April is Poetry Month: Day 12

 The Poem That Got Away

There I was and in it came
Through the fogbank of my brain
From the fastness of my soul
Shining like a glowing coal

the nearly perfect poem!

Oh, it may have needed just

An alteration here or there--

A little tuck, a little seam

to be exactly what I mean--

The really perfect poem!

    I'll write it later on, I said,

    The idea's clear and so's my head.

    This pen I have is nearly dry.

    What I'll do now is finish this pie,

    Then on to the perfect poem!

With pen in hand quite full of ink

I try now to recall.

I've plenty of time in which to think

But the poem went down the kitchen sink

With the last of the perfect pie.

                                            Felice Holman

From: Inner Chimes: Poems on Poetry, Selected by Bobbye S. Goldstein, Wordsong Press, 1992.

This is such a fun book for people who like to read poetry, have ever tried to write poetry, or are just curious about the creative process.  This is a book that would be found in the children's section, with charming illustrations and a spacious design; but that is an artificial separation.  So much simple joy can be found between the pages; and so much food for thought (and even some tasty pie!)

 

April is Poetry Month: Day 11

Oct, 2018 Jean Doolittle

Appetite

by Marilyn Singer

Fire is always hungry.

    Meat or fish

    Carrots or eggplant

    Math books, French tests

    Overstuffed sofas, junkyard automobiles

    Tenements, castles

    A stylish cafe,  an old-fashioned street--

Some treats it gobbles,

    Others it savors slowly

            leaving a few stones, a bunch of bricks.

Fire is the least fussy of diners.

It likes almost anything 

    it licks

From: Central Heating: Poems About Fire and Warmth, Marilyn Singer, Alfred A. Knopf, 2005.

The first poem in the book is titled, "Contradiction" and the jacket blurb clarifies that word: fire is..."cheery, beautiful, unpredictable, scary, fire is our friend and foe."  Fire is elemental and we are drawn to it, but also fear its power; and well we should.  Wildfire season has widespread impacts and the dangers are increasing.  FEMA has fascinating, if scary, maps that illustrate this clearly.  The whole National Risk Index website is worth exploring to help us understand the impact of climate change and our cavalier attitudes to our environment.

April is Poetry Month: Day 10

Alfred von Wierusz-Kowalski - In a Polish Village - 24.227 - Museum of Fine Arts

Grudnow

by Linda Pastan

When he spoke of where he came from,

my grandfather could have been

clearing his throat

of that name, that town

sometimes Poland, sometimes Russia

the borders pencilled in 

with a hand as shaky as his.

I understood what he meant

when I saw the photograph

of his people standing  

against a landscape emptied

of crops and trees, scraped raw

by winter. Everything

was in sepia, as if the brown earth

had stained the faces,

had even stained the air.

I would have died there, I think

in childhood maybe

of some fever,

my face pressed for warmth

against a cow with flanks

like those of the great aunts

in the picture. Or later

I would have died of history

like the others, who dug 

their stubborn heels into the earth,

heels as hard as the heels

of the bread my grandfather tore

from the loaf at supper.  He always

sipped his tea through a cube of sugar

clenched in his teeth, the way

he sipped his life here, noisily,

through all he remembered

that might have been sweet in Grudnow.

From: Eternal Light: Grandparent Poems, A Twentieth-Century Selection, edited by Jason Shinder, Harcourt Brace, 1995.

The year was 1911.  I envision my mother, only 3 years old,  clutching her little brother's hand tightly, looking up in awe at the huge ship that would take them to their new home in America.  I have often wondered about that time in my family's life.  I wonder about my grandfather, leaving behind everything that he knew in that little Polish village; my grandmother, then 35 years old (3 years older than her husband) taking her 4 young children, with a 5th one on the way, on a long voyage to an unknown place and both of them saying goodbye to loved ones for the last time, ever.

