South of Lake Superior, a Culture Center: Woodland Pattern

Nestled snugly in Milwaukee’s Riverwest neighborhood is a bookstore almost nondescript among Locust Street’s cluster of beige buildings, bars and holistic healing stores. The short, staggered false front almost reaches the halfway point of the two-story building next to it, and the south facade of the bookstore is awash with earthy bronze and bright blue paint, an ever-changing face of murals that once was a giant blackboard for passersby to write on. Above the double doors hangs a small, yellowed-white sign; on it, a halved book whose right side branches off into the eastern border of Wisconsin, the jagged peak of Green Bay vaguely deciduous. In burgundy lettering: “Woodland Pattern Book Center.”

Woodland Pattern, its name derived from “Shickshock,” a section of Paul Metcalf’s book-length poem, Apalache, is a cornerstone of the Riverwest community that reaches across the nation. For nearly 40 years, the nonprofit bookstore has sought to create a safe space for artists and poets both local and national to share and create work. It’s a nationally recognized independent bookseller; it’s got a reading series sponsored by the Poetry Foundation; it’s a founding member of the Poetry Coalition. With over 25,000 titles, Woodland Pattern has one of the largest collections of small press literature in the country. Its Native American collection is the largest in Wisconsin.

“No matter what we do here at Woodland Pattern,” says Executive Director Jenny Gropp, “there will always be an attention to multi-arts programming and small press literature, and we will continue to bring to Milwaukee those poets who you might not otherwise ever see live.”

Jenny Gropp and Laura Solomon were hired as Woodland Pattern’s new executive directors earlier this year and moved to Wisconsin to take the position in March. The former digital projects manager and managing editor of the illustrious Georgia Review have been familiars of Woodland Pattern for years and have, like many other poets and readers across the country, made the pilgrimage to Milwaukee to read from the bookstore’s impressive collection.

“There were always great events taking place, and I have an incredible love for small-press literature,” says Gropp. “Frankly, I really just wished I lived nearby.”

Last year, co-founder and Executive Director Anne Kingsbury announced her impending retirement, and the job listing was posted nationwide by organizations such as the Poetry Foundation. Kingsbury’s bittersweet departure presented Gropp and Solomon with a unique opportunity.

“When the job opening for executive director came up, Laura and I were both interested,” Gropp says. “We were like, ‘You apply!’ ‘No, you apply!’ Then we decided the best thing, really, would be for us to apply as a team, and that Woodland Pattern was just the kind of non-traditional place that would accept that move. We went through the interview stages, and the rest is now history. We love it here and just bought a house in Riverwest, in fact!”

Since taking charge of Woodland Pattern, Gropp and Solomon have developed a hefty to-do list for upcoming events, programs and series. They are currently working in conjunction with Milwaukee Public Schools and the Queer Writing Project at UWM to develop more youth programming and a new LGBTQ writing program at Riverside High School. Among the slew of events planned for the rest of the year is Woodland Pattern’s 38th Annual Gala. This year’s edition of the nearly quadragenerian event is set to take place on November 17 at The Cooperage, where “poetry and jazz will meet onstage in a rare sonic pairing.” The sum of the event’s proceeds goes directly to Woodland Pattern’s funding for upcoming programs and events. They’re also working on revamping the book center so that the collection is more easily shopped, browsed and read—“There are four decades’ worth of literary history in here!”—and working with local poets to create a reading series exclusive to Woodland Pattern.

“Sam Pekarske, a fantastic Milwaukee poet and human, will be curating a hybrid poetry and music series called Cross / Pollinatethat will highlight local poets and musicians while promoting dialogue between these two kindred yet distant scenes,” Gropp says. Cross / Pollinate will launch in January of next year.

“The executive directors of Woodland Pattern are extremely well-known everywhere,” Pekarske says. “They are, seriously—they’re new, they’re incredible, they’re two of my favorite people on the planet, and I love them so much.”

Cross / Pollinate isn’t Pekarske’s sole project supported by Woodland Pattern. Currently, she’s working on a short documentary series that focuses on filming poets reading their work and interviewing them. It’s centered around the question, “Do we need poetry, or does poetry need us?” Pekarske was blown away by the unabashed support Gropp and Solomon threw behind her project when she pitched using Woodland Pattern’s gallery space for filming.

“I got less than two minutes into my whole pitch about like, ‘Okay, now please let us shut your shop down, we literally need to bring a whole crew in here’—and I got two minutes into it and Jenny stopped me and was like, ‘How do we become a part of this? What can we do? We want to do everything,’” Pekarske says. “They threw so much scary support behind it—scary amounts. They’re closing their bookstore, we’re moving stuff around, we’re doing everything there. It’s so cool.”

Pekarske says that Gropp and Solomon gave their perspective on the scope of this project-in-process, saying that this series will encourage similar communities and affirm that they, too, are valid and can accomplish things like Milwaukee’s community has. Pekarske’s documentary series, Gropp and Solomon said, will be brought to the attention of the Poetry Foundation, the American Association of Poets and theGeorgia Review, among others.

“The fact that they’re going to use the executive directors’ credibility and name and they’re going to use Woodland Pattern’s credibility and name to further something that I came up with—that’s so cool,” Pekarske says. “I can’t believe it’s real. I can’t believe it’s here.”

Woodland Pattern: one of Milwaukee’s few remaining independent bookstores, small in size, broad in reach. For 39 years, it’s served its community in Riverwest and beyond by providing a space for poets and readers to converge and learn and by supporting Milwaukee’s artists. Although the bookstore’s involvement and impact both local and national may be unknown to the listless passerby, it has and will continue to fill the space of its namesake line: “South of Lake Superior, a culture center, the Woodland Pattern.”