Author: ArtRoot's Writer-In-Residence

The ArtRoot Writer-In-Residence (WIR) project is an initiative founded by ArtRoot, a collaboration of artists and arts advocates who are determined to reinvigorate Racine, WI through the arts. This project is supported by the Racine Literacy Council, and funded through a generous grant from the Osborne & Scekic Family Foundation. This project seeks to spotlight Racine and Kenosha’s dynamic literary community while encouraging, supporting, and advocating on behalf of writers at all stages of their careers.

#4: It’s February

I think the month gets cast in a bad light. Winter lingers on, the holiday season is essentially over. We’re all back to work, solidly into a new year, finding ourselves in rhythms again, whether we like it or not. At this time of year, Racine is somewhere between the bitterest cold and hints of…

#3: Capturing a moment

I often find myself writing simple poems in the morning, when the world is quiet still and I am orienting toward the day. It happens as I’m watching the sunrise, watching the birds, letting my mind wander, with my notebook open. It’s often in these quiet windows of my days that I feel the urge…

#2: Pleasures along the way

I think one of my biggest hurdles to my own production is the belief that poetry is complicated. I want to start this offering of prompts by proposing this question: What if it’s not? Perhaps poetry exists alongside us, whether we notice it or not. I wish I noticed it more. So here’s a prompt…

#1: An introduction

I offer this post as a sort of intention-setting moment, as I believe what I intend to do here is more noteworthy than who I am. I come to this position of writer-in-residence with an interest in engaging more deeply, both with myself and with this place I call home, Racine. I come with the…

OBSERVATIONS #20 – 12.31.24

Change is Coming – Details To Be Announced To the January-June, 2025 Racine Writer-in-Residence Grantee #18 – Congratulations! Best Wishes to our new WIR program coordinator! Formal announcements will be made shortly. In the meantime, Thank You, Nick Ramsey/Art Root coordinator, 2017-2024, for your outstanding leadership and diligence in organizing the program. Nick’s hands on…

OBSERVATIONS #19 – 12.31.24

EN PLEIN AIRThe humid wind, sandy beaches, blinding light, hidden niches,Safeguards the children,Suspended between parched earth, blue sky, clear water, As if etched in steel, not real, tell time. Trace your way along the path, Through scrub, lost at the edge,Reminiscent of ancient mounds, Dissonance turned melodic,Just beyond, Long shadows of man and trees intersect,Leafy…

OBSERVATIONS #18 – 12.24.24

I Must Do To Be I must do to be, Things move, change waits, Words interrupt, hands interpret, Bodies heal, thoughts roam. Before you, after me, Sands drift to form dunes and valleys, Swirling shapes shift with times motion, And like water, are not silent. Obedient children must speak, They play guard over brown uneven…

OBSERVATIONS #17 – 12.15.24

In collaboration – Vintage and Modern Books, Art Root’s Writer-in-Residence Program, Vital Art Project and Mimi Peterson – devised the inaugural OBSERVATIONS Gathering held December 6, 2024, at V & M Books, 415 6th Street, Racine, WI. It had been imagined that the event should be a gathering of artists, writers, and visitors, who, while…

OBSERVATIONS INVITATION – 12.1.24

YOU ARE INVITED: “Follow winter’s light to a community gathering of thinkers and talkers, makers and do-ers.” ( Mimi Peterson planning the upcoming Solstice Celebration.) WHERE: Vintage and Modern Books, 415 6th St. , Racine, Wisconsin, 53403 QUESTIONS: Adam: 872/235.3753 WHEN: 3 – 7 P.M. on Friday, December 6, 2024 WHO: Mimi Peterson, Racine Writer-in-Residence,…

OBSERVATIONS #16 – 11.23.24

The sunlight is loud, It’s noise breaks the silence, Like a comforting blanket, Surrounds me, you, us, With both narrow and broad streams of brilliant sounds, Soon turn into murmurous shadows, At once dark and transparent, Casting familiar silhouettes, Meant to share secrets. Sharp lines separate sunlight from it’s absence, In my space, geometry’s triangular…