The Minnesota Poets Collective Is Seeking Poets and Poems

 

This interview originally aired on The Afternoon Cruise on 04/15/25

READ THE COMPLETE TRANSCRIPT BELOW:

Sean McPherson (Jazz88) 

It’s the Afternoon Cruise. I’m here with Tom and Alex streitz from The Minnesota poets collective. It’s a nonprofit built around a publication that celebrates the art of poetry in all its forms. Bring together diverse voices and perspectives from around the state of Minnesota. Tom and Alex, thank you so much for joining us. Our pleasure. Thank you for having us really appreciate it now. Tom, with it being jazz Appreciation Month and National Poetry Month, it’s a perfect time to connect with you, and there’s a strong and lasting connection between poetry and jazz. I’m of course, thinking of folks like Amiri Baraka, Gil Scott, Heron, Ken Nordine, Nikki, Giovanni and more. And I want to recognize some poets in Minnesota who have made jazz a huge part of their offerings. Sha Cage, J. Otis, Powell, may he rest in peace, Truth Maze and more. Tom first question is a bit of a softball. What are some of your favorite intersections you’ve seen in regards to jazz and poetry?

 

Thomas Streitz (MN Poets Collective) 

You know, there’s a long tradition of synergy between jazz and poetry that I love, I would say Langston Hughes is the beginning right the weary in 1958 Langston recorded a beautiful poem that he had wrote with a jazz quartet that’s just a thing of beauty

 

Langston Hughes (from recording) 

down on nullex Avenue the other night. By the pale, dull color of a one bulb light. He did a lazy sway. He did a lazy sway to the tune of those Weary Blues.

 

Thomas Streitz (MN Poets Collective) 

You know, poetry is something that’s in our blood and his family and and so is jazz. My grandfather played jazz and a big band, and it’s just something we love, but the combination is so strong. You pointed out Gil, Scott, Heron, Ken nordeen, Mary Baraka, you know, I just love it, but man, but I think Langston Hughes for me. You go back to him and what he did early on in 1958, 59, 60 is really inspirational.

 

Sean McPherson (Jazz88) 

So Alex, thank you for joining us. You’re a graduate of Washburn high. Is that right?

 

Alex Streitz (MN Poets Collective) 

that is correct. I was in Minneapolis Public Schools my whole life, until graduating from Washburn,  go Miller’s exactly

 

Sean McPherson (Jazz88) 

Now Tom’s your dad, and you’re working on showcasing and fostering youth voices as your work for the Minnesota poets collective. Now that’s an uphill battle for sure. I want to give a shout out to a group that’s been doing great work in that world, true art speaks who really foster that connection. I see on your website that you’re gonna have an annual young writers poetry contest, and I wanted you to ask, ask you to talk a little bit about that and what else you’re offering to bring young people into the fold.

 

Alex Streitz (MN Poets Collective) 

Yes. So as you said on our website, there is a young writers contest, is what we’re calling it. We originally were gonna call it the emerging writers contest. But then we said, you can be emerging at any age. You know, every we wanted all poets of all ages to be a part of it. So young writers, because we wanted to focus on 17 and under. And aside from the contest, also every quarterly newsletter, we will be publishing these young poses where we’re going to pick one we have the three adult poems that we select for the adult contest and the publication and then we’re going to pick one young writer to be published every quarter, and they will automatically be entered into that contest by being published. And then when it comes around, at the end of the year, anyone who has been published yet will get another chance to resubmit poetry also for consideration in the contest. So why that’s really important, I think, is when you’re young, especially, there’s a lot of barriers to getting your voice heard. I mean, getting published in general, it’s a very competitive business. Absolutely, no matter what age you are any writer, it’s the most daunting task that you really face. And I think that’s especially true if you’re young, when no one’s heard of you, you have less experience, and maybe there’s less circles that you’re in where they hear your voice. And also something that I personally experienced when you’re young and you have ideas and you’re creative, you have a little bit fear of judgment, you don’t think your peers will like what you have to say. I mean, no one’s going to take you seriously because you’re young, and I think people are often scared to put themselves out there at that age. So by being someone who we don’t know these kids, we’re just giving them a safe space, in a sense, to be heard by someone who they don’t know. And we’re gonna read it and base it just on the merit of their writing, and if we like it or not, and they tell us themselves, what makes them Minnesota poem. We love hearing their story, but we’re just looking at it from the lens of we love poetry no matter who you are, your background, how old you are. We just care about good writing and writing from the heart. So if we can put a young person’s poet, poet, poem, out into the world and have other people hear it, that might fuel their fire and be like, wait, I can do this. I shouldn’t be afraid people actually cared enough to read my writing and put it out there on the internet for others to see, and I’m going to keep going now and then, hopefully it’s sets it up for the rest of their life. They’ll keep writing. They’ll keep sending out to publications. Because we’re a no cost, easy access publication. There’s no price that we charge. So anyone can send us a poem at any time through the form on our website, people can email us too if they have questions or just want to reach out. And edmundpoets collective.org is the website. And they can email us, and we’re going to have events soon, so people could come and read their poems at an open mic night type of event, if they want to. So we just really want to encourage kids to not be afraid and know that. We just want to hear everyone if we can.

