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From the Grand Marais Public Library - August 4, 2025

The Grand Marais Public Library is pleased to host Amy Woschek Schmidt to teach the monthly poetry workshop on Wednesday, August 13, from 6-8 PM.

Amy Woschek Schmidt is a writer and an essayist who has been living in rural Panamá. Before moving with her family to Panamá, she homesteaded on a small acreage tucked among the tall pines and aspens of Lake Superior’s northern shore. Much of her work is informed by the years she spent working the land and walking the woods. 

In the spring of 2024, Schmidt published a book of poetry entitled Given Days. This book of poems is the culmination of an ambitious, year-long project to write a poem every day.

“Amy Woschek Schmidt, in Given Days, sees the world as a wondrous gift from God (not just in the book but in her everyday life) and these poems portray that wonder, that gift, simply and exquisitely,” writes Vince Gotera, the Poet Laureate of Iowa. “She very subtly, but memorably, paints with the sounds of words: ‘fertile skies / vast as a farmer's field. . . . season of sun, hot and high, . . . jars of jewels on the shelf of my mind.’  Like me, you'll find yourself saying to friends, as I did again and again with my partner, ‘Listen to this one, so beautiful.’ Her poems are all delightful gifts. Lovely, lovely.”

The Cook County SCRAP Society poetry workshops typically involve direct teaching, poetic exercises—including forced inspiration prompts—and time to share the poetry that participants have been working on, either at home or at the workshop.

The workshop is free with no sign-up required and is geared to ages fourteen and up.

Our Summer Reading Program concludes Saturday, August 16 with celebratory picnic featuring musical guest Will Sings Songs. The picnic will start at 11:30 AM, with music beginning at 1 PM. Visit our website www.grandmaraislibrary.org for more information about our Summer Reading Program.