The City of Minneapolis’ Arts & Cultural Affairs Department and The Loft Literary Center partner on the City of Minneapolis Poet Laureate Program.
The City of Minneapolis Poet Laureate is an official ambassador of the city’s literary culture, connecting our community through the art of poetry. As an advocate for poetry in Minneapolis, the Poet Laureate will engage the community in meaningful, impactful, and innovative projects. The goal is to share the transformative art of poetry through community and educational opportunities. The Poet Laureate also takes part in civic ceremonies in conjunction with the city, creating a unique literary legacy.
The Poet Laureate’s term will be two years starting January 1, 2025 through December 31, 2026
Photo of Junauda Petrus, City of Minneapolis 2025 - 2026 Poet Laureate
City of Minneapolis Poet Laureate, 2025 / 2026
Junauda Petrus is a Minneapolis-born creative visionary, writer, playwright, and performance artist of Black Trinidadian and Crucian descent. Her work celebrates Black wildness, futurism, and ancestral healing, weaving poetics and storytelling with histories re-membered through dreaming and research.
Deeply inspired by her parents and ancestors who immigrated from the Caribbean, Junauda’s art reflects the magic, resilience, as well as trauma carried across generations. Her work resonates with themes of the Middle Passage, the African diaspora, and the lives of Black communities here in Minneapolis. She explores ancestral magic, queerness, and womanhood, often infusing speculative fiction and magical realism into her creations.
Junauda has received widespread recognition, including:
A Jerome Travel and Study Grant for research on queerness and African-inspired spiritualities in Trinidad and Tobago.
Recipient of the Many Voices Mentorship from the Playwright’s Center to study playwriting.
Being named City Pages’ Artist of the Year in 2016.
Author of The Stars and the Blackness Between Them, which won the 2020 Coretta Scott King Honor Book Award.
Minnesota Book Award Finalist in 2023 for her first children’s book, “Can We Please Give the Police Department to the Grandmothers?”
Junauda Petrus embodies the creativity, diversity, and richness of Minneapolis’ cultural fabric. Her artistry reminds us of the transformative power of storytelling to connect us to the past, illuminate the present, and imagine the future.
City of Minneapolis Inaugural Poet Laureate, 2024
Our 2024 inaugural Poet Laureate, Heid E. Erdrich, set the standard for all future Poets Laureate to demonstrate the power and possibility of this position to bring our community together.
Through our relationship with the Loft, the Poet Laureate is selected through a panel process and the ultimate poet will be a symbol for the best of the arts in our community. Heid was certainly able to do this on our behalf.
Amongst the many meaningful events in the past year, she produced over 30 public activities and worked with hundreds of poets, writers, and enthusiasts. She also spoke at State of the City and her term culminated with a very special event at the Minneapolis American Indian Center where she introduced her official “Poem for Minneapolis”.
Heid E. Erdrich is the author of seven award-winning poetry collections including Little Big Bully, which won a National Poetry Series award. Heid is Ojibwe enrolled at Turtle Mountain. She is an independent curator, editor, and scholar in Native American Studies. She edited New Poets of Native Nations from Graywolf Press and co-edited Boundless: Abundance in Native American Art and Literature, forthcoming in 2025. Her mixed genre book, Verb Animate: Poetry and Prompts from Collaborative Acts, is just out from Minneapolis press Trio House. In 2025, Heid be the James Welch Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Montana, Missoula. Heid has served as the inaugural Minneapolis Poet Laureate in 2024.
The Academy of American Poets awards $1.1 million to twenty-two Poets Laureate.
Exciting news, Minneapolis Poet Laureate Heid E. Erdrich has received a $50,000 grant via The Academy of American Poets with support of the Mellon Foundation. Erdrich, the City's very first poet laureate, is one of twenty-two poets from around the US to receive this award. Read more about Heid E. Erdrich and the other winners at the Academy of American Poets website.
Erdrich’s project, Poetry Service Announcement (PoeSA), connects the peoples of Minneapolis/Bde Óta Othúŋwe, the Dakota homeland. Erdrich will commission poems from and convene youth and emerging and established poets, culminating in a public reading and the launch of PoeSA online. In addition to youth, PoeSA will feature poets who are Native American, BIPOC, refugees of genocide, experiencing the city’s housing crisis, and justice impacted.
Photo of Heid E. Erdrich, Minneapolis' first Poet Laureate
Specifics
The Poet Laureate will have a number of responsibilities during their tenure, including:
Writing a poem reflecting on the current moment of the city of Minneapolis
Celebrating the City of Minneapolis through public service engagements, including three addresses at official City events per year
Leading a public event that features the sharing of poetry and community conservation.
Teaching two classes per year through the Loft Literary Center that promote poetry as an opportunity for connection.
Advancing the artform of poetry in the City of Minneapolis as an avenue for deep engagement in our community.
The Poet Laureate will receive an honorarium of $16,000 to be delivered quarterly across their two-year-long tenure, beginning on January 1, 2025. The Poet Laureate will receive a budget of $4,000 to plan and execute a civic duty project of their design that engages youth and/or addresses issues of the Minneapolis community through poetry.
Eligibility and Selection
The Laureate will be selected by a panel of five judges through an open application process administered by the Loft. In order to be eligible to apply, applicants must:
Have the ability to complete the mandated expectations and duties over the course of the term
Be at least 21 years of age
Be an active professional poet whose work has been published, performed, reviewed, and/or honored
Be a resident of Hennepin County for a minimum of one year
Have a significant connection and commitment to the Minneapolis community
See poetry as an opportunity to engage, serve, and celebrate the Minneapolis community
Must not be a board member or a full- or part-time employee of The Loft Literary Center
The Poet Laureate will be considered based on their eligibility and the content of their application. The selection panel is made up of members of the Minneapolis Arts Commission and other arts community representatives. The panel will be selected by the city of Minneapolis and The Loft Literary Center. The panel must come to a unanimous decision to select the Poet Laureate.
In addition to fulfilling the eligibility requirements, applicants will be reviewed based on this additional criteria:
The literary excellence of the poet’s work amidst the contemporary poetry landscape
The community impact of the poet on other artmakers in the city of Minneapolis
The feasibility of any proposed public engagement projects
The wider reputation of the poet and their work
Their works’ engagement with the city of Minneapolis