    They had to have good reasons to leave and hopes for better things ahead.  What they would have is 11 children altogether, seven children born in America, (the last one when Grandma was 46 years old) challenges of language and customs and neighbors that would mock their religion.  They would see their eldest son lose his leg to a farm accident and have it amputated on the dining room table.  They would send 4 sons to war, they would take in my mother after she lost her young husband.  Grandpa would lose part of his ear in an accident. They would never own their own land,  but they would also have joy.  

I love spending time with my Schoenack family.  There is a vivid streak of fun and good humor that has been passed down through the generations that is almost a tangible presence.  The storytelling can last for hours.  

    I never knew my grandparents.  I was born when my mother was 42.  By that time, Grandma had been gone for 4 years and Grandpa would die in 1951, when I was a baby, too young to remember him.  I have no idea if the poem I'm sharing today reflects any of their actual thoughts or experiences, but at least one line is clearly resonant..."that town, sometimes Poland, sometimes Russia, the borders pencilled in with a hand as shaky as his..."  

My mother talked about leaving Germany, but her village is now in Poland.  The ship manifest states that they embarked from Prussia.  They came from a land marked by political turmoil, both when they left, and periodically, for decades after.  It is the ordinary people who pay the price of this turmoil, whether they leave or stay.  It is a steep price and right now, the Ukrainian people are paying with their lives.  How we need these stories of humble people to remind us to work for peace in anyway we can.

    

April is Poetry Month: Day 9

 

The ninth day of April this year is Easter, long celebrated as a day of rebirth and renewal.  We pack a lot into our holidays...religious observances combined with food, family gatherings and a bit of magic--a good combination, I think.  

The weather also plays a role, sometimes hindering and sometimes enhancing our holiday celebrations.  Thus, today is a good day for a brief poetic tribute to rain.  Here in Minnesota,  after an extremely snowy winter, we welcomed the heat to melt the snow and will welcome some April rains to wash away the detritus of the winter months.

Outside

by Lilian Moore

I 

am inside

looking outside

at the pelting

rain--

where the outside world

is melting

upon my window

pane.

April Rain Song

by Langston Hughes

Let the rain kiss you.

Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops.

Let the rain sing you a lullaby.

The rain makes still pools on the sidewalk.

The rain makes running pools in the gutter.

The rain plays a little sleep-song on our roof at night--

And I love the rain.

From:
Rainy Day: Stories and Poems,  Edited by Caroline Feller Bauer, Harper Collins, 1986.

Remembering Marian: June 13, 1935-April 11, 2017

  Picture if you will, a little dark-haired girl, smart and serious and only 5 years old.   Her daddy had been hurt and now he’s in heaven and her young mama is very very sad.  At that time in 1940, Marian Frances Tauber had to grow-up a lot quicker than most other little girls.  Her mama and her 2 year-old sister, Judy, needed her and she would be there for them.  The sudden and unexpected death of her father was an event that shaped her life and her character is many ways, large and small.  

Fran, her mother, (and mine as well, although I wouldn't arrive for another 10 years) had been a farm wife, living with her in-laws, but they too were gone and she had limited financial resources to fall back on; but she did have an extensive family and so for the next 8 years, the three of them would live either in the grandparent’s home or with aunt Marge and cousin Donna in rooms over businesses in Alexandria, MN.  

Marian would be her mother’s confidante and willing helper, taking charge of the household and of her little sister, much to Judy’s chagrin. Marian’s high expectations for behavior and her low tolerance for transgressions had an early start.

When Mom married my dad, Hjalmer Soderholm, in 1948, Marian found herself living on a small and rustic farm in Millerville, MN.  At age 13 she took on the role of farmhand as well, working very hard fitting in chores and housework around attending high school in Brandon.   She never let her schoolwork suffer, however, graduating as salutatorian of her class in 1953.  

She enrolled at St. Cloud State Teachers College in the fall.  There was still no money in the family, so she took on a care-taking job that would provide room and board and took classes through the summer, earning a three-year teacher’s license in only two years.  As a 4 year old, I always anticipated her letters home.  She always wrote a special section to me, filled with rebus drawings.  Making connections through the mail would be something she practiced her whole life. If you’ve gotten birthday cards from her, you know what I mean.  Maybe the only card in your mailbox on your exact date, your address written neatly in her teacher script, the back of the envelope beautifully decorated with stickers applied by John.

