Heid E. Erdrich, Minneapolis poet laureate, and Jean Prokott, poet laureate of Rochester, Minn., will each receive $50,000 as two of 22 Poet Laureate Fellows, awarded by the Academy of American Poets. The Academy announced Tuesday that it is awarding a combined total of $1.1 million to Fellows in states, counties and cities to lead public poetry programs in their communities.

“Poems bridge distances between people,” Ricardo Maldonado, Academy president and executive director, said in a news release announcing the awards. “I am excited to celebrate the work of our Poet Laureate Fellows across the country, elevating civil discourse and reminding us of the true possibility of a shared future.”

Heid Erdrich (Minneapolis Arts & Cultural Affairs / The Loft)

Erdrich’s project, Poetry Service Announcement (PoeSA) connects the peoples of Minneapolis/Bde Ota Othunjwe, the Dakota homeland. Erdrich will commission poems from and convene youth and emerging and established poets, culminating in a public reading and launch of PoeSA online. PoeSA will also feature poets who are Native American, BIPOC, refugees of genocide, those experiencing the city’s housing crisis, and those who are justice-impacted.

Erdrich has written seven poetry collections, including “Little Big Bully,” a National Poetry Series winner. Her honors include two Minnesota Book Awards, the Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry and a National Artists Fellowship from the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation. An interdisciplinary poet, curator, and longtime creative writing teacher, Erdrich serves on the board of Indigenous Nations Poets. She is Ojibwe enrolled in the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians.

Jean Prokott (Jean Prokott / Academy of American Poets)

Prokott will examine how mental health affects groups differently, including teenagers, BIPOC and LGBTQ+ individuals, veterans and underserved populations. Working with Rochester’s writing, art, education and medical communities, she will develop an exhibition of work at the Historic Chateau Theater by poets and artists who self-identify as affected by mental illness, distribute broadsides with magnets listing mental health resources, and display poetry window clings throughout the city. A high school English teacher, Prokott’s debut full-length poetry collection, “The Second Longest Day of the Year,” won the Howling Bird Press Poetry Prize. She is a recipient of two scholarships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Association of Writers and Writing Programs’ Intro Journals Award, and the John Calvin Rezmerski Memorial Grand Prize from the League of Minnesota Poets.

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