Woodland Pattern Book Center

Woodland Pattern Book Center is a nonprofit organization in Milwaukee, Wisconsin's Riverwest neighborhood that seeks to present small press literature, readings, visual art, and experimental music with a focus on contemporary practice.^[1] The organization was founded in 1979.^[2] It is named for a line in a poem published in Paul Metcalf's Apalache.

Programs and services

Woodland Pattern operates a bookstore specializing in poetry, multicultural literature, and books published by small and independent presses. The bookstore's collection exceeds 25,000 titles, including a selection of chapbooks, zines, regional literary journals, and one-of-a-kind artist's books.^[3]

Woodland Pattern is known for its community alliances, its efforts to bridge cultural and genre divides, and the diversity of its offerings, as well as its emphasis on new (experimental) writers and writing. An art gallery offers space for exhibitions as well as performances, film screenings, classes, installations, conferences, symposia and workshops.^[4][5]

Poet Jerome Rothenberg has praised Woodland Pattern's reputation as "national in scope, and I know of no other center - anywhere in the U.S. - that has carried on a more intricate and demanding program in the literary arts".^[6]

References