Laureate Writers Series Presents Jean Prokott

Tuesday | May 2 | 7 pm
Blue Heron Coffeehouse | 162 W 2nd St.

Jean Prokott, recently named Poet Laureate for the city of Rochester, will be the featured guest writer for this month’s First Tuesday Laureate Writers Series. The event will be held on Tuesday, May 2nd at 7 pm at the Blue Heron Coffeehouse and is free and open to the public. The presentation will be followed by a book signing and an open mic.

Prokott has been teaching at the high school, college, and graduate levels for over fifteen years and has designed original curriculum for over ten courses, including Philosophy, Creative Writing, Literature and History of Film, American Literature, AP Language & Composition, and Implementation of Instruction and Curriculum Planning. She is a recipient of two scholarships from the National Endowment for the Humanities: To study the Philosophers of Education at Boston University and to study John Steinbeck at Stanford and San Jose State University.

Her poetry collection The Second Longest Day of the Year won the Howling Bird Press Book Prize (Howling Bird Press). She is the author of the chapbook The Birthday Effect (Black Sunflowers Press), is a recipient of the AWP Intro Journals Award, and of the John Calvin Rezmerski Memorial Grand Prize with the League of Minnesota Poets. She has poetry and nonfiction published in Verse Daily, Rattle, and Arts & Letters, among other journals. 

Prokott is a graduate of Minnesota State University Mankato’s MFA program, holds a Master of Science in Education from Winona State University, and lives in Rochester, Minnesota with her husband and their two dogs. Learn more about her at jeanprokott.com. 

This First Tuesday Laureate Writers Series event is sponsored by the Maria W. Faust Sonnet Contest in partnership with the Blue Heron Coffeehouse. To learn more about the Maria W. Faust Sonnet Contest, please visit sonnetcontest.org or email entries@sonnetcontest.org.

Photo: Jean Prokott.

River Arts Alliance serves as fiscal sponsor of the Maria W. Faust Sonnet Contest.