 

Sean McPherson (Jazz88) 

Let’s speak to a hypothetical kid. Sean McPherson, let’s say age 16 years old. I’ve been losing contests since I was seven years old. So let’s, let’s remove some of the stigma of the contest and let people know how they can be involved, win or lose. Yeah.

 

Alex Streitz (MN Poets Collective) 

So like I said, even if you’re not a part of the contest, we’re going to still pick one child every quarter. So out of the four newsletters we do, one youth is going to be picked to be published, and you won’t, might not win the contest. You might not get anything out of it, except for the publication. And I know that’s also the reward in itself, but that’s still four chances to get published. And you can submit the same poem if you want. If you didn’t go, we didn’t pick it the first time, we might pick it the next time. And also, like I said, if we once, we start hosting more live events and getting these things out there, it’s also going to be a no. Going to be a no cost, easy access thing. You just show up, no one’s going to be turned away, and you get a chance to read your poetry to a room full of people who just love poetry and they want to hear what you have to say. So we hope that people kids will hear this and see our website, we’re trying to reach out to public schools. We’re sending out flyers so people can see it like on the bulletin boards and schools, so they know but that we exist and we know that it’s not so scary and it will be easy, and we hope they will come to these events in the future.

 

Sean McPherson (Jazz88) 

It’s the afternoon cruise. I’m chatting with Tom and Alex Streitz from The Minnesota poets collective. They’re a nonprofit with a mission to honor, promote and cultivate poetry with a connection to the state of Minnesota, poetry can be presented in ways that are kind of alienating to folks who don’t already know about poetry. Your website states that you want to bring together diverse voices and perspectives from around the state of Minnesota. How can you achieve that goal, Tom and perhaps be a little less hoity toity than the reputation that poetry often comes with.

 

Thomas Streitz (MN Poets Collective) 

Here’s what I’d say is, though, the whole genesis, and you know, zeitgeist of Minnesota poets Collective is that everyone’s welcome. You know, it’s a world where, yeah, people think of poetry as being stiff, and maybe you’re reading it in a parlor, you know, sipping a cup of tea, and we invite people who are having espresso or a beer to be part of this. We don’t, we don’t prescribe a form. It can be a haiku. It doesn’t have to rhyme. It can be, you know, I think a poetry in a very broad way. Sean, you know, as a jazz guy, there’s all forms of poetry, right? And forever. You know, stories were told orally. Poetry is a continuation of an art form that goes back 1000s of years since people have been sitting around the fire, someone comes up with a cool, little giddy you know, they look at the guy across them or the women and say, Hey, I got this idea, right? And they spin something off. So we’re trying to demystify it. We are a Democratic platform. And I also want to say during these times that are challenging for all of us in the in the arts community and throughout the country in every sector, poetry has also always been a form of social therapy. It’s been a form of cathartic experience. It’s been a form of protest. And you think of the early spirituals, you know, that came out of the African American community. They were a form of protest. And Alex remind me today that it was a, you know, their song of joy was a way of saying to people who would oppress them, we’re happy. We have spirit. We are we are going to push forward. So I find it particularly relevant today, more than ever. It’s always been relevant, but that oral tradition of music, of poetry is a powerful thing, and now more than ever, you know, all us artists all forms, need to gather together to say, hey, we’re community. We love each other, and we have something to say to the world. And it may not always be super profound, but there is a connectivity between all of us. And I think poetry tries to find that at its best and highest form, we’re living

 

Sean McPherson (Jazz88) 

in a time where we’re bombarded with information. Some of the information can be stressful, but even if the information isn’t stressful, it’s overwhelming, even if it’s all good news, it’s too much news, and it’s not all good news, poetry can be reprieved from that onslaught. How have you personally used poetry in more trying times in your life?

