community doesn’t back down from threats. In September 1876, townsfolk stopped the James-Younger Gang from robbing the First National Bank. Northfield is a community which cares for one another and which, in the midst of a federal invasion, has stood, is still standing, Minnesota Strong.
(Image sourced online from Content Bookstore, Northfield, Minnesota)
RENEE GOOD, fatally shot by an ICE agent in south Minneapolis on January 7, was an award-winning poet. That is fact. The federal government has flooded Minnesota with thousands of ICE agents. That, too, is fact.
According to organizers (Content Bookstore, The Grand and Northfield area poets), the event is intended to bring the community together in response to recent ICE presence in Northfield and in response to the killing of Renee Good.
There is power in poetry, in the written and spoken word. The arts in general—whether literary, visual or performing—have long been a way to meet the moment. In 2021, for example, the Ramsey County Library published This Was 2020: Minnesotans Write About Pandemics and Social Justice in a Historic Year. That collection of short prose and poetry addressed the COVID-19 pandemic, the justice for George Floyd movement and the overall political climate in our country in 2020. My poem, “Funeral During a Pandemic” was selected for publication in the collection.
While I won’t be available to participate in Sunday’s “Words to Meet the Moment” poetry reading in Northfield, I will be there in spirit. And if I am so inspired, I will work on a poem to submit. That’s an option for those who can’t attend or who don’t want to read.
“Words to Meet the Moment” is about more than just words, though. Event planners are also accepting donations for Northfield Supporting Neighbors, a grassroots organization founded to help meet the needs of local immigrants, especially for legal services.
This marks a moment in time when we can use our words, our hands, our financial resources to make a difference. Or we can do nothing. I choose meeting the moment with strength, courage, hope, action and words.
A portion of Rob Hardy’s poem displayed at the Northfield Public Library. (Minnesota Prairie Roots file photo)
ROB HARDY, poet laureate of Northfield, is the kind of laid back guy who appreciates a good craft beer. I know. Back in September 2017, I met him at Imminent Brewing, where we shared a table while enjoying a beer, listened to other beer lovers read poems about beer and then read our own beer poems. He organized that Beer Poetry Contest. Poetry at a brewery, how creative and fun is that?
In January 2019, I again found myself in the company of Hardy, and other gifted area poets, for a poetry reading at Content Bookstore in Northfield.
Promo courtesy of the Paradise Center for the Arts for a past event that included a poetry reading.
Hardy is a champion of poetry. He tirelessly promotes poetry in Northfield, where poems, including his, imprint sidewalks. He organizes poetry events and publishes a poetry-focused newsletter and even has a poem permanently posted at the public library.
Rob Hardy, right, and his new poetry collection. (Photo source: Finishing Line Press)
The influence of the pandemic upon this poet’s life and writing is easy to see. In “Lyrical Dresses,” for example, he writes about looking at ordinary life through the wrong end of a telescope and sometimes crying for no reason. In “Today’s Headlines” the fourth line reads: Rice County has the highest rate of new cases in the country. That would be our county.
But these COVID-19 themed poems are not necessarily doom, gloom and darkness. They are an honest, reflective historical record of life during a global pandemic from the creative perspective of a wordsmith. Just as important as a news story in telling the story of this world health crisis. In “Grounded” he writes of pulling a shoe box from the closet to relive travel memories while unable to travel. While grounded.
He did, however, put his feet to the ground, immersing himself in nature through daily walks. He writes of birds and prairie and sky and river and wind…in poems inspired by his deepening connection to the natural world.
Shipwreckt Books Publishing published Northfield Poet Laureate Rob Hardy’s previous poetry collection.
I encourage you to read Hardy’s Shelter in Place and/or attend a reading at Content Bookstore featuring Hardy and Greta Hardy-Mittell, a Carleton College student and writer. That event begins at 7 pm on Thursday, April 21. Click here for details. Rob Hardy is also the author of two other poetry collections, Domestication: Collected Poems, 1996-2016 and The Collecting Jar.
Mira Frank reads the works of published Minnesota poets, here from County Lines during an event at the Treaty Site History Center in St. Peter in August 2016. I also read. Minnesota Prairie Roots file photo 2016.
MANY TIMES I’VE READ my poetry aloud at events. I’m not a fan of public speaking. But it’s getting easier to stand before an audience and share what I’ve written. Practice helps.
When I read six poems at Content Bookstore in Northfield several days ago, I experienced a real connection with the audience. I don’t know if it was the intimate setting in a cozy independent bookstore or the people in attendance or the poems I selected or my frame of mind. Probably all. But something clicked that made me realize my poetry meant something to those hearing it.
Five of my works (poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction) published in Volume 26 of The Talking Stick, Fine Lines.
This proved a profound moment—to recognize that words I crafted into poetry sparked emotional reactions. I had created art. Literary art.
