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STEVE MONROE: They feel that people might enjoy having the chance to meet some of our poets, and get to know them as living, breathing, feeling individuals. They thought perhaps by having poetry readings at beaches, in parks, and on street corners, among other places, people would discover the joy of poetry, and that they might be surprised at the doors that can open to their own personal satisfaction.

The poetry caravan visiting southwestern Minnesota, is headquartering at Camden State Park, South of Marshall, and includes Kerry Waterman of Kasota, Al Salinas of Marshall, and Lewis Jenkins of Duluth. Caroline Vogel of Saint Paul and John Res Mirsky of Saint Peter, are coordinators of the project. Caroline Vogel talked about some of the thoughts that sparked the Minnesota Poetry Out Loud idea.

CAROLINE VOGEL: We got this idea because we thought it was too bad that poetry was always a stuffy academic subject. And also, I guess it arose because we thought, why doesn't the public support the artist, and come out for artistic performances and so forth. And then we began thinking, well, maybe it's because they really don't know in particular what poets are up to.

They always think of them as somebody that was alive in the 18th Century, and there's nobody who's really up to much now. And we thought, it really is incumbent on the poet to bring his work, and to bring his perspective to people who, outside of the schools, who normally wouldn't get much a sense of poetry.

STEVE MONROE: Well, would you call this a poetry revival when we're talking about Minnesota Poetry Out Loud?

CAROLINE VOGEL: Oh, yeah. I would definitely say that. I don't think there's anybody who isn't writing, or who isn't aware of writing in Minnesota who doesn't feel that there is quite a revival going on, that people have had enough of the language that's been just drained of any of its energy and of its emotion, and that that can be seen both in the proliferation of published things, and also in the interest areas in readings now.

I was involved in setting up a series of readings in Saint Paul called the Smith Park Poetry Series. We couldn't believe the people who came to those readings. I mean, it wasn't just other writers and other poets who were interested in hearing what everyone else was doing. There were those people, but in addition, there were people who were looking for a different kind of entertainment, and a different kind of experience, than they get in theater, or they get from television, or movies, or anything else.

That's celebration, and it's fun, and it also has its serious moments. And it has that very good feeling of feeling close to other people, which you don't often get with other art forms. There are lots of people who think, why not have a poet on the on the County roll to provide services at the 4th of July celebrations down at the local riverfront or something. And it's not something that, that really is so silly, that's the function that poets served centuries ago.

STEVE MONROE: The first of two formal poetry readings was held at the Prairie Arts Center in Madison, Minnesota last night, with caravan members and local poets reading their works. Among the themes was ethnic heritage. Bill Holm, a native of Miniota, read about his Icelandic ties.

BILL HOLM: In Lincoln county, which is just South of here, there's a marvelous old Icelandic cemetery, and I had gone out there with this woman who was from Iceland and whose name was Gudmundsson, which is not a terribly common name in Iceland. And she looked around the cemetery, and it was about 3/4 full of Gudmundsson's, and she had some peculiar feelings about that.

Yeah. A woman and I are in an old Icelandic graveyard on a windy, treeless hill in Western Minnesota. She has never been here. She sees her own name on every tombstone. Sometimes she died an old lady, surrounded by children, and grandchildren, and great grandchildren. Like the petals around the center of a flower. Sometimes she died a child who could barely speak, without the water of God on his hairless head.

Sometimes her name is spelled right, and sometimes not. It is a good thing to have died so many times, to feel so often the death shudder in the bones. So that now the muscles are practiced at it, and it can be done with the graceful, delicate movements of a dancer.

STEVE MONROE: Al Salinas of Marshall has pondered his Lithuanian background, as this poem called "Family History" shows.

SPEAKER 3: My grandfather's grandfather saw as a small child, Napoleon, burning his way to Moscow. My mother's father signed the Declaration of Independence of Lithuania. My father built a house in Australia. I rent one in Marshall, Minnesota. We do have some things in common.

STEVE MONROE: After the poetry reading, I sought some of the reactions of the audience. Have you been to a poetry reading before this?

SPEAKER 4: No, I haven't. I'm really, not really fond of poetry, just because of high school. But it was very interesting. And I find that I do a lot of writing like this myself, but I guess I don't call it poetry.

STEVE MONROE: Do you think you're going to perhaps partake in the next one?

SPEAKER 4: Probably. Because I feel we all have our feelings, but we don't always put it on paper.

SPEAKER 5: The best part was the participants from the audience getting up and coming to read. That was the best. The people from Madison who pulled out poems that I never knew about. And some of them were pretty good.

STEVE MONROE: Do you think efforts like this can make more people aware of what poetry is all about?

SPEAKER 5: It would be wonderful if efforts like this would make people more aware of what's inside their own heads, and then maybe write some of their own, and then read it for others.

STEVE MONROE: One of Minnesota's best known poets, Robert Bly, was host for the Madison reading. Bly was instrumental in starting the Prairie Arts Center there, an old church renovated for use as an arts forum.

ROBERT BLY: I think there's a strong feeling that what you have on television now is so stupid and hopeless that it isn't as it was 20 years ago when people looked for some entertainment there. So really, people who want something decent to listen to really have to do it themselves.

STEVE MONROE: Are we going to see a trend back toward traveling medicine shows, chautauquas, things of this nature in this country?

ROBERT BLY: I would hope so. But I think most of the work will come from inside the towns.

STEVE MONROE: Do you think the people are ready for such things as this poetry readings, dramas, and so forth, which really require the townspeople to actively participate?

ROBERT BLY: I think they're ready for it. They've been ready a long time. A lot of times they're ahead of the readers. Maybe 50 or 100 years ago, we didn't have poets, except maybe Walt Whitman or Emily Dickinson, who would write poems that were human enough, so to speak, to be received affectionately by people who were not specifically interested in poetry. But that time has changed.

And, in Minnesota alone, we must have 20 to 30 poets who are writing really marvelously alive poems that can be understood by anyone, and liked by anyone. Anyone who likes liveliness. And so I don't see any problem at all in audiences for poetry readings.

STEVE MONROE: The southwestern Minnesota tour of Minnesota Poetry Out Loud winds up tonight at 7:30 PM in the Liberty Park Bandshell in Marshall. Later, tours will take place in Southeastern Minnesota for the Rochester area, August 12 through 16. And in Western Minnesota, in the area of Moorhead, August 26 through 31. Each tour of Minnesota Poetry Out. Loud will employ a different team of poets, making a total of nine for the entire project. This is Steve Monroe.