Location: Marine Village Hall (121 Judd Street, Marine on St. Croix, MN 55047)
Date: Friday, December 5, 2025
Time: 7:00 PM – 10:00 PM (Open Mic starts at 8:30 PM)
Cost: Freewill donations and food shelf items for the Scandia Marine Food Shelf will be collected at the event.

On Friday, December 5, Arrow Broken Poetry Collectives closes out its first year of artist readings and open mics with a dynamic trio of the region’s leading contemporary authors: Dougie Padilla, Laurie Allmann, and Diane Wilson.

The free event will begin at 7:00 p.m. and will be held at the Marine Village Hall (121 Judd Street, Marine on St. Croix, Minnesota). An author book sale and signing will follow. An Open Mic will begin at 8:30 p.m. Everyone is invited to share their work and will be allotted three minutes to perform.

While this event is free to attend, the artists will be collecting financial donations and food shelf items for the Scandia Marine Food Shelf. They also will be donating their honorariums to the food shelf and encourage attendees to be as generous in their giving as their situation allows.

Each month, Arrow Broken co-founders/poets Suzi Hudson, Rosie Peters and Kate Seitz offer a topic for the Featured Artist and Open Mic attendees to consider as they write and prepare to participate. The theme for December is “I am.”

Featured artists at previous Arrow Broken Poetry Collective events include DraLandra Larkins, Nico Moore, Danny Klecko, ArtReach St. Croix’s Poets of Place, Davi Gray, Annie Humphrey, Zoë Bird, J.G. Everest, and Rosie Peters.

This event is supported by the St. Croix Valley Foundation and Marine Library Association, the Brookside Bar & Grill, Christ Lutheran Church, and Marine Mills Folk School.

For more information on upcoming featured artists and events, which are typically held on the last Thursday of the month, visit www.facebook.com/arrowbrokenpoetrycollective/ or contact arrowbrokenpoets@gmail.com.

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ABOUT THE FEATURED ARTISTS

Dougie Padilla is a Chicano poet, multimedia visual artist, and activist of Norwegian and Mexican descent. After an absence from writing of 40-plus years, Dougie Padilla returned to writing poetry when he moved his art studio to the Mississippi River Valley. In just 10 years, he created and published three full-length books of poetry, four chapbooks, and one art catalog. Padilla’s recent collection – 40 feet down – was selected by NYU’s Latinx project, “La Treintena,” as one of the 30 best Latinx books of poetry for 2025. 40 feet down centers around the natural world and Padilla’s coonhound, painting and the art world, sports, writing, love, climate change, the nastiness of contemporary politics, aging, and living a life centered on the spiritual.

Laurie Allmann will read new works inspired by the natural world and exploring themes of boundaries, edges, and life in interstitial spaces. Allmann was a recipient of a gold MIPA award from the Midwest Publishers Association for her poetry collection, An Hour from Now. Katrina Vandenberg, author of Atlas and The Alphabet Not Unlike the World, said of Allmann’s poetry: “Among the daily miracles of eclipses and lady-slipper orchids, in acknowledgement of grief for long-destroyed prairie habitat, Allmann speaks in articulate and generous free verse. Her work belongs on the shelf next to William Stafford and Paul Gruchow.” 

Diane Wilson is a Dakota writer, educator, and bog steward, enrolled on the Rosebud Reservation. She has published six award-winning books as well as essays in numerous publications. Her novel, The Seed Keeper, won the 2022 MN Book Award and is a selection for the 2025 NEA Big Read. Wilson’s work explores seed sovereignty, social justice, cultural recovery, and environmental stewardship. She is currently working on a memoir, Mapping My Way Home: A Story of Loss, Renewal, and a Bog. 

ABOUT ARROW BROKEN POETRY COLLECTIVE

Arrow Broken Poetry Collective was founded in January 2025 by poet, author, and Minnesota State Arts Board Creative Individuals grant recipient Rosetta (Rosie) Peters (of Crow Creek and Yankton Dakota descent); 40-year arts veteran and former executive director of White Bear Center for the Arts, Suzi Hudson; and creative writer Kate Seitz. Based in Marine on St. Croix, Arrow Broken’s mission is to lead Poetry Cohorts, Contemplative Writing Groups, Monthly Artist Events / Open Mics, and Outreach and Education in the St. Croix Valley.