The Book Shelf

With Father's Day just two days later, Jim will be featuring his many "dad-centric" poems.  Start your evening out with a wonderful poetry reading from one of Minnesota's great poets at Winona's independent bookstore.     James Lenfestey is an award-winning journalist and poet living in Minneapolis.  He chairs the Literary Witnesses poetry reading series, serves as the poet-in-residence at the Grand Hotel (Mackinac Island, Michigan), and founded the Ojai Poetry Festival in Ojai, California.   He has published four collections of poetry, including INTO THE GOODHUE COUNTY JAIL: POEMS TO FREE PRISONERS (Red Dragonfly Press, ©2008) and A CARTLOAD OF SCROLLS; 100 POEMS IN THE MANNER OF T'ANG DYNASTY POET HAN-SHAN (Holy Cow! Press, ©2007), a dozen chapbooks and a collection of personal essays, THE URBAN COYOTE: HOWLINGS ON FAMILY, COMMUNITY AND THE SEARCH FOR PEACE AND QUIET.  A former editorial writer for the StarTribune, he won several Page One awards for excellence, and has also received national awards for magazine writing.   He recently visited China and returned with wild stories of hermits in caves.