The Kansas City Public Library hosts poet Heid Erdrich for a talk and reading from her latest poetry collection National Monuments, winner of the 2009 Minnesota Book Award for Poetry, on Wednesday, September 30, at 6:30 p.m. at the Central Library, 14 W. 10th St. This presentation is a part of the Park University Ethnic Voices Poetry Series.

Erdrich belongs to the Turtle Mountain Band of Ojibway and is co-founder (with her sister, novelist Louise Erdrich) of Birchbark House, a nonprofit clearinghouse for indigenous language literature. Her first poetry collection Fishing for Myth won a Minnesota Voices award and she has been nominated three other times for the Minnesota Book Award.

This program is co-sponsored by Park University and the Missouri Arts Council, a state agency.

Admission is free. A 6 p.m. reception precedes the event. Click here or call 816.701.3407 to RSVP. Free parking is available in the Library District Parking Garage at 10th and Baltimore.