10/05/2026
Native American Poets Headline Upcoming Poets Roundtable
The public is invited to a “Poets Roundtable” on Oct. 23 and 24, 2026 featuring a Friday night keynote reading by Mark Turcotte, Illinois Poet Laureate, and Gordon Henry, Jr., the Inaugural John and Audrey Leslie Chair in North American Indian and Indigenous Literary Studies at Michigan State University, as well as Saturday workshops led by Turcotte and Henry, plus Lansing Poet Laureate Suban Nur Cooley, Nichole Keway Biber, and Zoë Johnson. The Roundtable will take place at the MSU Kellogg Center, 219 South Harrison Road.
Although all activities are FREE of charge, registration is required by Oct. 12th at this link:
https://poetry.rcah.msu.edu/.../poets-roundtable-2026.html
Recently named the 6th Illinois Poet Laureate, Mark Turcotte spent his earliest years on North Dakota’s Turtle Mountain Chippewa Reservation and in the migrant camps of the western United States. Later, he grew up in and around Lansing, Michigan. He is the author of the books, The Feathered Heart: Songs of Our Ancestors; a chapbook, Road Noise; a bilingual collection, Le Chant de la Route; and Exploding Chippewas. His work has appeared in many national and international literary journals and anthologies. He lives in Chicago, and, since 2009, has been a Senior Lecturer and Distinguished Writer-In-Residence at DePaul University.
Gordon Henry is an enrolled member of the White Earth Anishinaabe Tribe of Minnesota. Until recently, he served as the Audrey and John C. Leslie Endowed Chair in American Indian Literature in the English Department at Michigan State University. He also served as Senior Editor of the American Indian Studies Series at MSU.
Henry’s writing has been very widely published, both in the US & internationally. His novel, The Light People (1994), was awarded The American Book Award in 1995. He co-authored the textbook, The Ojibway, in 2004. In 2007, he published a mixed-genre collection, titled The Failure of Certain Charms. His poetry has also been included in When the Light of the World was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through (2020) and Living Nations, Living Words (2021). His poetry collection Spirit Matters: White Clay, Red Exits, Distant Others came out in 2022.
Nichole Keway Biber is a tribal citizen of the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians, Mishiike Dodem (turtle clan). A longtime grassroots activist uplifting environmental justice as the foundation of healing, she is a Water Protector, jingle dress dancer, and gardener. She works at Clean Water Action as the Water Justice Manager. Her motivating vision is the restoration of biodiverse habitat.
Suban Nur Cooley is a writer/performer and professor based in the Lansing Area. A proud Somali/Australian/American, she worked for many years as a journalist and communications professional for organizations like the Refugee Development Center, Habitat for Humanity of Michigan, and the Michigan League for Public Policy, to name a few. After receiving her PhD in Rhetoric and Writing at Michigan State University, she worked as Assistant Professor of English at New Mexico State University, and currently, she serves as Assistant Professor of African American and African Studies at Michigan State University.
Zoë Johnson is a q***r nonbinary Indigenous writer born and living in mid-Michigan and an enrolled citizen of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians. They received their MFA in creative writing from the Institute of American Indian Arts. They have published works of poetry and short-form prose in literary magazines and anthology collections.
The Poets Roundtable is jointly sponsored by the RCAH Center for Poetry at MSU, the Native American Institute at MSU, and the Lansing Poetry Club
