Meet Nico Wilkinson | Poet, Artist, Organizer, Historian

We had the good fortune of connecting with Nico Wilkinson and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Nico, can you talk to us a bit about the social impact of your business?
I’ve worn a lot of hats: artist, poet, researcher, and community organizer, to name a few. Community is at the root of all I do, specifically my love for the queer and trans community. In times like these, in which queer people are under legislative attack and trans people are being called terrorists, times in which authenticity feels harder and harder to come by with the rise of AI, I have found myself drawn to history research and archival work. In November, 2025 I began looking through archived documents related to LGBTQ+ Colorado Springs history, and began to record my findings online through a project called the Queer History Archive of Colorado Springs. It occurred to me that so much of the history of queer activists and artists in Colorado Springs were not easily accessible. They were locked in databases requiring institutional access, or hiding in the depths of the internet archive. Some documents were in archives and not yet digitized. The more I researched, the more stories I found of people in the past, who lived where I live, who walked these same streets, who worked hard to make a better life for themselves and those to come. I work to preserve these stories so that my community knows and will know: we have been here. We have always been here. We will always be here. We have a history that small-minded bigots will not take from us. Not if we have something to say about it.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
In a world that seems to prioritize speed and efficiency more and more by the day, often at the expense of our own humanity, I take pleasure in creating slowly, using technologies that might be considered antiquated. I’ve loved letterpress printing and book-binding since I learned it in college, and that love is what led me to release my first full-length book *The Weeds Grow Anyway* in a limited hand-bound run of 225 copies. It certainly wasn’t easy, nor was it fast, but I am proud of the work, and of myself, for the patience and tenacity the project required of me. The same goes for my recent gallery exhibition at the UCCS Heller Center, in which I explored long Covid through the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur. For that exhibit, I created a large sculpture of a minotaur head, and then covered it in over 48000 mirror tiles. People often ask me: how long did this take you? This book, this sculpture, this research? I can’t give an answer, because I don’t keep track. Besides, what better way to spend that time, time that will pass anyway, than in the act of creation?

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
An ideal day with a visitor might include:
– Brunch at Switchback Coffee Roasters
– A shopping trip at Ladyfingers Letterpress, a wonderful printshop in downtown Colorado Springs
– Paddleboarding at either Prospect or Quail Lake
– A nighttime drive up Gold Camp Road, during which I’d share local ghost stories.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
I owe so much to so many, but my queer history research has made me particularly present with the work of queer elders who fought so hard to create space and power, not just for themselves, but in service of people they might never meet. I also want to shout out historians like David Duffield of the Colorado LGBTQ+ History Project, professors like Dr. Rushaan Kumar and Dr. Tre Wentling of the Colorado Springs LGBTQ+ Oral History Project, and librarians and archivists who have helped preserve these stories within Pikes Peak Library District and Colorado College special collections. On a more personal note, I also want to shout out my partner, Brin, who cheers me on when I’m feeling low, reassures me when doubts creep in, and whose way of looking at the world opens my eyes to new and exciting possibilities.

Website: https://www.nicowilkinson.com

Instagram: nicothepoet

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100066717047361

Other: The Colorado Springs Queer Archive: https://cospringshistory.lgbt
Substack/Newsletter: https://nicothepoet.substack.com
Where people can buy my book: nicowilkinson.com/the-weeds-grow-anyway

Image Credits
Headshot and some of the photos of my prints (We Grow Anyway and the photo of the Trans Day of I love you poem) are by Corri Mercy