A job teaching 6th grade in Renville, MN was offered to her in 1955.  She took pride in her teaching and the years of dealing with an unruly little sister had given her the confidence and the discipline skills to turn 12 year olds into scholars.  After 2 years in Renville, she accepted a position teaching 6th graders in Mora, MN.

There hadn’t been a lot of time in her life for fun and dating, and her friend and teaching colleague, Diane Stonestrom, thought that should change.  In fact, she knew just the person that could put a little joy into Marian’s life; her cousin, Larry Wendberg.  She arranged a blind date.  I’m not sure if Marian was reluctant to go on that first date. I do know that she was willing to go on a second and a third and a fourth date with this tall, funny and gentle man.  In fact, when he asked her to marry him, she said yes and they set a date:  August 16, 1958.  

They moved into a house that had previously belonged to Larry’s aunt right on highway 47, the main street of Dalbo.  (please note— for you out-of-towners, Dalbo does not have any other streets) This same house would later be home to my parents, and also to my husband, Rod, and me when we moved home from Australia and finally to daughter Ann and her husband, Doug.  

The family connections ran deep in Dalbo, with Wendbergs and Stonestroms and Rudquists everywhere you turned.  Larry’s parents, Blanche and Robert owned the creamery and cheese factory that were the lifeblood of the town and lived on the family farm (within the city limits), brother Joey and his wife Jan were on the adjoining property to the new home that Marian and Larry would build in 1966.  I remember the fun that Marian had planning the built-in bookshelves, desks and dressers and the custom designs for her bathrooms, dressing room, pantry and sewing room.  That move would be the last that she would make.  She would remain in that house for the rest of her life.

The move from Aunt Aggie’s house to the new home was a short one, but not necessarily easy.  By 1966 there were six people to move and 4 of them were six years old or less.  

The fun-loving couple who used to tool around in a cool two-tone red and white 1958 Olds 88 were now parents to four daughters who were sometimes known as DeeDee and the Rhythm girls.  Marian, the good Catholic girl that she was, practiced a birth control method that had a lot of room for improvement, but provided them with a lovely family in short order!

Deanne Dawn was born in April, 1960; Ann Marie, 17 months later; Linda Lou, only 51 weeks later and Beth Michele in May, 1964.  Diapers, bottles and busy toddlers dominated their lives; but there were challenges beyond the usual.  Linda was born with a congenital hip condition and she spent long stretches at Gillette Children’s hospital and had a brace which widely separated her feet when she might have been crawling.  Later on she would have kidney problems that resulted in several surgeries, first an attempt to repair the kidney and then later to remove it.  During this time, Beth had surgery as well, for a lazy eye, our mother was hospitalized and Larry had severe back problems and depression.  

The care-taking skills she’d developed as a little child and honed as a student and a teacher were called upon in a big way.  People depended on her and she came through once again. She may not always have been tactful; she didn’t have time for that, but she was a tiger mother, before that was “a thing”.  She did not suffer fools gladly, if they got in the way of her family.

In the early 70’s, Larry and Marian shifted their focus from the creamery where they had both worked, to the farm.  “Pigs and Tings” was born.  The raised and sold pigs and developed a butchery business.  As the girls grew older, they had a bigger role in the business—they developed chops at slicing and packaging chops (pork chops, that is).  

By the end of the 70’s and the early 80’s the girls were leaving home for school and marriage.  DeeDee and Randy Johnson married in 1981; Ann and Doug Peterson,  Linda and Bruce Ellingson, and Beth and Craig Erickson all married in 1983, what a year!  The girls whose first initials had spelled out the name of the town—except for the “O” which was supplied by Oscar, the dog, now supplied their parents with some “sons”.  DALBO and Sons.  

