LILLIAN CROOK: WildDakotaWoman — Beta Stanzas
Poems by members of Beta Stanza of the North Dakota Poetry Society. And tucked inside my copy of this gem of a book.
Unheralded
Unheralded
LILLIAN CROOK: WildDakotaWoman — Southwind In April
The other thing I am doing. SOUTHWIND IN APRIL by Paul S. Bliss
JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — ‘The Future Of The Common People’
A little while ago, I inherited a collection of North Dakota History magazines from some really old — well, older than me — neighbors who moved away to assisted living and had to disperse a lot of things they had collected over the years. Some date back to as early as 1973. I already have a bunch of older ones, …
LILLIAN CROOK: WildDakotaWoman — ‘The Moon Comes Walking On With Me’ By Paul Southworth Bliss And Other Christmas Memories
“The Moon Comes Walking On with Me,” by Colonel Paul Southworth Bliss,December 21, 1931. Original woodcuts by Harold J. Matthews. From an inscribed copy of “The Arch of Spring.” And some Christmas memories of my own. While I watch the neighborhood kids sledding today in the sunshine, I was taken back to a thousand memories of sledding and skiing and …
LILLIAN CROOK: WildDakotaWoman — The Journey of the Magi
The Journey of the Magi by T.S. Eliot A cold coming we had of it, Just the worst time of the year For a journey, and such a long journey: The ways deep and the weather sharp, The very dead of winter.’ And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory, Lying down in the melting snow. There were times we regretted The …
LILLIAN CROOK: WildDakotaWoman — A Poem
Enter the North Dakota Librarian by Gary Gildner Paris Review Spring 2002 whose eyes are a fair, spiky green I only see on my hands and knees at spring’s initial offerings, how can she help me? I say I seek the bloom clarity achieves fending off confusion’s weedy waylays upon rich indirection, I hope I won’t be much trouble. Her lips forming …
JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — Where We’ve Been, What We’ve Been Doing And Why
“On New Year’s Eve, 1940, Paul Southworth Bliss, a veteran of the Great War in Europe and a Colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve, took his service revolver from its holster in his small apartment at the Kansas City, Missouri, YMCA, put the pistol to his head, and pulled the trigger. He was just 51 years old. He left a …
LILLIAN CROOK: WildDakotaWoman — ‘The Badlands Call’
“The Badlands Call” By Clell Gannon Land of a thousand voices Beckoning unto me, Land of the zigzag valleys Shadowed in history. Land of a thousand coulees, Pastures without the bars, Land of a weird beauty Under a million stars. WildDakotaWoman will be on hiatus until sometime in 2023.
JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — Up Sims Creek Without A Paddle — So Long Rodney Nelson
I’ve known a lot of funny people in my life. Rodney Nelson was probably the funniest. A cowboy rancher from down in the Heart River Valley west of Mandan, N.D., Rodney succumbed to cancer Wednesday. He was just 71 years old. Now 24 hour later, wherever he is, he’s making an audience laugh. You might remember Rodney as a cowboy …
JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — Some Christmas Poetry: ‘Pure As The Soul Of Christ’
OK, if you came here looking for that sappy poem “Billy Peeble’s Christmas” that I usually put on my annual Christmas poetry blog, you’re going to be disappointed. Even Lillian rolled her eyes when I headed for my office to start writing. She didn’t say much, but I got the hint — aren’t you tired of that by now? Isn’t …
JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — A Thanksgiving Day Poem
Paging through an old book of poetry, I came across this poem by North Dakota poet Paul Southworth Bliss, from “Poems of Places.” The poems in the book were written as Bliss traveled the country in 1937. This one came from a stop in Oklahoma, which got oil a long time before North Dakota, but the similarities are striking, 80 …
LILLIAN CROOK: WildDakotaWoman — Homage To Col. Paul Southworth Bliss On The 100th Anniversary Of Armistice Day
By Lillian Crook and Jim Fuglie As many of you know, Jim and I have a fascination with a North Dakota poet named Paul Southworth Bliss, and we are writing his biography. For the 100th Anniversary of Armistice Day, we wrote an accounting of his military service, from my research. Joining the legions of Americans sent to France to join the …
TIM MADIGAN: Anything Mentionable — ‘Go Placidly Amid The Noise And Haste …’
Up early on Sunday morning, in time to hear a gentle rain begin to fall, a brief reprieve from the coming heat of a Texas summer. As I sat listening, this phrase popped into my head. “Go placidly amid the noise and haste …” I saw it years ago on a poster hanging on the wall of a friend’s kitchen. …
MARTIN C. FREDRICKS IV: Four The Record — Child’s Religion
This early morning quiet Many inches on the ground Falling softly still, six-fifteen Straight down, not a sound. The sagging branches, wet white Up north Dakota Territory The way of it at thirty degrees Another clean winter story. Tip toe up and down Whisper softly to each one No school today, ice and snow Maybe heaps before it’s done. Really …
DAVE VORLAND: It Occurs To Me — The Wild Swans
When I was in college, an English professor once devoted an entire lecture to discussing a single poem, “The Wild Swans at Coole,” created in 1916 by the Irish writer William Butler Yeats. I still own the text book, coverless now and much worn. I thought of and reread the verses Monday before walking to a nearby pond to take …
ERIC BERGESON: The Country Scribe — ‘Stopping By Woods On Snowy Evening’
Eric Bergeson, The Country Scribe, offers his take on the classic Robert Frost poem, “Stopping By Woods On Snowy Evening.” Imagery, personification and repetition are prominent in the work, written in 1922 and published in 1923, by one of the most celebrated poets in America.