The Research Center Presents: Ryan Vine’s The Cave: Poetry Reading & Book Signing
The Research Center Presents: Ryan Vine’s The Cave: Poetry Reading & Book Signing
🗓️ Date: Thursday, October 29
⏰ Time: 5:00-7:30pm
📍 Place: MDC’s Theater
💸 Cost: FREE
On Thursday, October 29 from 5:00-7:30pm, come listen to one of Minnesota’s most celebrated modern poets—Ryan Vine!
Ryan will be reading from his latest poetry collection, The Cave, which explores the topics of fatherhood, generational trauma, and the ways place and lineage connect. It has been named one of the “Best Poetry Books of 2025” by the California Review of Books and “Top 5 of 2025” by Zenith Bookstore in Duluth, MN.
Ryan was born and raised on the backwaters of the St. Louis River in the Fond Du Lac neighborhood of western Duluth. Along with being a poet, he is also a professor of English at the College of St. Scholastica. His honors include the Northeastern Minnesota Book Award, the Weldon Kees Award, the Robert Watson Poetry Prize, and more.
Here’s the evening’s schedule:
🥂 5:00pm: Mingling and (free!) snacks (first-come, first-served)
🗣️ 6:00pm: The poetry reading begins
✒️ 6:45pm: Ryan signs books
👋 7:30pm: We say goodnight
Take a look at these reviews of The Cave:
“While the poems in The Cave are thoroughly contemporary, many of their philosophical underpinnings are as old as humanity itself. Vine’s haunting meditations on fatherhood, for example, are as profound and enduring as any I’ve ever read. This is manly work, utterly masterful, and deeply moving.” — Connie Wanek
“These poems are as indelible as scars—and just as full of ancient wisdom. Wonders abound: the cloud inside a dog’s eye, the way a lake holds up the sky. Ryan Vine’s poetry gives me that fully alive feeling, up to my neck in something I don’t quite know how to swim and am glad for.” — Dobby Gibson
“[These poems] hold the ache and tenderness of what can’t be held: the hope and fear in trying to teach our kids to see what waits beyond the horizon when we can’t see it ourselves, of living in a world where everything we love will disappear.” — Michael Bazzett
“These are poems that don’t let go, by a poet who sings of human love with grit and honesty and extraordinary tenderness.” — Patrick Phillips
Did you know that the Minnesota State Arts Board supports awesome Minnesotan authors and artists like Ryan? 👀👇
Ryan Vine is a Fiscal Year 2026 recipient of a Creative Individuals grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board. This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation by the Minnesota State Legislature; and by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.