Junauda Petrus is the city’s new poet laureate for 2025-2026. Petrus succeeds Heid E. Erdrich in this prominent literary role. A multidisciplinary artist, Petrus spans stage, screen and page in her work. She blends ancestral storytelling, speculative fiction and poetic verse around themes of Blackness, queerness and womanhood.
The administration of the Poet Laureate Award is overseen by The Loft Literary Center. The Loft is hosting a public celebration in honor of Petrus Feb. 13 at its headquarters in downtown Minneapolis.
Co-founder of the experimental artist collection Free Black Dirt, Petrus is known for creating innovative performances. Her acclaimed debut novel, The Stars and the Blackness Between Them, received the 2020 Coretta Scott King Honor Book Award. In 2023 she released her first children’s book, Can We Please Give the Police Department to the Grandmothers? It is based on an abolitionist future and became a Minnesota Book Award finalist.
Deeply rooted in the cultural, social and historic fabric of Minneapolis, Petrus will use her visionary voice as poet laureate to celebrate the city’s beauty, struggle and magic through poetry.
Comments
No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here