Milkweed Books & MCBA present war | machine with Joel Hernandez

Join Milkweed Books and Minnesota Center for Book Arts as we celebrate the work of Joel Hernandez. Featuring local poet and book artists MC Hyland, who will read and engage with Joel in conversation about hybrid and concrete poetry and the influences behind his newest work, war | machine. Refreshments will be provided by Chowgirls.

ABOUT THE WORK

What do we make of the past—our archives, artifacts, and the forgotten histories of individuals? war | machine began as a collection of anonymous photographs from the University of Minnesota in the 1930s and ’40s, and from WWII albums recovered from a house lost at forfeit auction. Those fragments have been reimagined into a hybrid narrative of telegrams, poems, and images—a project in conversation with Tom Phillips’ transformations of postcards and texts, Alec Soth and Brad Zellar’s work with vernacular archives and American solitude, and Sophie Calle’s choreographies of privacy and revelation.

The result is a book intentionally resistant to completion, a narrative that shifts, unsettles—and ultimately becomes unique to each reader. There will be special editions available to the first 100 attendees.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Joel Hernandez is the author of Baghdad Express: A Gulf War Memoir (Borealis/Penguin) and a recovering book critic. His writing has appeared in GQ, Granta, The New York Times, Virginia Quarterly Review, and other journals—and on highway signs, train stations, and a see-saw.

He is currently completing the book arts certificate program at MCBA, where he is developing additional concrete-poetry and experimental book projects. Joel will be holding launch events and readings for war | machine throughout 2026. His editions are available at ninechainspress.com.

MC Hyland is a poet, publisher, scholar, teacher, and public artist. Her poems and critical writings have been published in journals in the US, UK, Canada, and Australia. She has published two full-length books of poetry— (Sidebrow, 2019) and (Lowbrow/ H_NGM_N)—and a dozen poetry chapbooks and artist books. Her third book, a collection of short essays called The Dead the Living & the Bridge, is forthcoming from Meekling Press in April 2025. The founding editor of DoubleCross Press, she has taught and created programs at Minnesota Center for Book Arts and The Center for Book Arts in NY. Both through DoubleCross and independently, she's produced small-edition handmade books and letterpress poetry broadsides. Her work has been supported by grants from NYU, the University of Alabama, the Mellon Foundation, the Minnesota State Arts Board, and Art Shanty Projects. She lives in St. Paul with her partner, Jeff and their kitty, Dakota.

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