Kimberly Blaeser is the former Wisconsin Poet Laureate and the founding director of Indigenous Nations Poets. Her six poetry collections include Ancient Light, a 2026 Science + Literature selected title; Résister en dansant/Ikwe-niimi: Dancing Resistance; and Copper Yearning, winner of the Edna Meudt Poetry Book Award. Among her many awards and accomplishments, Blaeser received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writers’ Circle of Americas in 2021. She is Anishinaabe, an enrolled member of the White Earth Nation, and grew up on the reservation in northwestern Minnesota.

(Photo credit: John Fisher)