Mission-driven and non-profit since 1980

Woodland Pattern is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit book center, gallery, and performance space located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. For forty-two years and counting, we have been dedicated to the discovery, cultivation, and presentation of poetry, independent literature, and the arts. Each year we host over 400 programs and events—including workshops, poetry performances, concerts, exhibitions, film screenings, and programs for children and youth. To learn more about our programs, please visit our main site.

In addition to our programming efforts, the dissemination of independent literature—particularly poetry, unconventional texts, works that honor bookmaking as a visual art, books by small- and micro-press publishers, and literature by writers from historically marginalized backgrounds—has been central to our purpose since our founding. As a result of four decades of mission-driven inventory decisions, Woodland Pattern is home to the largest collection of haiku in North America, the largest Native American section in Wisconsin, and our collection of contemporary poetry is one of the most comprehensive of its kind in the United States. We also house a sizable collection of works by writers from Wisconsin and throughout the Upper Midwest, including hundreds of self-published books. Unlike a commercial bookseller, our acquisitions have never been based on profitability but on mission fit, which also means we hold on to titles indefinitely, as we believe in their permanent value.

If you live in our region, please come visit us! We welcome visitors who are interested in spending a day with us exploring and reading on site (no need to make a purchase). If you are not able to visit our physical location for whatever reason, we hope you will enjoy browsing our collection here and discovering books, authors, and presses you may be unfamiliar with. In preparation for the launch of this online shop in 2020, we worked hard to frame and organize our inventory in ways that we hope will be educational. That said, we are a small staff and this site remains a work in progress. While our tagging system isn't perfect, we are committed to continually improving it.

Please also note that items listed here represent only a fraction of our inventory. We will continue to add more and more titles over time, as possible. Please check back for updates and feel free to reach out to us with questions about publications not featured here that we may have in stock. We also accept special-order requests. Finally, if you are an author or publisher and wish to consign with us, please be in touch. Thank you for supporting our work and the work of poets, writers, and independent publishers from Milwaukee and across the country.

Gift Certificates

Gift Certificates

Regular price $10.00 Unit price per
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Woodland Pattern Book Center

720 E Locust St
Milwaukee, WI 53212

Monday, Closed
Tues - Fri, 11am - 8pm
Sat - Sun, 12pm - 5pm

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Notices

Please remember when placing orders that we are a nonprofit with a small staff. Items ordered from Woodland Pattern may take longer to arrive by mail than they would from a commercial bookseller. Please also note that all of our in-house broadsides are limited edition and printed on the occasion of an author’s visit. Broadside purchases of a single edition are limited to two per person. Thank you!