
Time: 6:00 pm Reception, 6:30 pm Program
Location: Guthrie Theater (Pohlad Lobby, Level 9) 818 S 2nd Street
Book Launch: SOLVE FOR DESIRE by Caitlin Bailey
Join Milkweed Editions at the Guthrie Theater to celebrate Caitlin Bailey, winner of the 2017 Lindquist & Vennum Prize for Poetry, and her debut collection of poems, Solve for Desire. The evening will feature a reception, reading, and conversation between Caitlin and contest judge Srikanth Reddy.
Caitlin Bailey is the recipient of a Loft Mentor Series award and holds an MFA from Hamline University. Her work has appeared in Prairie Schooner, Hayden's Ferry Review, Carolina Quarterly, Verse Daily, and elsewhere. Solve for Desire explores the intense relationship between siblings Georg and Grete Trakl, Austrian artists who lived in the tumult of the early twentieth century—both addicted to drugs. While Georg's poetry is widely celebrated, much less is known about Grete, who died by her own hand three years after Georg's overdose. Solve for Desire summons Grete from the shadows. As Peter Campion says, Bailey's "gift for balancing lyric intensity with narrative inquiry reveals a major new talent."
This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a Minnesota State Arts Board Operating Support grant, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund, and a grant from Wells Fargo.
Milkweed Editions is one of the nation's leading independent publishers, with a mission to identify, nurther, and publish transformative literature, and build an engaged community around it. The Lindquist & Vennum Prize for Poetry is the largest annual regional poetry prize, presented in partnership by Milkweed Editions and the Lindquist & Vennum Foundation.