From Superior, Washburn, and Ashland to Racine, Sturtevant, and Milwaukee.  From Door County to Madison and the Driftless area.  Wisconsin, you are here.  Your lived experience is here.  Your hopes, dreams, struggles, and joys are here in these poems.  A quote from U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo’s book, Crazy Brave, sets the overall theme for this anthology: “When beloved Sun rises, it is an entrance, a door to fresh knowledge.”

The poems in the anthology are grouped into four sections: Through This Door, New Knowledge, In the Quiet, and Each Sunrise. The poems reflect on memories of the past, celebrate joys and recount struggles in the present, and envision hope for the future.

Included are poems by the eight Wisconsin Poets Laureate who have been encouraging poetry writing and reading all across the width and breadth of Wisconsin since the beginning of the 21st century. It includes indigenous, Black, Latinx, and White poets. It includes poets published for the first time.  Open this door. See the fullness of Wisconsin and Wisconsin poetry.