 

Alex Streitz (MN Poets Collective) 

For me, going back to when I really started, like, actually writing poetry. For the first time, it was in high school, and I think it was prompted by class, like, Hey, we’re, you know, for English class write poetry. But I’d always read it because my parents loved it, and it was something I found to be super cool, because it wasn’t traditional writing. It was like, it could be any length in any form, and I always loved that. And then there were things going back to what I said with the youth thing in terms of, like, afraid of being vulnerable or showcasing yourself to your peers. I found that all these complicated thoughts and when I felt overwhelmed that were flooding my head, it made sense to just put them down, because it doesn’t matter what. Form poetry is it doesn’t matter what it looks like, just getting thoughts out there, and even if you don’t show it to anybody, it feels good, and it’s a catharsis, just to get it out of my own head and into a physical form, or oral form, if you were to tell somebody, and that really helped me, because I I’m a classic overthinker. I think all the time, I got lots of thoughts about good and bad. You know, in the world, everything all the time. And like you said, especially now, there’s an overwhelming amount of information we see every day through phones, TV, the computer, whatever it may be, the radio. Sometimes you don’t know what to do with all that information, and it doesn’t have to make sense right away. But just putting it down on paper or in your notes app on your phone or whatever it is, it’s it’s helpful, because it allows you to sit there and think about one thing and what you want to say in that moment.

 

Sean McPherson (Jazz88) 

It’s the afternoon cruise. I’ve been chatting with Tom and Alex Streitz from The Minnesota poets collective, a nonprofit with a mission to honor, promote and cultivate poetry with connection to the state of Minnesota. Now, Alex, you have the benefit of being raised in a family that was enthusiastic about poetry, and so perhaps it was something you were comfortable with from jump. But there’s plenty of people tuned in who think poetry can’t play a positive role in their lives. Oh, that’s that’s for somebody else. That’s not for me. What would you say to somebody who hasn’t experienced yet the joys of reading poetry, of writing poetry, of seeing poetry performed, who have just done nothing. One with poetry. What would you say to try to bring them into the fold?

 

Alex Streitz (MN Poets Collective) 

Well, what I would say is one, if you’re looking for something that is unconventional from the typical scripts that we get, whether that’s just reading a novel or the plot of a TV show, it is poetry in itself, is unconventional because it takes so many shapes. So even if you just pick up a book of poetry you find in your school library and just give it a read through, or read a couple poems out of it, you might find inspiration in there, because the words might be new where you might learn new vocabulary. I actually learned a lot of words through the flowery language of poetry myself when I was young, then I had to go and google them, you know. So it’s it, you’ll find it not only to be educational, but you will find it to be, like I said, the unconvention of it, I think, makes it exciting. So it’s something like you’ve never heard in your life, especially when you’re young, and you get started at a young age, it will be such a unique experience reading like I remember when I was in high school, I there was a frank O’Hara book that our mom had, and he’s a he’s a very interesting poet when it comes to his wording and stuff like that. And I didn’t fully understand it when I first read it, but I loved it, because I’ve never heard anything like that in my life. So if you just want new experience and see something unconventional, that’s gonna change your perspective on what the human language and whatever language you may speak is a different version of that, then you should pick up a book of poetry, or go to an open mic night to hear some spoken word, or even if it’s from a song, because songs are poetry, just listen to something that is new and unconventional to you. And I think that will open a lot of doors.

 

Sean McPherson (Jazz88) 

Tom and Alex, thanks so much for visiting with jazz 88 congratulations on this new nonprofit Minnesota poets collective.

 

Thomas Streitz (MN Poets Collective) 

Thanks Sean and thanks for what you’re doing in the jazz 88 man, a great history of poetry and jazz together. You guys are doing great work. We are supporters, personally and business circle club members. Thank you so much. Thank you so much.

More Posts for Show: The Afternoon Cruise