TS 19 in which my poem, “Hit-and-Run,” received honorable mention.
But, when I read an especially powerful, personal poem titled “Hit-And-Run,” I observed facial expressions change to deep concern, even fear. I struggled to get through the poem about my son who was struck by a car in 2006. I glanced at his then middle school science teacher sitting in the audience and remembered the support she gave our family. When I finished the final lines of the poem with an angled police car blocking the road to my boy, I sensed a collective sadness. I felt compelled to tell the audience, “He was OK.”
After that, I composed myself to read four additional poems. I read with inflection, with all the emotion a writer feels when writing a poem. I unleashed those feelings into spoken words. Words that, when verbalized, hold power beyond print. Poetry, I understood, is meant to be read aloud to fully appreciate its artistic value.
My husband, Randy, took this photo of me while I read the first of six poems at Content Bookstore.
AS MUCH AS I SAVORED sharing my poetry with a rapt audience at Content Bookstore in Northfield on Thursday evening, it was the conversation afterward that delighted me.
A young woman sitting several chairs away walked over and told me just how much she enjoyed my poems. I’d noticed her even before the readings by five Faribault-connected poets began. She sat with a small notebook on her lap, pen poised.
Turns out she’s a first-year college student in Northfield and an emerging poet. She had some questions for me. As we talked, I encouraged her first to write what she knows. And to make every word count. “Use strong verbs,” I said. “And no adverbs.”
A man standing next to us laughed. “I haven’t heard that in awhile,” he said. Then we all three laughed.
We agreed that writing poetry, because of the sparse words, is among the most challenging of writing disciplines. Yet the reward of getting a line, a word, just right, well, it’s an incredible feeling. I looked at the young woman who was, by then, nodding and smiling. She understood. And in that moment of locking eyes, she confirmed that she’s a poet passionate about the craft. Like me, she loves words and language. She possesses that spark which flames words into poetry.
I advised her to keep writing, to notice details, to engage all the senses—not only visual—when crafting her poems. Write and rewrite and submit and learn from rejection.
I regret that I didn’t catch her name or give her my contact information. But I hope that in some small way my knowledge, my experience, my advice, will encourage her to continue developing her poetic skills. Follow your passion, whatever you do in life, I impressed upon her. Write because you must, not necessarily with the expectation of becoming a famous poet. She’s considering a writing-related degree.
Then I turned my attention to the man who’d edged on the sideline of our conversation. He asked if I had an agent. “Should I?” I asked. His question surprised me, thus the popped-out-of-my-mouth response. Do poets have agents? He wondered how I’d gotten my work so broadly published. I reconsidered and shared that I’ve submitted to mostly state-wide and regional publications.
I regret that I didn’t ask his name either. I appreciated his interest in my writing and in my photography. There’s a certain joy that comes in talking shop with those who share a love of words, of writing and, especially, of poetry.
Special thanks to Northfield Poet Laureate Rob Hardy for organizing the poetry reading and to Content Bookstore for hosting the event. Thank you also to poets Peter Allen, Larry Gavin, Kristin Twitchell and John Reinhard for sharing their poetry with us. Finally, to all who attended the reading, thank you for embracing poetry and supporting those of us who write it.
How many classmates can cram into a photo booth? These photos inspired a poem I wrote and will read this evening in Northfield. Minnesota Prairie Roots file photo.
AS I PREPPED for this evening’s poetry reading at Content Bookstore in downtown Northfield, my husband asked how many poems I’ve had published. Good question. I don’t know. But my guess would be forty.
With 10 minutes to read my work, choosing poems proved difficult. I narrowed it down to six that I particularly like and that are fun to read aloud. And that fit within my time limit. From an especially painful memory of my son being struck by a car in 2006 to a recap of my 40th high school class reunion to a conversation in a grocery store parking lot, my poems reflect a range of topics. I aimed for that.
My poem initially published in In Retrospect, The Talking Stick, Volume 22, an anthology published by The Jackpine Writers’ Bloc based in northern Minnesota. The same poem was then selected for inclusion in an artsong project by Rochester musician David Kassler. He wrote music for my poem which was then sung by a Chamber Choir. Minnesota Prairie Roots file photo.
Early on in my poetry writing I tended to write a lot of “place” poems set in my native southwestern Minnesota prairie. I’ve expanded beyond that narrow subject now, although the prairie can still claim credit for my writing style. I write with detail. Not just visual, but detail that engages every sense. The starkness of the prairie causes one to notice everything. The howl and bite of the wind. The warmth of soil black as a night sky. The smell of rain and of barn. The taste of sunshine in a garden-fresh tomato.
In 2012, artist Connie Ludwig, right, created a painting (left, above my head) based on my poem, Her Treasure. Minnesota Prairie Roots file photo 2012.