When life should have been getting easier, there were complications.  Our mother had memory issues and needed to move to assisted living and Larry had severe pancreatitis that required a long hospital stay.  Marian was the steady force that kept everything going.  Because of Larry’s health issues they pulled back from business, but kept traveling, making a number of trips to Mexico and Central and South America, often driving an old yellow ambulance with a big Pigs and Tings emblem on the side.  Once when stopping for a visit at the Alamo, their battery was stolen.  However, among the treasures packed in the back for their friends in the south was a spare battery.  Larry installed it and they kept on going.

Larry’s health problems also kept going, but in the wrong direction.  He had anemia that required frequent blood transfusions.  Anemia became leukemia and the trip he made to the hospital shortly after the family quilting party held on their 37th anniversary would be his last trip.  Marian was faithfully at his side for the last two months until his death at 59 in 1992.  

She was a widow at 57.  By this time, she was grandmother of ten, all living close by.  She wasn’t alone, but she was often lonely and would be so for the next 12 years.  She kept busy, certainly, with plastic canvas creations, family and church activities and travels with her friend Wilma.  

Sept 11th, 2001 was a dark day for America and seemed to kick off dark days for Marian and her family.  Shortly after she was diagnosed with breast cancer.  It didn’t stop there; our sister was diagnosed with lung cancer, her son-in-law Randy had lymphoma and sadly, her grandson Alan had brain cancer.  Other relatives too had serious illnesses.  

It was hard to be strong; it was time for a white knight to arrive and so John Wurm came into her life.  They started dating in the fall of 2003 and married on May 15, 2004.  Now she was mother of 4 and stepmother to 6. A lesser woman would lose track, but not Marian—just more cards to send! 

They traveled together to the east coast to meet her new family and took other trips.  They shared a strong faith and a love of family.  It was wonderful to have a partner as age gave them a few more ailments, including more cancer, nasty lung cancer this time, diabetes and heart disease.  Despite the severity of her illnesses she seemed to conquer everything and keep a youthful attitude.  It was very evident at the big birthday bash we had for her on her eightieth

birthday.  There was a wonderful picture of her in our slideshow last night wearing a lei and sporting an impish grin.  I’m going to keep that image in my mind; that after a life of challenges she could still find such joy.  

If there is a heaven, and I know she believed there is, she is finding lots of joy, reunited with family in the light of the Lord.  She was taken from us too soon…as John said, “We only had 13 years together; I barely got to know her.” 

But now she has a journey to take and she must take it by herself.  I’d like to leave you with these words from Jan Richardson, author, artist and minister:

“If you could see the journey whole, you might never undertake it; might never dare the first step that propels you from the place you have known toward the place you know not. There are vows that only you will know; the secret promises for your particular path and the new ones you will need to make when the road is revealed by turns you could not have foreseen.  Keep them, break them, make them again: each promise becomes part of the path; each choice creates the road that will take you to the place where at last you will kneel to offer the gift most needed—the gift that only you can give—before turning to go home by another way.”

Dear sister, you have left us with a wealth of memories and a legacy of love and loyalty…I love you Marian, my one-of-a-kind sister, rest in peace.

April is Poetry Month: Day 8

The Most Sacred Mountain

Space and the twelve clean winds of heaven,

And this sharp exultation, like a cry, after the slow six thousand

        feet of climbing!

This is Tai Shan, the beautiful, the most holy.

Below my feet the foot-hills nestle, brown with flecks of green;

       and lower down the flat brown plain the floor of earth

       stretches away to blue infinity.

Space, and the twelve clean winds are here;

And with them broods eternity--a swift, white peace, a presence

       manifest.

But I shall go down from their airy space, this swift white peace,

        this stinging exultation

And time will close about me, and my soul stir to the rhythm

        of the daily round.

Yet, having known, life will not press so close and always I

       shall feel time ravel thin about me;

For once I stood 

In the white windy presence of eternity.

--Eunice Tietjens

The Home Book 

of Modern Verse

From: Mother Earth: Through the Eyes of Women Photographers and Writers, Edited by Judith Boice, Random House, 1992.

