education

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It’s always nice to be able to offer programming in my own city, and especially after the last few months, my hope is that these two offerings can be useful. They’re also free! Here are the sign-up links, and I’ll share some more info below.

NOTE/UPDATE: “QUIET AND LOUD” IS AT CAPACITY, BUT THERE ARE STILL OPEN SEATS IN THE OTHER WORKSHOP.

Promo image for "Quiet and Loud: A Writing Circle for Introverts: A three-session workshop series for those who aren’t usually the loudest voice in the room, but still have a lot to say. Facilitated by Kyle Tran Myhre. Free! Saturdays: May 2, 9, 16, 1-4pm at New City Center for Healing Justice - 3104 16th Ave S, Minneapolis - grapevinecollective.org
Promo Image for "Poetry, Protest, and Possibility: A one-day deep dive into the power of poets and other creative writers to meet moments of political crisis and uncertainty—both through our art and in more down-to-earth ways. Facilitated by Kyle Tran Myhre. Free! Sunday, May 24, 1-5pm at New City Center for Healing Justice 3104 16th Ave S, Minneapolis - grapevinecollective.org

QUIET & LOUD: A Poetry Circle for Introverts – (AT CAPACITY)

SATURDAYS, MAY 2, 9, 16: 1-4pm: Creative life can sometimes privilege people with a lot of social energy, those who thrive under the pressure of deadlines, workshopping, and networking. And those people are lovely! But sometimes, the rest of us can feel left out. This series is built for those who aren’t usually the loudest voice in the room, but still have a lot to say. Over three sessions, we will do some of the traditional poetry workshop activities (exploring examples, sharing tools and tactics, responding to writing prompts, etc), but it will be set up intentionally to be more relaxed, “opt-in,” and low pressure, allowing for multiple ways to participate (or not!) beyond live discussion. Register – Free!

POETRY, PROTEST, AND POSSIBILITY – One Session

SUNDAY, MAY 24; 1-5pm: Whether or not we believe that our writing can change the world, there are deep, powerful connections between artists and movement-builders, historically. This interactive workshop will highlight what powers these connections, as well as what specific tactics artists (especially poets and writers) might use to most effectively advocate for our values. What kind of work can writing do, and what can’t it do? What are some favorite examples of writing that “meets the moment?” What makes those examples powerful? Over four hours, we’ll have space to explore those questions, respond to some writing prompts, and add a few tools to our creative toolboxes. Register – Free!

AND A READING: A special preview of the upcoming “Witness: Poems to Address the Past, Present, and Future of Policing.”

a promotional image for "powderhorn poetry series: may 25, 2026 at 7pm at the New City Center for Healing Justice: 3104 16th ave s, Minneapolis; featuring Ari Tison, Ty Chapman, and Kyle Tran Myhre; celebrating the upcoming release of 'witness: poems to address the past, present, and future of policing.' This activity is made possible by the voters of MN through a grant from the MN state arts board, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund." There is also an image of a typewriter, headshots of the 3 poets, and a QR code to watch the livestream.

ABOUT THE NEW CITY CENTER FOR HEALING JUSTICE AND THE GRAPEVINE COLLECTIVE

The building: A historic church known for its activist bent – now, a community center, an incubator space, a collaborative ecosystem, a site of spiritual inspiration and dreams for a liberated future.

Our community: This space is run by and for the people: we are an intergenerational, multi-racial, cross-class, queer and accessible community that is rooted in struggles for dignity and justice in South Minneapolis.

Our vision: We believe in a world that has the inborn ability to heal itself. We cultivate community healing by practicing solidarity, wholeness, and presence, which lead to justice, abundance, and a resilient future.

Accessibility info + More at gravevinecollective.org.

ABOUT THE FACILITATOR

Kyle Tran Myhre is a poet and activist based in MPLS. He’s contributed to a Grammy-winning album, performed at the United Nations, been a member of two National Poetry Slam championship teams, and visited countless colleges, conferences, and festivals, using spoken word and storytelling as doorways into critical dialogue. Find his poems, music, zines, and more at http://www.guante.info.

RELATED NOTES

As always, if you’re interested in this kind of thing but don’t live here, and/or just can’t make it to these specific workshops, I also offer an asynchronous workshop series here.

Also, if you’d like to bring this kind of programming to your community, get in touch with me here.

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Find even more resources for creative troublemakers here.

A difficult title: I started simply wanting to collect “anti-ICE” poems, but obviously that kind of negative focus potentially limits the collection in terms of tone and substance. So this is something a little more broad. AS WITH ANY LIST, this is absolutely incomplete; it’s just a handful of poems (with a particular emphasis on spoken word and performance videos) that I’ve come across in my work and that I’d consider using in education/advocacy settings.