In my poem Her Treasure, which I will read this evening, I honor all the farm women who labored upon the land by planting and harvesting from vast gardens. I honor, too, my hardworking mom in Ode to My Farm Wife Mother. That poem published in the 2017 issue of Oakwood Magazine, a literary journal printed by South Dakota State University.
The setting for The Talking Stick book release party in 2017, Blueberry Pines Golf Club. I’ve been published in this Minnesota anthology numerous times winning honors for my poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction. Minnesota Prairie Roots file photo 2017.
I am honored and humbled to have my award-winning poetry published in a variety of places: The Talking Stick, Poetic Strokes, Lake Region Review, The Minneapolis Star Tribune, Mankato Poetry Walk & Ride, Oakwood Magazine, Roadside Poetry Project, Poet-Artist Collaboration at Crossings at Carnegie, Image & the Word, The Lutheran Digest, Minnesota Moments magazine and probably some other places I’m forgetting right now.
My poetry is down-to-earth understandable. I’ve always written that way. If you live near Northfield, please join me and four other Faribault area poets at 7 this evening as we share our poetry. And, please, introduce yourself. I’d love to meet you.
Minnesota Prairie Roots 
ICE OUT, a photo essay & commentary from Minnesota February 13, 2026
Tags: businesses, commentary, Content Bookstore, Division Street, Governor Tim Walz, ICE OUT, immigration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Minnesota, Minnesota Strong, news, Northfield, photo essay, photography, signs, strength
THE DAY AFTER BORDER CZAR (anyone dislike that title as much as me?) Tom Homan announced a draw-down of federal immigration agents in Minnesota, I’m feeling, as Governor Tim Walz said, “cautiously optimistic.” Recent history has proven that we can’t necessarily believe or trust what federal government officials tell us. But I’m trying to be hopeful.
For more than two months, 3,000 immigration enforcement agents have been working in Minnesota. And if anyone still believes that they are/were doing only targeted enforcement, arresting “the worst of the worst,” then I have some lakefront property to sell you.
Let’s go back to Thursday morning, when Homan made his draw-down announcement complete with praise for his agents and the success of their mission in Minnesota. I couldn’t listen any more. I’d heard enough.
I had an appointment in neighboring Northfield anyway so off I went to this college town that, like Faribault, has been recently inundated by ICE. Except in Northfield, a decidedly blue city, the business community is publicly vocal about its opposition to ICE’s presence unlike in my decidedly red city.
In the heart of downtown Northfield, on one side of a block along Division Street, nearly every business has posted an anti-ICE sign and/or uplifting signage. I felt the strength of those shopkeepers willing to stand up for and encourage others. There’s power in raising united voices in opposition to wrong.
Inside Content Bookstore, where I stopped to shop for a baby shower gift, I discovered even more messaging and ways in which the Northfield community is stepping up to help their immigrant neighbors, including children affected by ICE’s actions. Monies from the sale of Minnesota state flag and “Rebel Loon” (our state bird) stickers will go toward books and activities for those kids. Content is also collaborating on a poetry chapbook, Words to Meet the Moment: Poetry Against Fascism, releasing soon.
As ICE supposedly ends Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota (which also encompassed cities and small towns outside the metro like my city of 25,000), we are left with a mess. Let me define that. The personal toll is huge. Trauma has been inflicted upon thousands. “Generational trauma,” Governor Walz said.
I worry about the kids who witnessed family members being taken or who saw armed, masked immigration officers with guns outside their schools (with classmates taken by ICE), outside their daycares, outside or inside their homes, at their bus stops, on the streets. It’s hard enough for adults to see such threatening power, aggression and use of excessive force. But our children? The mental health of all Minnesotans concerns me, especially that of the youngest among us.
And then there is the financial fall-out with people now unable to pay their bills, including rent, facing eviction because they haven’t gone to work out of fear of ICE. Again, legal status matters not as anyone with brown or black skin has been targeted. These same individuals and families have relied on community members and nonprofits to help with rent payments and to bring them groceries. This is not long-term sustainable.
Until we are all confident that ICE is really, truly gone and is doing only targeted enforcement of “the worst of the worst,” we will all remain on edge. Rebuilding trust, restoring life to normalcy will assuredly take time.
Likewise, the Minnesota economy has suffered severe damage, especially small businesses. Governor Walz has proposed a $10 million forgivable loan recovery plan to help the business community and is also hoping for help from the federal government. Good luck with that.
While in Northfield on Thursday, I learned that ICE agents recently went along Division Street, asking for employment records at some businesses. I don’t know details. But in my mind, I envision these armed, masked officers as a threatening presence in the heart of this picturesque, riverside American city. This community doesn’t back down from threats. In September 1876, townsfolk stopped the James-Younger Gang from robbing the First National Bank. Northfield is a community which cares for one another and which, in the midst of a federal invasion, has stood, is still standing, Minnesota Strong.
© Copyright 2026 Audrey Kletscher Helbling