“It stirs up thoughts, not just for the hour, but for the rest of the afternoon. It cheers me up.”

—Lois, Lyngblomsten Care Center, St. Paul

Where does APP-MN work?

Here’s an alphabetical list of communities where we lead or have led poetry sessions, workshops, trainings, presentations, and talks, updated September 2019:

Act on Alzheimer’s Conference, Marshall * Artistry, Bloomington * ALLY People Solutions, St. Paul * ArtSage MN * Association of Writers and Poets (AWP) Conference, Minneapolis * Auburn Manor, Chanhassen * Augsburg College, Minneapolis * Augustana Apartments, Minneapolis * Avinity Senior Living, Richfield * Avivo Minneapolis * Avivo Bloomington * Belle Plaine Lutheran Home * Bluff Creek Elementary School, Chanhassen * Caring for a Person with Memory Loss Conference, University of Minnesota School of Public Health, Minneapolis * Carondelet Village, St. Paul * Cerenity Humboldt Care Center and Memory Care, West St. Paul * Deer Crest Assisted Living and Memory Care, Red Wing * Eastside Neighborhood Services’ Friendship Center, Minneapolis * Ebenezer Adult Day, Minneapolis * Ebenezer Arts Activities Retreat, Bloomington * Ebenezer Care Center, Minneapolis * Ebenezer Loren on Park Apartments, Minneapolis * Ebenezer Ridges Adult Day, Ridges Childcare, Arbors at Ridges Assisted Living, and Arbor Lane Memory Care, Burnsville * Ebenezer Tower Apartments, Minneapolis * Ecumen Lakeshore independent Living, Assisted Living, and Memory Care, Duluth * Ecumen Parmly, Chisago City * FamilyMeans, Stillwater * The Gathering at Augustana Lutheran, West St. Paul * The Gathering at Bethlehem Lutheran, Minneapolis * The Gathering at Calvary Lutheran, Golden Valley * The Gathering at Centennial United Methodist, Roseville * The Gathering at First Presbyterian, White Bear Lake * The Gathering at Oak Knoll, Minnetonka * The Gathering at Salem Lutheran, West. St. Paul * The Gathering at White Bear Lake United Methodist * The Gathering at Woodbury Baptist * Heritage Apartments at Lyngblomsten, St. Paul * Heritage Park Open Circle Adult Day, Minneapolis * Homewood Studios, Minneapolis * James J. Hill House, St. Paul * Johanna Shores, Arden Hills * Lake Fellowship, Excelsior * Leading Age Annual Meeting, San Diego, CA * League of Minnesota Poets, Minneapolis * Lifetime Arts Seeding Artful Aging Training, Minneapolis * The Loft Literary Arts Center, Minneapolis * Lyngblomsten Care Center, St. Paul * Marshall High School, Duluth * Martin Luther’s Meadow Woods Assisted Living and Prairie Spirit Memory Care, Bloomington * McKenna Crossing, Prior Lake * Meeting of the Minds Dementia Care Conference, St. Paul * Midwest Arts & Aging Conference, St. Paul * Minneapolis Institute of Arts * Minnesota Association of Senior Services Conference, St. Paul * Minnesota Jewish Theatre, St. Paul * Minnesota Opera, Minneapolis * Minnesota Statewide Activity Professionals Conference, St. Cloud * Nine-Mile Creek Senior Living, Bloomington * Park Elder Center, Minneapolis * Penelope 35 Apartments, Bloomington * Pilgrim House, Arden Hills * Plains Art Museum, Fargo, ND * Presbyterian Homes Annual Retreat, Roseville * Ravoux Hi-Rise, St. Paul * Red Rock Senior Living, Woodbury * Redeemer Health & Rehab, Minneapolis * Regional Arts and Healthcare Symposium, Mayo Clinic, Rochester * Rochester Arts Center * Rural Arts and Culture Summit, Morris * Saint Paul Jewish Community Center * Shakopee Women’s Correctional Facility * Shorewood Landing, Shoreview * Southwest Senior Center, Minneapolis * TLC Learning Center, Bloomington * Thomas T. Feeney Manor, Minneapolis * Weisman Art Museum, St. Paul * Walker Methodist Assisted Living and Memory Care, Minneapolis * White Bear Heights Senior Living, White Bear Lake * Wilder Center for Aging, St. Paul * York Gardens, Edina

Intergenerational Poetry Project

(March through August, 2019)

Thanks to a grant from the Metropolitan Arts Council (MRAC), acquired and managed by the visionary Lifelong Learning and Childcare staff of Ebenezer Ridges intergenerational campus in Burnsville and Martin Luther in Bloomington, as well as the wonderful teachers and aides in the Bloomington Schools Galaxy Summer program, APP-MN facilitated three different joyful, intergenerational creative collaborations with elder and younger poets over six months.

During the spring, Rachel Moritz and Diane Jarvenpa brought two different groups of grandfriends from memory care and assisted living communities together with preschool-age kids from Ridges childcare for an adventure in creativity and companionship. During the summer, Julie Landsman explored creativity and identity with middle school students and their elder friends from Meadow Woods assisted living at Martin Luther.

Poems were collected in chapbooks and distributed to participants, families, and community members. Link here to a couple of the fine poems from this most joyful and satisfying of collaborations.

Naming the Artist Within

(January through November, 2017)

Through previous initiatives, we worked with teaching artists in storytelling, dance, puppetry, music, visual art, theater, and videography to share skills and deepen the impact of arts experiences, discovering, along the way, the power of layering creative modalities—what we call the “multimodal” approach.

Thanks to a $10,000 Arts Activities grant from the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, our multimodal project, "Naming the Artist Within," dove deeper into the pool of memory and association, connecting text with image, poets with visual artists, and elders with each other and their communities at Southwest Senior Center, Heritage Park Senior Services Center, Eastside Neighborhood Services’ Friendship Center, and Park Elder Center's Hmong DayElders Program. 

Workshops specially designed for older adults, led by visual artists Michèle Coppin and Holly Nelson, and APP-MN poets Zoë Bird, Diane Jarvenpa, Julie Landsman, and Rachel Moritz, encouraged exploration in and actual synthesis of the two art forms, allowing important themes and intimacy within groups to develop over time as participants created their own original visual art and responded to the art by creating poetry, and vice versa.