Join us for the 61st Annuual Neihardt Day Celebration!

Featuring State Poet Emeritus Matt Mason, well-known Poet JV Brummels, 2025-26 Youth Poet Laureate Victoria Bogatz, and YOU for an Open Mic!

Bring your blanket and chairs, and a picnic lunch, and join us for an afternoon celebrating poetry. For the Open Mic, bring 2-3 poems to read.

All are welcome! Admission is free. There won’t be food or drinks available this year, so please bring your own!

VICTORIA BOGATZ:

Victoria Bogatz (@victoriabogatzwrites) is an environmental activist,
student journalist, and the 2025-26 Nebraska Youth Poet Laureate. Her
work has been honored by the Nebraska Scholastic Writing Awards, 1455
Books, and the Nebraska Poetry Society, among others. She aims to use
writing as a way to connect people from all backgrounds and initiate
change. When not writing, she enjoys running, petting her dog, and
planning environmental revolutions. Her debut chapbook, This Is Not
the End, will be published on August 7th, 2026.

JV BRUMMELS:

JV Brummels' work has been recognized with a Literature Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Elkhorn Prize, and the Mildred Bennett Award for contributions to the state’s literature from the Nebraska Center for the Book, among others. Raised first on a farm and later on a ranch, he was educated at the University of Nebraska and later Syracuse University. In 1984, he began a horseback cattle outfit to raise natural, grass-fed beef, which he still operates. A longtime professor at Wayne State College, he’s also written and published short fiction and a novel. He is Director Emeritus of Wayne State College Press.