Bill Holm, 1943-2009

Photo: Brian Peterson, Star Tribune

This image is gorgeous, I think. What a beautiful portrait and the colors, so rich, the backdrop so important to what I've learned was key in Bill Holm's work, that sense of place and culture.

I picked up his book Playing the Black Piano on a trip to the Minnesota Center for the Book Arts, curious of what else Eireann's publisher has put out.

There are many tributes up on the internet:

- Star Tribune

Holm wrote his drafts in longhand on yellow note pads, and because Buchwald could not decipher his handwriting, he hired a typist to transcribe them. "I would give him written comments, and he would give his rebuttal. He was never tactful, but that's all right," Buchwald said. "He was forthright. He never turned down a comment or suggestion that he felt might genuinely help the book along."

Holm taught for 27 years at Southwest Minnesota State University at Marshall. "Boxelder Bug Variations" came about because of an assignment he gave his students, who complained that they had nothing to write about, out there on the prairie. "He told them, 'That's ridiculous! You can write about anything!'" Buchwald said. "A boxelder bug was crawling across his desk, and he said, 'You can write about this!' And he gave them that assignment. And then he gave it to himself."

- Marshall Independent

While Holm wrote his works, it was often Sandy Mosch, a long-time SMSU administrative assistant in the English department, who typed them because Holm did not use a computer.

Mosch said she typed Holm's books and poems for many years.

"He wrote them in longhand," she said.

- MPR

Holm was an occasional guest on A Prairie Home Companion radio show on American Public Media. The program's host, Garrison Keillor, called Holm a great man.

"And unlike most great men, he really looked like one. 6 foot 8 inches, big frame, and a big white beard and a shock of white hair, a booming voice, so he loomed over you like a prophet and a preacher, which is what he was," said Keillor.

"I wish I'd been there to catch him as he fell," Keillor continued. "I hope his Icelandic ancestors are waiting to welcome him to their rocky corner of heaven. I hope his piano goes to someone who will love it as much as he did. I hope that people all across Minnesota will pick up one of his books and see what the man had to say."

- Guernica

And:

ArtWords 2009 Application: due March 27th, noon. I think one of us should win it, don't you?

awp: chicago, february 2009

1: Dean Young, Ravi Shankar, Tony Barnstone + Nathalie Handal, Annie Finch
2: K Silem Mohammad, Cole Swensen, Brenda Hillman, Forrest Gander
3: Major Jackson, Paul Muldoon, Marie Ponsot, Valzhyna Mort
4: Marilynne Robinson, Bharati Mukherjee, Alex Lemon, Eireann Lorsung
5: Nick Flynn, Carolyn Forche, Honor Moore, Donald Hall
6: Carolyn Forche + Donald Hall, Rachel Zucker, Carl Philips, Erin Belieu
7: Tony Hoagland, Marie Howe, Victoria Redel, Elise Paschen

The facts: my first year among many firsts this year--first year in an MFA program, first year working on a literary magazine, first year as a reliant wife. Chicago, only five or six hours away from home, a flat drive from here to there, an abundance of folks to meet up with.

The highlights: shall I even say it? Being called "her Molly" by Carolyn Forche and the reminder to send more poems, the star struck feeling of glimpsing those poets I adore, being introduced to still more I ought to be aware of, the heavy books I anticipate reading, seeing old friends (hello Eireann, Betsy!) the meals with good friends (thanks, Colleen, Bart, Amanda, Brian, Meryl, Sheena) and good conversation. The wonder of the city and the silent shudder of the L train by my room, reminding me of nights in Winona as my husband worked on his own Master's degree.

The lowlights: in the dim, that overwhelming-ness--the nights, trying to fall asleep, with that awful whir in my mind. It would take an hour or so from the light's click to my own release, so much was weighing on my mind--transfering from thoughts on panels to thoughts on the semester (to thoughts on the unkemptness of my home).

Next year: Denver? I say yes. This year, bring the husband, rent a car, spend an extra day in Ft Collins (a little windpowered brewery we adore), and hope that dear friends come as well.

xo

Life Above the Permafrost
- Alice Fulton

All winter the trees tossed in their coma.
Beneath them fields unrolled
like a pallet. Snow came,
the universal donor, the connective
in all the ready metaphors:
sky coarse as hotel linen,
bedsheets the half-white of rice
paper. That kinship.

Prone as the land,
I wanted each day to start
the way the body starts in sleep: a reflex
of sun, mimosa explosions. Not
the window's slow tap of sky,
light rising like sap
in maples, and even the maples
warted with sparrows
too frigid to fly South.
Those trees needed wild flamingos, at least,
to break their drowse.

In bed, my nails raked
the chenille spread, its whitework
like a mulch of snow. Snug as a corm
in its coldframe, the heart
shied from my five-fingered tongs.

Now there are parasol garnishes
on the rum drinks of summer, Adirondack
chairs with wind in the slats. Your arms band
me like a migratory bird. I think,
this must be life
above the permafrost. The raised candle-
wicking of the quilt
cornrows our skin. Our fingers braid
like aerial roots.

You make me want
to stop tending relics in my head,
that well-stocked potter's field:
just listen to the insects'
adenoidal plainsong all day long,
enamored of the keynote, the tonic.

(from Dance Script With Electric Ballerina, 1983)