Poetry Night with Stanley Kusunoki and Marg Walker

Stanley Kusunoki has taught creative writing to young people through programs at The Loft, Asian American Renaissance, Intermedia Arts, and S.A.S.E., The Write Place. He was the recipient of a Loft “Asian Inroads” mentorship, and was awarded a MN State Arts board “Cultural Collaboration” grant to create, write and perform “Beringia—The Land Bridge Project” with Ojibwe performance poet Jamison Mahto at Intermedia Arts. He is the former co-host/curator of the Literary Bridges reading series at Next Chapter Booksellers in St. Paul.Kusunoki most recently was the High Potential Coordinator at Red Oak Elementary School in Shakopee. He lives in Duluth with his wife, Claudia Daly.

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In her new collection, Marg Walker celebrates the pleasures of daily life and passing impressions, giving new meaning to the idea that living can be a lyrical enterprise. Many of the poems describe interactions with friends and family members, snatches of dialogue, and interrogative soliloquies, sometimes whimsical, occasionally fantastical, but usually poignant and deadly serious at heart. Walker engages loved ones from her past in dreamlike conversation and gently probes the mysteries that lie at the heart of living. A series of poems titled “I thought at the time” offers a fragmentary look at her complex relationship with her mother, which has taken on new contours in retrospect. A poem set in Colorado with acute outdoor observations brings us up short with the line, “I like not knowing. Just looking.” She considers love, again and again, as if it were a liquid to be drunk before it slips through your hands. Echoes of Coleridge, Milosz, Lucille Clifton, and other poets provide the shape and impetus for spiritual reflections. It’s a vision of the world rich in color and emotion and an autobiography in fragments.

Marg Walker pursues her abiding interest in the human voice through poetry and choral music. During her professional career, she specialized in narrative inquiry as a source of learning for foundations and nonprofits working in the human services and the arts. Currently, she is a co-curator of the Midstream Reading Series in the Twin Cities and a member of Unity Singers, an a cappella ensemble. She has collaborated on programs of music and poetry for public performance, living room salons, and most recently, an audiobook. Marg’s poems have appeared in numerous publications, and several poems have been chosen as texts for music composed for solo voice or chorus. Marg has one adult son. She lives with her husband in St. Paul, Minnesota.

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