Same idea with my lists on Palestine poems, consent poems, whiteness poems, and various other lists here – these lists are “snapshots” of a much larger range of work that engage with an issue in a compelling way. If nothing else, I’m just setting up this page for myself, so I can have a quick reference when I want to find these poems. But if they can be useful to you too, even better!

As the situation here in MN develops; a few local voices:

Once again, I’ll just reiterate that this list is woefully incomplete, just a snapshot of the incredible work being done right now by poets, writers, and other culture workers. Let’s keep adding to this list, both in a literal sense and a figurative one.

a square image with the text "poetry playlist: immigration, movement, and a future without borders

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As a teaching artist, I’ve facilitated countless workshops, classes, and conversations on the topic of what art and artists have to offer in times of crisis. What can it mean to “meet the moment?” What kind of work can a poem do, and what can’t it do? For those of us who already consider ourselves creative writers, what kinds of tools and tactics are most effective when it comes to speaking out about the causes that matter to us? And for those of us who don’t think of ourselves as artists, what can we learn from how artists approach these issues?

I do not believe there are easy answers, but in my experience, there is immense value in grappling with these kinds of guiding questions. Meeting the Moment: Political Poetry and the Anthemic Impulse is an asynchronous workshop experience where I share everything I’ve learned from these conversations: examples, frameworks, writing prompts, tactics, resources, and more.

Because I don’t believe that art is ever going to be enough to get us to the world that we want to live in. But I also do not see us getting to that world without it—without some kind of cultural strategy, without narrative work, without artists.

a photo of KTM performing, plus a green vine emerging from his back.
Continue reading “Meeting the Moment: Political Poetry and the Anthemic Impulse (New Workshop!)”

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This is the third in my series of conversations with artist friends where we get to dig a little bit deeper into our own work, reflect on our journeys, and hopefully share something useful. Find the first two here and here.

Official Bio: Shannon TL Kearns is a transgender man who believes in the transformative power of story. As an ordained priest, a playwright, a theologian, and a writer all of his work revolves around making meaning through story.

I recently got to join Shannon for the release of his new book, “No One Taught Me How to Be a Man: What a Trans Man’s Experience Reveals about Masculinity,” and it was such a fantastic and fascinating read that I thought it might be interesting to have this conversation.

Continue reading “In Conversation: Kyle Tran Myhre & Shannon TL Kearns”

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Here’s the latest entry in my FREE newsletter. Please consider subscribing, since it’s a way artists can reach people without social media algorithms getting in the way. I know a handful of folks subscribe directly to my wordpress here, which is also appreciated. Thanks!

a collage of images featuring KTM performing, plus a bystander intervention banner, plus the Matthew Shepard Memorial bench.
a little collage of the past month; top right photo by Tish Jones

I mention the three new videos in the post, but here are some direct links:

All three of these poems are in my book, Not a Lot of Reasons to Sing, But Enough.

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I basically decide to make a zine when I’ve had so many conversations about a topic that a shortcut would be useful. Not that the conversations aren’t fun; I just want to make sure people can share these resources/ideas beyond the conversation. The newest zine in my library is maybe a little more niche than the others—it’s a collection of resources for people who are looking to start some kind of creative-writing based group: like a high school poetry club, a writing circle, etc.

As always, there’s no one way to do that, and not everything in this zine is going to apply to every person in every situation. But my hope is that there’s something useful in there, at least as a starting point.

One brief note: This is a traditional, 8-page, “z-fold” zine. If you want to print/cut/fold some yourself, here’s a PDF (note that it’s formatted for 11×17 paper). I have a different 8-page zine that’s all about getting involved in spoken word for people who are new to it. I have also, however, combined the two 8-page zines into a single 12-page zine (cutting some of the overlapping content), that I will have with me at shows/events for the foreseeable future. If you’re a teacher, event organizer, etc. who might be interested in a bulk order, feel free to get in touch using my booking form.

