For more information or to join a group, please contact our Programming Director, Mike Wendt.
Readshop
Led by poet and Woodland Pattern co-founder Karl Gartung, Readshops are community sessions dedicated to exploring poetry texts from the 20th century that are often labeled “difficult.” Participants take turns reading the poetry aloud, discussing it as questions arise—on the spot, as deeply as needed. No preparation is needed; the only prerequisite is curiosity.
The Readshop group is currently reading The Crystal Text by Clark Coolidge. In the summer of 1982, Clark Coolidge received an unexpected gift of a crystal; small, clear, entirely unexceptional, the crystal nonetheless provoked the poet into writing what has long been considered his masterpiece. A durational poem composed over the course of 10 months, in daybook-like entries of varying length, The Crystal Text is multifaceted and elusive, constantly interrogating itself. Is it a meditation on its titular object like Keats’s “Urn” or a radical investigation of the limits of language as a signifying system? Is the poet channeling the crystal to access its message or is the crystal channeling the poet, drawing language from him to fill its colorless emptiness? Is it dictation or improvisation? Is the poem a record of its own crystalline growth or does it capture the process of consciousness itself? The Crystal Text refuses to resolve the questions it raises but rather inhabits its various possibilities simultaneously, resulting in one of the major works of late 20th century American avant-garde poetry.
Readshop meets on alternating Wednesdays from 6–7:15 PM. This group is currently meeting virtually. Contact us for more information.
Wednesday Writers
Wednesday Writers has been meeting at Woodland Pattern for nearly two decades! The group formed after a series of memoir and poetry workshops led by 2009 writers-in-residence Maureen Owen and Jack Collom. Participants meet weekly to share and discuss their writing, and host a reading celebration each year.
Wednesday Writers holds hybrid meetings every Wednesday at 1 pm. Contact for Program Director Mike Wendt more information.
Ping Pong Book Club
The Ping Pong Book Club invites AAPI people to read together in an environment of solace and nourishment—to connect and share in conversation through literature, especially during times of distress. Our goal is to exchange thoughts, experiences, and feelings among one another, a back-and-forth, like table tennis, or simply ping pong. The reading material will focus on fiction and nonfiction literature specifically by female, BIPOC, and LGBTQIA+ writers, with a focus on art and artists writings. The Ping Pong Book Club is led by artist Nomka Enkhee, who lives and works in Milwaukee. The group is currently reading We The Gathered Heat, edited by Franny Choi, Bao Phi, Noʻu Revilla, & Terisa Siagatonu.
The Ping Pong Book Club recognizes the term AAPI as a huge umbrella that covers many global diasporic communities including different languages, religions, and cultures. We understand this term, designed to encompass such a vast and multifaceted group, has its limitations, and we want to create a community that is diverse and truly representative. Therefore we welcome everyone whose identities are tied in location to South Asia, Southeast Asia, Central Asia, West Asia, the Pacific Islands, and East Asia.
Ping Pong Book Club meets in person at Woodland Pattern on alternating Tuesdays from 6–7 PM.
We acknowledge that in Milwaukee we live and work on traditional Potawatomi, Ho-Chunk, and Menominee homelands along the southwest shores of Michigami, part of North America’s largest system of freshwater lakes, where the Milwaukee, Menominee, and Kinnickinnic rivers meet and the people of Wisconsin’s sovereign Anishinaabe, Ho-Chunk, Menominee, Oneida, and Mohican nations remain present.
We further acknowledge the iniquity and suffering colonialism introduced to these lands through genocide and slavery, as well as through racist and xenophobic beliefs, laws, and practices that continue to inflict harm upon Black, brown, Indigenous, and immigrant lives. We honor those who have lived—and live now—at these intersections of identity and experience.
720 E. Locust Street
Milwaukee, WI 53212
Phone: 414 263 5001
Hours: Tues–Sun | 12-7 pm
Closed Mon
Building Accessibility: Despite the age of our physical location, and attendant limitations to access, Woodland Pattern is committed to making its programs and facilities available for as many as possible. Please call for more information.
Events Accessibility: Woodland Pattern is able to offer captioning services for its online events and with advanced notice can provide ASL interpretation for live events. Please contact us with accommodation requests and questions.
© Woodland Pattern 2026