Margaret Hasse

Margaret Hasse was born and raised in South Dakota. Poetry drew her in when she was child and has never let her down. After graduating from Stanford University, she moved to the Twin Cities. She taught poetry at the budding Loft, in correctional facilities, and with COMPAS poets-in-the-schools, continuing freelance work to this day. In her first decade in Minnesota, she met (and has enjoyed rich friendships with) fellow poets such as Jim Moore, Roy McBride, Etheridge Knight, James L. White, Phebe Hanson, Michael Dennis Browne, and Trish Hampl.

Margaret’s roles in The Loft have been many and varied: teaching artist; Writers on Stage performer; Mentor Program participant; board chair; instigator, with Susan Broadhead, of Inroads Program; consultant (strategic planning, Art and the Land project, others); and recipient of Loft-McKnight and Loft-Jerome awards. Margaret has also received grants from National Endowment for the Arts and Minnesota State Arts Board. She’s published six books of poetry, including Between Us in 2016 and Shelter in 2020. Shelter is a collaboration with the artist Sharon DeMark of poems and pictures of various kinds of refuge. The book, created during the early months of the pandemic, provided a shelter-in-creativity for the two collaborating friends.