Join SLC Arts at the Potsdam Public Library on Tuesday, September 26th at 6pm for Poetry with Purpose featuring author Rebecca Pelky.

Rebecca Pelky is a citizen of the Brothertown Indian Nation of Wisconsin. She holds a PhD from the University of Missouri, as well as an MFA in writing and a Bachelor of Science in zoology from Northern Michigan University. As an Assistant Professor in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at Clarkson University, she teaches film studies, literature, and creative writing.

Pelky’s second collection of poetry, Through a Red Place, won the 2021 Perugia Press Prize. Through a Red Place is a bilingual collection of poems, written in Mohegan and English, which responds to archival, historical, and field research to consider how Native and non-Native people have historically utilized the same land. Her first book, Horizon of the Dog Woman, was published in 2020 by Saint Julian Press. Her co-written books include a translation of Chilean poet Matilde Ladrón de Guevara’s book, Desnuda (with Jake Young), and a hiking guide for Michigan’s Upper Peninsula (with Eric Hansen). She was recently awarded a 2023 fellowship in creative writing from the National Endowment for the Arts, with which she is hard at work on her next book.

Poetry with Purpose is a series of events that highlights a local author or organization and brings a monthly offering of literature that links to activism, advocacy, or our North County history. Each event will offer a reading and presentation, an open Q&A, and a book signing and opportunity to meet the author. These events are created to engage all of our North Country community, not only those that have an interest in poetry and literature. Poetry, after all, is written with purpose and has the power to heal. This series will take our community on journeys through local and relevant issues of our time and of our North Country space focusing on our shared purpose.

The Potsdam Public Library is located at 2 Park Street, Potsdam, NY 13676. This event is free and open to the public.