The Poetry Gallery: Sasha Debevec-McKenney

Wed, October 14, 2026 7:00 PM - Wed, October 14, 2026 9:00 PM at MSU Broad Art Museum, 547 E. Circle Dr., East Lansing, MI

Join Sasha Debevec-McKenney, a poet who studies the presidents, for a poetry reading in the galleries of We Are This Land: Meditations on the Great American Experiment. Debevec-McKenney has conducted long-term embodied research into key sites of American national identity—visiting all of the existing presidential libraries and writing poems in response to them. Her poetry invites us to consider American history and the stories we tell about our nation. A meet-and-greet book signing will follow.

Presented by the RCAH Center for Poetry, The Poetry Gallery is a series bringing poetry into conversation with art and the American experience. This event is offered in connection with We Are This Land: Meditations on the Great American Experiment. On view Aug. 22, 2026–Mar. 14, 2027, We Are This Land brings together artists who invite us to reflect on our history, consider our present, and imagine brighter futures. 

Admission is free; please click here to register.

Sasha Debevec-McKenney's debut poetry collection Joy Is My Middle Name won the 2026 Swansea University Dylan Thomas Prize, the world’s largest and most prestigious literary prize for young writers. She was the 2020–2021 Jay C. and Ruth Halls Poetry Fellow at the University of Wisconsin and a 2023-2025 Creative Writing Fellow at Emory University. Her poems have appeared in places like The New Yorker, The Yale Review, The Drift, and Granta. She was born in Hartford, Connecticut and teaches poetry in Michigan.