MPL is happy to announce that Milwaukee's poet laureate for 2010-2011 is Brenda Cardenas. The poet laureate serves a two-year term promoting poetry
at library and community events.
Cardenas earned her Bachelor's degree in English (Creative Writing) from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and her Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing - Poetry from the University of Michigan- Ann Arbor. She is an assistant professor in the English Department at UWM, where she teaches poetry writing, literature, and Latino/a Studies.
Cardenas' latest full-length book of poetry, Boomerang, was published by Bilingual Review Press in November 2009. Her chapbook entitled From the Tongues of Brick and Stone was released in 2005. Cardenas also co-edited Between the Heart and the Land: Latina Poets in the Midwest. Her poem "Song" was made into an animated film in the Poetry Everywhere series sponsored by the Poetry Foundation.
Ms. Cardenas will be inducted as poet laureate at a ceremony on Tuesday, April 20 in Central Library's Richard E. and Lucile Krug Rare Books Room, 814 W. Wisconsin Ave. beginning at 7:00 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.