As always, here’s the full text of the zine:

Continue reading “All the Threads Between Us: The Power of Poetry Clubs, Writing Circles, Open Mics, and Other Collective Efforts (Zine)”

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Some upcoming opportunities, food-for-thought, and resources:

1. First, to contextualize everything else here, a few thoughts on what it means to recognize National Poetry Month during a genocide. What are the role(s) of poets in times of crisis? What are some concrete, specific things we can do, in the spaces we move through, with the audiences we have access to? A few tactics and resources in the link (it goes to a nine-slide IG carousel). Related:

2. Second: A few local appearances, online opportunities, and more coming up. So much of my work is on-the-road, at schools, colleges, and what basically amounts to “private” events. But these are ones that are more open. Details below:

a promo graphic for "midwest poetry mash-up: finals hosted by kyle tran myhre aka guante; get your tickets today: tinyurl.com/MashUp2024; April 19-20 at Strike Theater in MPLS.
a promo image for the unfold writing series: 2024 guest host: guante (kyle tran myhre) workshop: anthemic writing: monday, april 29, 7-9pm cdt. become a member: bit.ly/unfoldwriting
promo image for "out loud at the library" w/ sun yung shin, kyle tran myhre, kashimana ahua and desdamona: "free creative workshops led by artists throughout may; wednesdays from 6-7pm at the george latimer central library
Continue reading “National Poetry Month 2024 Links”

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A collage of poem titles: What I Will by Suheir Hammad, If I Must Die by Refaat Alareer, Picking up Rocks by Rasha Abdulhadi, What is Home? by Mosab Abu Toha, Naturalized by Hala Alyan, Mismarked by Tariq Luthun, Don't Step on My Feet Again by Basman Aldirawi (via the book, Light in Gaza), Birthright by George Abraham, Antizionist Abecedarian by Sam Sax, Red Sea by Aurora Levins Morales

Kind of a National Poetry Month post. I’ve written about this before, so I’ll keep it short: it times of great crisis, I think poets have more to offer than poems. We should still write the poems, of course, but we can also “be mobilizers. We can be movement-builders. We can use our networks to spread information” and on and on. One way this plays out in our everyday work, for me at least, is the practice of kicking off events and performances by bringing someone else’s voice into the space.

I’ve done this here-and-there through my whole career, but it’s felt like a real necessity over the last five months. If I have 20-60 minutes of stage time at an event, I’m not really interested in just jumping into my own material. I want to acknowledge context. I want to acknowledge that the audience’s hearts might be in two places at once. Opening a show with a poem from a Palestinian poet is a small thing, a tiny thing, but I think it matters. A big part of my own pedagogical approach has been the idea that poems are excuses—they have value on their own, of course, but beyond that, they are footholds, opportunities for us to look at something we weren’t already looking at, to think deeply about something that would otherwise be ignored. If we’re not doing that as a bare minimum, what are we doing?

This post is just a list of links—both to short poems I’ve been returning to, over and over recently, and some articles/interviews on how poetry can be used in this moment. I use that word, used, intentionally. It’s not just about what we can say via poetry; it’s about what the process of writing and sharing poems can help build. Hope these can be useful:

A FEW POEMS

A note on the selections: Any time I make a topic-based list, the list is not exhaustive. This one does not feature every great Palestinian poet, or every poet who has written about war and peace (indeed, the ones listed here are not all by Palestinian poets, and they are not all from the last five months). The list is, very specifically, a small sampling of poems on this topic that have been useful to me in my work as a performer, educator, and facilitator. I’m less interested in the “best” poems, and more interested in poems that can be generative, that can lead to good conversations, and questions—poems that can open doors. There are so many others, and I’d encourage all of us to make these kinds of lists and share them.

Also, while there are a ton of books I could include here, I want to specifically shout out this anthology featuring multiple voices: Heaven Looks Like Us: Palestinian Poetry (edited by George Abraham and Noor Hindi)

A FEW OTHER LINKS

an IG post with the text "art for palestine challenge: for artists and art makers of all kinds to keep attention on palestine and help amplify palestinian voices! (1) write, illustrate, sing, play music, recite a poem about something you saw in the news or on a video about Palestine. You can also choose to amplify Palestinian voices by creating art based on their exact words. Make sure to give them credit and cite your source! (2) Post your creation and tag #ArtForPalestineChallenge
An IG post with the text “Share your art on and offline! Plaster your city! Ga*za is calling all creatives: use your art to tell the world the truth. With increasing censorship, your role as an artist is more important than ever. Tag @palestinianvoiestoday in your art & we will share.

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A few highlights from 2023, for people who are interested in my work but may have missed something here or there. It was a bit of a “between-projects” year for me (though I did mark the one-year anniversary of my book by making a section available to read online here), on top of the fact that self-promo has been the furthest thing from my mind over the last three months, but here are some links.

a photo of KTM projected onto a big screen at the Lollapalooza festival.
Text: "five notes for artists and musicians who want to speak out about Palestine but aren't sure how"
a photo (by Aaron Vincent Facundo) of KTM speaking at the University of Massachusetts Amherst
Continue reading “In Case You Missed It: 2023 Recap (and 2024 Booking)”