Welcome Poets

About this movie

Former Wisconsin Poet Laureate Nicholas Gulig presents a lyrical reflection on his return to Wisconsin adjoined to the literary echoes of Fort Atkinson's famed 20th century poet Lorine Niedecker (1903-1970). Welcome Poets, a limited digital series of six documentary shorts, connects the shared and divergent landscapes, personal histories and poetry of both writers - exploring themes of place and displacement, nature and culture, alienation and belonging. Across the series, Gulig retraces the terrain of his childhood and coming of age as a Thai American growing up in Eau Claire, his education and career taking him out of state and abroad to Southeast Asia and ultimately back to Wisconsin - landing in Fort Atkinson. His story accompanies Niedecker's biography and poetry in a layered conversation, her words etched in the geographies where Gulig is reestablishing home. Niedecker lived her entire life in Wisconsin, writing and publishing in relative obscurity until shortly before her death in 1970. Today her reputation within 20th century American poetry grows in prominence. Her legacy is celebrated, preserved, and studied in her hometown of Fort Atkinson through the careful work of the Hoard Historical Museum and the Friends of Lorine Niedecker, across selected university archives, and by scholarly researchers. Yet many Wisconsinites remain unfamiliar with her work. Welcome Poets introduces Niedecker to new audiences, situating her life and labor alongside Gulig's in a meditation on place, inheritance and the power of poetry to forge community.

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