The East Side Freedom Library invites you to join us for our last outdoor cultural event of the year: Danny Klecko will share poetry from his new book Lincolnland and The Gated Community will perform music from old favorites to new compositions!

Live and in person on ESFL’s beautiful front lawn

The pandemic has taught us all a lot.

Master Bread Baker Dan McGleno, known as Klecko, won the 2020 Midwest Book Award for poetry from the Midwest Independent Publishers Association. In Hitman-Baker-Casketmaker, Klecko wrestled with the experience of losing St. Agnes Bakery, a business he had built over decades. St. Agnes was closed by ICE who charged that many of its employees were undocumented immigrants. Klecko was struck by his personal loss but also the loss experienced by his workers, many of whom faded away into the shadows, and, of course, the irrationality and injustice of the entire system. The issues his poetry engaged continue to resonate.

At the heart of Lincolnland, is Klecko’s search for Abraham Lincoln, which was sparked by a dream and took place during a pandemic, mostly on weekends. During the weeks, he worked at Grandma’s Bakery in White Bear Lake. His poems capture scenes, tell stories and relate conversations or correspondence. He writes with sincerity, playfulness, honesty and economy.

Klecko will be followed by the local band, The Gated Community, a country/bluegrass band with a raw, rock edge. Started in 2006 by South Asian-American Yale graduate and political activist Sumanth Gopinath when he moved from New Haven to Minneapolis to begin working as a professor of music theory at the University of Minnesota. The band’s current lineup combines professors like Sumanth (vocals, acoustic guitar), Teresa Gowan (fiddle, vocals), and Beth Hartman (vocals, percussion), and musicians from the broader community like Rosie Harris (vocals, banjo, cello), Paul Hatlelid (drums, acoustic guitar, vocals), Cody Johnson (bass), and Nate Knutson (electric guitar). About the interesting mix of people in the band, Sumanth says “Even though I have strong social ties to the academic world, I don’t like hanging out only with academics. I prefer to work with people from all walks of life—whether they be union organizers, office workers, or full-time artists.”

The Gated Community, an Americana band, was formed in Minneapolis’s West Bank neighborhood in 2006. The band is known for its compelling original songs, vocal harmonies, and multiple lead singers. Their fourth album, Won’t You Believe Me, was released in November 2019, and they are currently working on a fifth album, to be released sometime in 2022. Watch them perform an album release show here!

We hate to let our outdoor setting go, and we think that celebrating—and mourning—with Klecko and the Gated Community is an appropriate way to mark our transition into deep fall and winter. Celebrate and mourn with us.

Free and open to all