About
Michael Lee Vikre is an interdisciplinary Norwegian American writer, scholar and educator. Author of The Only Worlds We Know (Button Poetry, 2019), he has received grants and scholarships from the Minnesota State Arts Board, the LOFT Literary Center, and the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. Winner of the Scotti Merrill Award for poetry from the Key West Literary Seminar and the Arthur Lynn Andrews Award for Fiction from Cornell University. Michael’s writing has appeared in the Massachusetts Review, The Missouri Review, Ninth Letter, Copper Nickel, and Best New Poets among others. He holds an MFA in English Literature and Creative Writing from Cornell University and an Ed.M in Arts Education from Harvard University. After more than a decade as a youth worker and educator for youth experiencing homelessness as well as gang and clique affiliated youth in North Minneapolis, Michael most recently served as a Lecturer in the Department of Literatures in English at Cornell University and has taught in prison education programs in both New York and Minnesota. Presently, he is an American Scandinavian Foundation Fellow and splits his time between North Minneapolis and Norway.
Current Projects
Michael’s research focuses on the intersections of colonialism, race formation and industrialized forms of violence across the long 19th century. Michael is currently working on a hybrid work of poetry, essays and literary/arts criticism which maps a constellation of material and cultural forms of violence across the Atlantic world between the guillotine and the Mark I tank at the Battle of the Somme. Additionally, he is working on a book of poems examining the ways in which the Second World War has shaped Norwegian collective, national and cultural memory and a book of short stories based on his time as a farm hand in Hedmark, Norway.
For all booking and other inquiries please contact michaelleevikre@gmail.com
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