An All Things Considered/Mainstreet Radio profile of author and poet BIll Holm, his small home town Minneota, and literary history of nearby Marshall. Program includes interview with Holm, various readings performed by MPR staff, and musical elements.

Some of the country's best known -and best-loved - writers have come from Marshall and the surrounding area. Fredrick Manfred, Robert and Carol Bly, Faith Sullivan and Tim O'Brien are just a few. Holm himself lives in the town where he grew up -- tiny Minneota, just 20 miles or so Northwest of Marshall.

Transcript:

(00:00:00) I hated it when I was a kid and I think my best known essay begins with my wanting to leave many OTA forever in my last view would be the city limit sign receding in the rearview mirror of a car driving east fast. Never to return from icelanders box Elders soybeans and Poets by Bill home at 18. What I wanted most to see in the world was the many Otis City Limits receding for the last time in the rearview. Ooh mirror of an automobile driving east to New York Boston Washington where man didn't spit Snus into brass spittoons wore suits instead of clean bib overalls on Saturday night where women did not wear shapeless print dresses or discuss egg prices and the newest hot dish recipe but we're elegant and witty with painted eyebrows and long
(00:00:51) black gowns
(00:00:53) home would eventually get his chance to experience that world. But before he did he met a poet who made him question what it Meant to be a writer one of homes professors introduced him to the work of Robert Bly who along with his then wife Carol. Also a writer were just beginning to make names for themselves in the literary World. It wasn't long before home. Wanted to meet this radical figure who surprisingly lived in Southwestern Minnesota. So I drove up to Madison when I was about 19 years old to meet the boys, and I thought I'd died and gone to heaven here were people who had mental an artistic lives living in God forbid, Madison, Minnesota. Among the Norwegian peasantry old boards by Robert Bly. I love to see boards lying on the ground in early spring the ground beneath them as wet and muddy perhaps covered with chicken tracks and they are dry and eternal. This is the wood once he's on the decks of ocean ships. Would that carries us far from land with a dryness of something used for simple tasks? Like a horse's tail. This wood is like a man who Has a simple life living through the spring and winter on the ship of his own desire. He sits on dry wood surrounded by half melted snow as the rooster walks away spring Ali over the dampened. Hey, I kept thinking to myself was that if Robert and Carol could find things to make literature about in Western Minnesota. Then I also could do that that that option was available to me from great snows by Carol Bly before a storm Madison is full of people excitedly laying in food stocks for the three-day blow people lay in rather celebratory food to organic food parents can chocolate for their children Weight Watchers laying macaroni and Sara Lee cake. Recently converted vegetarians backslide T-Bones people hang around the large Supervalu window and keep a tough squinty-eyed watch on the Storm progress with a lot of gruff sensible observations. Just like Houston control Talking to the Moon very much on top of it. All like yeah, we need this for spring moisture the plane pleasure of it is scarcely hidden while Carolyn Robert Blige choice of home and subject matter seemed unusual to Bill home. It didn't take long. Him to realize they weren't an anomaly Southwestern. Minnesota was also home to Frederick Manfred who home also tracked down. I'd always thought that I didn't look exactly the part to being writer though. I know I wanted to be when I thought writers were sensitive and elegant and thin and people Urban and Urbane and they weren't oversized lumps of Scandinavian flesh. Looking more like a bear than like a human being so I was cheered to meet read in that he was about a half a foot taller than I was he was an enormous man and also a very polite and courtly one and like Robert and Carol enormously kind to Young Writers and home says Manfred never seem to suffer a writing crisis like his East Coast acquaintances Fred just got up every morning like an old farmer slopping the pigs went out to his writing Shack and did another 5,000 words and so Fred shelf is about the size of Fred, you know. You're a big guy like Fred. You want to write books to match your height. So by the time he was Dead Fred was only six nine. I think there were seven. Feet of Manfred books on the Shelf home says like the bligh's Manfred relied on his Southwestern Minnesota environment to provide material for his books. I always found, you know Fred's novels which are you know, big ungainly novels full of you know, Fred is very good on animal sex and good on the barnyard. But they're rough novels. But of course what Fred was trying to do was to find the beauty in that life and he found it found it in the barn found it in the lives of those wonderfully constipated Dutchman that populate his novels. He founded in the history of the area founded in the immigrants. So Beauty, I think can be found in places where one doesn't always look for from this is the Year by Frederick man Fred here lay on the horn. Chair sofa in the living room suffer lay warmly in his stomach. The gas lamp light was white and sharp on the cream and silver wallpaper. He rubbed his back on the hard leather pushing himself up and twisting his head deep into a pillow his muscles ached sweetly. The day had been a hard one. It was a good life. He sighed happily when he thought of the Dark Earth and the juicy seedling potatoes. He had planted in it his sharp ho had cut it easily. He could still feel the rhythm of the work in his Arms and legs drop one kick one and cover over with a half Twist of toe. He stretched and yawned and side again, but even after meeting Manfred and the bligh's home still wasn't convinced. He could make it as a writer in Southwestern Minnesota. He went to graduate school in Kansas and lived for a while in Virginia. It took him a few decades, but finally he decided to come home to many Oda to stay and right. I got a little tired on the East Coast. People sort of looking down their noses. And so you go to the peasantry. Can they read and write out there on the Plains and I never met anybody who had read as many books as Robert and garel on the East Coast at Ivy League colleges or anywhere else nor did I meet anybody who had written as many books as Fred home has lived at least part-time in Minnesota ever since and now teaches up-and-coming writers at nearby Southwest State University. He says unlike Fred Manfred or Robert and Carol Bligh. He's never been very inspired by the landscape of Southwestern Minnesota, but he says he is inspired by the people eventually of course started writing essays about old immigrants people had known as a kid because it never occurred to me when I was in the middle of it. That was rich literary material or that I had been present dizi the last of a Vanishing culture. That was very interesting. And then when those old people died was gone forever because then the process of Americanization was complete and then you were down to you know, watching TV and writing literature and 1200 word basic vocabulary home says Southwestern Minnesota has a strong writing tradition that he hopes will improve and become more interesting in the years ahead. He says he's expecting good things from newer immigrants to the area. Can you imagine what do you know the Scandinavians look like to among immigrant or a Somalia? A grant in Marshall eventually, they're going to start writing books. I mean, there's going to be books first in Spanish and then in English about what the lopezes thought of, you know, the Petersons in the Swensons, and there's going to be some rich stuff coming out of
(00:07:46) that.
(00:07:53) Tuesday book excerpts from Bill home Frederick Manfred and Carolyn Robert Bly go to our website at Minnesota Public Radio
(00:08:00) dot-org. You'll also find extra audio and pictures to go along with all of the reports from today's show are special All Things Considered Main Street radio broadcast was produced by any fight with production assistants by Tasha. Rosenfelt Clifford. Bentley was our remote technical director special. Thanks to John. Mike Edgerly Stephanie Curtis are cues and reporters Mark style and Danielson. Thanks also to Marshall City Parks for providing such a lovely location for today's broadcast. I'm Lorna Benson.