If you should ever want to go to a place somewhere far beyond your daily experience, someplace exotic, steeped in history and mystery but likely unknown to anyone in your circle of friends or acquaintances and you are prepared to fly to Beijing, find a way to travel 300 miles further, past the little village of Qufu where Confucius lived; then you could reach Mount Tai.  If Mount Tai has called to you, as it has called to pilgrims and travelers for thousands of years, then you would prepare yourself to climb the 7,200 steps that would take you through the South Gate to Heaven and you may feel as Eunice Tietjens had felt: "in the white windy presence of eternity." Eunice experienced this a hundred years ago, as an intrepid explorer; her words stir my soul today.  In some small, but powerful way, poetry can transport us to these places of wonder and mystery that we can never reach in any other way. Add in amazing photography, and this book is a passport to astonishment.

Links:

Eunice Tietjens

April is Poetry Month: Day 7

What a Cat Can Do in Katmandu

The meanest barn flies of the summer buzz

around my head, and sweat runs down my back.

I put the milker on the fourteenth cow.

The radio plays the saddest country song.

My six cats aren't underfoot but sprawled

in a corner.  We're bored with our lives.

The music stops for five o'clock news,

And things are happening in Katmandu.

This Katmandu sounds magic, like the name

of a jazz saxophone player or

a mountain pleasure palace.  I begin

to chant softly, Katmandu, Katmandu.

The cats perk up.  They recognize the word.

Yes sir, cats, Katmandu is where it's at.

Here you crawl around all day in a road ditch

for one scrubby gopher--in Katmandu

they'll serve you lightly poached goldfinch,

the feathers removed.  The hotels have

green velvet rooms.  World travelers rave

about the cathouses of Katmandu.

I say we split for Katmandu.  Just drop

it all, get on that long road for Nepal,

because a cat can do in Katmandu

what a cat can't do in South Dakota.

--Leo Dangel

A Little Book of Barns, compiled by David R. Pichaske, publication supported by the Minnesota Humanities Commission, printed at Quality Printing, Luverne, MN undated

I'm not sure where I picked up this pamphlet; a little research from the acknowledgements page showed that it was created in conjunction with a traveling Smithsonian exhibit called "Barn Again! Celebrating an American Icon.  

I first picked this poem back in May, 2020 when I was posting a poem daily during the pandemic.  I researched enough to be able to contact the compiler of the booklet and we had an interesting email exchange.  Somehow, I never got around to publishing this.  I'm feeling contrite about missing this opportunity, but Easter seems like a good day to reconcile my failure.

Here is our email exchange, lightly edited for length:

Good morning!  I'm seeking some information about "A Little Book of Barns" that you are credited with compiling.  Somehow this little booklet made its way to my bookshelf and has been nestled in with about 130 other books of poetry and verse.  

I'm a retired Minneapolis public school librarian/district library coordinator (bookseller, furloughed sales associate, gardener, sometimes poet and photographer) who's had a blog that was lingering in neglect for a long time but that I've just recently revived when Covid-19 drove us indoors.  I decided to take a book a day from that poetry shelf and share a poem from that volume.  I began on the 18th day of the declared pandemic and I am now on day 68.  

As the days passed, my little project got more involved--researching the author, the book, the poem; adding commentary and context, links and illustrations.  I chose "What a Cat Can Do in Katmandu" by Leo Dangel for a current posting.  As a girl I grew up on a dairy farm in Mille Lacs county and this really resonated with me--the cows, the cats, the dreams of exciting faraway places...(Such dreams lead me to actually go to Kathmandu and camp all across Asia and Europe) 

So far,  I've learned a little about the poet and that this was produced in conjunction with a Smithsonian exhibit, but there are no dates in the booklet.  Any further inside information or insights would add some special panache to this posting.  Thank you for your time...I look forward to reading some of your essays that I discovered on your website.  Stay safe and well.  Jean

Wow.  I spent most of the day cleaning up our third floor library/storage spot, recovering all kinds of personal history and school history (I teach--still--at Southwest Minnesota State in Marshall), and now I check e-mail and find this message from you.  More history.

I figure you know enough about me from my web site, so no need to go into detail there--except to note that I spent a year on a Fulbright teaching in Outer Mongolia, which is reasonably close to Kathmandu.  You ever overnight in a yurt while you were over there?

