Donna Salli of Brainerd, an English instructor at Central Lakes College, recently served on a seven-person panel selecting the 2010 grants to support state poets. Salli and a panelist from Duluth represented out-state Minnesota to award grants from $2,000 to $6,000 to support poets in various stages of their careers. The funding is coordinated by the Minnesota State Arts Board. The panel included writers, editors, and arts administrators. The group forwarded the names of 25 Minnesota writers to receive grants. Salli, a playwright whose inaugural drama “The Rock Farm” has been staged in Finland and at CLC in Brainerd, has a Master of Fine Arts degree in poetry from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and was a winner in 2000 of a Mentor Series Award in Poetry from The Loft.