(I’m a bit delinquent with this post, for which I apologize. I took some extra time this past week to get started with the real work on my Writer-in-Residence project, and it has been an eventful week including. . .)

This week/end was filled with events at Woodland Pattern . I’ve mentioned this place in probably half of my posts, and that is because it is one of the real hubs of poetry, music, and art in the Midwest (and the US in general.)

For those who aren’t familiar, Woodland Pattern is a non-profit book center located in the Riverwest neighborhood of Milwaukee. It began life in 1979/80, founded by Anne Kingsbury, Karl Gartung, and Karl Young. It evolved out of happenings and other organizations on Water Street in the 70s including Theater X and Boox Books. Boox Books was a pop-up bookstore that would sell small press printings after shows at the theater. Thomas Gaudynski was also involved in things, adding music and films.

In 1979, the Water St building was sold, forcing the theater & Boox out. Kingsbury (Gartung’s wife and a great artist,) Gartung, and Young decided to open a place of their own and purchased the building on Locust St that opened its doors as Woodland Pattern in 1980.

Thomas Gaudynski curated much of the music that happened throughout the 80s and early 90s. They have hosted countless amazing poets over the years as well as some of the top experimental and improvising musicians in the world. ( Here is a link to their own website’s article about their beginnings.)

In the early 90s, musician and instrument builder, Hal Rammel moved from Chicago to Milwaukee and began hosting a radio show of new/experimental music/free jazz called Alternating Currents. He took over much of the music curation at Woodland Pattern at that point through the Alternating Currents Live series.

My personal history with Woodland Pattern began shortly thereafter. I moved to Milwaukee to attend UW-Milwaukee as a Music Composition & Technology major in 1995. My first music theory teacher was Steve Nelson-Raney who happened to be one of a small handful of musicians in Milwaukee playing free jazz and free improvised music at the time. As a young student, I sort of stumbled into attending his off-campus performances which were often duos with Rammel, or trios including Gaudynski as well. Hopefully at this point you can see where this is going. . .

I started trying my hand at free improvisation along with a fellow composition student (and roommate) Jeff Klatt, and after a while Nelson-Raney, Rammel, and Gaudyski started inviting us to occasionally perform with them, and we went on to regularly perform as a trio of myself, Klatt, and Rammel as well at a local coffee place at the time.

During all of this, I started attending concerts at Woodland Pattern due to the influence of those 3 mentors (who I am honored to now call friends as well, decades later.) My relationship with Woodland Pattern was largely a musical one for the first almost 20 years.

Twelve years ago I took a trip to New York for a few weeks to listen to music, study, and catch up with a few friends and colleagues who live out there. This was the same year that Gov. Scott Walker and the state Republican majority started slashing crazy amounts of money from educational institutions and the arts in Wisconsin. Many of the best professors I had studied with as an undergrad and graduate student left the state, multiple concert series at the universities died when their budgets went away, etc. But I came home from NY inspired and decided if the state and institutions weren’t going to do it, we the musicians/artists had better keep things going ourselves. I started looking for a home for a monthly music series and Woodland Pattern became that home.

Hal Rammel was still curating Alternating Currents Live but that series has always brought in major names from across the country and world. I wanted to start something focused closer to home, so without stepping on the toes of the other series, we created the Formations Series for New and Improvised Music. I am so grateful to Anne Kingsbury, Karl Gartung, Hal, and Michael Wendt (the Programming Director at Woodland Pattern with whom I have worked to make the series happen over the past 12 years) for being willing to make that series happen.

Anyway, I segued a bit into personal history there because I have been lucky to be able to work regularly with the folks at Woodland Pattern for over a decade now and gotten to know some of them well enough to consider them valued friends. When I started writing a couple years ago, some of the staff there were among the first handful of people I went to for suggestions and guidance. Since then, I’ve come to appreciate the place even more. Before I started writing, I somewhat took for granted how amazing this place is and how lucky we are to have in in Wisconsin, just a half-hour drive from Racine. But it really is a hub for all the arts and it has decades of history to back it up, with relationships with many great writers throughout the US and the world.

At the beginning of this year, Woodland Pattern announced that it was time for them to move to a new location. The Locust Street building has not been in good shape for awhile, and the reality was that they need a new home. after a couple years of searching, they found one! Woodland Pattern is moving to a new facility in Bayview. It is 1-2 minutes off the freeway, just a bit south of the Becher exit, on the corner of Ward St & Robinson (right around the corner from and behind Cafe India, for those familiar with the area.)

This month, May of 2026, marked the final month of events at Woodland Pattern. They will remain open through June, and then the doors will close until late in the year. There is some construction that needs to happen at the new space, as well as moving everything, etc. We are hoping they will re-open their doors in November.

Last Thursday, I hosted our final Formations concert at Locust St. We had an eleven-piece improvising orchestra comprised of some of the Formations regulars. Hal was gracious enough to conduct a short improvised piece for us on short notice.

This weekend they had the closing events for the space including multiple poetry readings (including some friends of mine like Bryon Cherry as well as Chelsea Tadeyeske of Pitymilk Press), a potluck, and the closing reception for the final art show in the gallery featuring some of Anne Kingsbury’s amazing work.

I’ve had very confusingly mixed emotions about all of this. It is pretty sad to see the old space go, but there is excitement as well for a new space, a new home, and a new room for our music series in the future.

I’m sure going to miss Woodland Pattern’s physical space between now and November, but I’ve (pretty intentionally) stockpiled a bit of a backlog of reading material from there to keep me busy. And Woodland Pattern isn’t disappearing in the meantime. Their off-campus events and programs are all still happening. They do a summer poetry camp for kids, they have a monthly Poetry in the Park series. (I will be reading on that series on Tuesday, July 14 at Juneau Park, 6:30-8:30, and I hope to see some of you there! Also, our fellow Racinian, Nick Demske will be reading on the June 9th Poetry in the Park as well. https://woodlandpattern.org/events/poetry-reading-poetry-in-the-park-june-2026 )

One more time here, I can’t stress how important this place is to poetry in Wisconsin and the country. I think people locally take it for granted relative to those elsewhere. I often hear from visiting poets about the wonderful reputation that WP has outside our area. I consider it on par with place like City Lights Books.

If you haven’t been there before, you’ve got one more month to visit the Locust St location, and I ***highly*** suggest you take the time to do it if you are a writer or lover of poetry (and the other arts as well.) I know I’ll be making another visit or two during June to stock up on more books to get me through the year!

Thank you to Anne Kingsbury, Karl Gartung, and Karl Young for creating this amazing place, to Hal Rammel, Thomas Gaudynski, and Steve Nelson-Raney for introducing me to it, and to Jenny Gropp & Laura Solomon, the current directors as well as the rest of the staff (Mike, Lewis, Antonio, Chuck, Marla, and Molly) for keeping it going!

(Seriously, go visit the Locust St location while you still can!!!!)

Jay Mollerskov, ArtRoot Writer-in-Residence 5/25/26