Ann Engelman learned about Lorine Niedecker when she went to get a library card after moving to Fort Atkinson in 2001. Ann has been a friend ever since creating opportunities for others to be captured by Lorine’s poems about her “place” on Blackhawk Island along the Rock River. Ann and Amy Lutzke created the Friends of Lorine Niedecker in 2004 hosting Poetry Festivals, visitors curious about Lorine and public art installations. The Poetry Walls in Fort Atkinson have created publicity, selfie opportunities and an invitation to absorb lines of poetry into our own lives.
Amy Lutzke is the Assistant Director at the Dwight Foster Public Library. In 2004, along with Ann Engelman, she began the Friends of Lorine Niedecker, Inc. The FOLN is an educational organization that offers access to research archives and educational materials, and publishes The Solitary Plover, a semiannual newsletter, and What Region, a monograph series. Amy has coordinated poetry/art installations in the public schools of Fort Atkinson, is general editor of The Solitary Plover newsletter and obtained grant funding to digitize the Lorine Niedecker archives at the Hoard Historical Museum and the Dwight Foster Public Library.