But about Leo Dangel.  That poem comes from Dangel's book Home from the Field,  which I published back in 1997 as publisher/editor of Spoon River Poetry Press.  I had published a few shorter books by Dangel and this was a collected poems.  I can send you a copy if you want--it's a good book.  Garrison Keillor was fond of Dangel's work and read him occasionally on his radio program.  there's a great story there, actually--one weekend on his Lake Wobegon monologue Keillor went into a dialogue which came right out of Dangel's poem "After Forty Years of Marriage, She Tries a New Recipe for Hamburger Hotdsh."  It sounded familiar to me.  When I got to school Monday, Bill Holm came over to my office and asked, "Did you listen to Garrison over the weekend?"  "Yeah, I did."  "Wasn't that Leo's poem he was doing?"  "I thought so.  Let's go to the ITS room and see if they can pull up the broadcast and we can listen. . . ."  We did.  the student at the desk, who had taken my class in rural-regional literature the semester previous, found the broadcast on line and started playing the Lake Wobegon monologue.  When garrison got to the point in question, the student scratched his head--"Isn't that the poem we read last semester . . . ?"  So we contacted Keillor, who apologized and told us that he thought this was something he had written back when.  What the heck--Holm, Keillor, I and in a way Dangel were all . . . well, not close friends, but connected.

Anyway, I came to Minnesota in 1981, bringing with me Spoon River Poetry Press from outstate Illinois near Macomb, and I continued publishing books here, both prose and poetry.  I have now reached about 150 books by other people on Spoon River Poetry/Ellis Press.  Leo was here when I got here.  He was in a wheelchair--had been since an accident in high school (he was not wearing a seat belt)--and had grown up in South Dakota, right across the Minnesota border.  He had come to Southwest after finishing his M.A. at the University of Kansas because it is wheelchair accessible.  Leo taught in the English Department until he retired.  He had the office down the hall from Bill Holm, Adrian C. Louis, and me.  He was a tough guy who drove his own car . . . and got himself into the car from his wheelchair by himself.  He died three years ago--just before he checked out, I did a little chapbook of his unpublished poems titled When Threshing Ended.  Anyway, that's a little background on Leo.

The barn booklet was something we did at the Minnesota Machinery Museum in Hanley Falls for a traveling exhibit from the Smithsonian Institute on barns.  I think that was back around 2005, 2006.  Part of the deal was they would provide the exhibit and we would have to invent some publicity event.  (I am on the museum's board of directors.)  So some board members set up a tour of area barns of various types, and I threw together a collection of barn stuff to hand out to people on the tour.  We/I didn't want to publish it officially, because that would tangle us up in all kinds of copyright issues, and we were not selling it anyway, it was just for the tour.  People just gave verbal or written permission (Robert Bly is part of this crew too, and Fred Manfred, and Meridel when she was alive--I think it all goes back to the Marshall Festivals Phil Dacey and I put o
n back in the 1980s and early 1990s), and we got it done.  How a copy of this ended up with you, i can't imagine--maybe you came down to a Marshall Festival or to the barn tour?  

Anyway, if you want any Spoon River Poetry Press or Ellis Press books (the web site is ellispress.com), or my books, I can provide them.  Blei, Holm, Etter, Louis, Kloefkorn are all good.  These are dark days for selling books, and I have inventory, inventory, inventory. 

Oh, there's Leo Dangel another story.  When I was doing my anthology Late Harvest, my editor at Paragon House ran copies of the manuscript by half a dozen readers from all over the place, asking for pre-publication review advice.  And to justify the $100 honorarium, they all gave advice.  I include ten or twelve Dangel poems in that book, and Leo was not at the time very well known (if he was ever well known!), but not one reviewer recommended cutting poems by this unknown poet.

We're staying well--life is good out here in the country.  I'll actually go in to school tomorrow to print off a file Jim Heynen sent for his next book of stories--I'm supposed to write a foreword for that.  Heynen is part of the crew too.  It's been a fun trip, although so many have now left the boat.

David Pichaske