A quick look at local poets

Let's start a list of Minnesota's poets with our first two state poets laureate:

• Robert Bly, and


• Joyce Sutphen

Local Poetry section at Common Good Books

Photo by J. Harrington

Then we'll continue with those Minnesota poets whose works I've read and enjoyed, listed alphabetically:

• Sharon Chmielarz
• Heid Erdrich
• Louise Erdrich
• Maureen Gibbon
• Ronald Gower
• Tom Hennen
• Bill Holm
• Jeff Humphries
• Ann Iverson
• Louis Jenkins
• Jim Johnson
• Freya Manfred
• Sheila Packa
• Bonnie Beatson Palmquist
• Gail Rixen
• Thomas Smith
• Connie Wanek
• Morgan Grace Willow

There are a number of other wonderful Minnesota poets that I haven't yet enjoyed, and, possibly, some I've read and lost track of. Writings by those listed or other Minnesota poets can often be found in St. Paul at Common Good Books or Subtext or, in Duluth, the bookstore in Fitzger's.

How To Be a Poet

By Wendell Berry

(to remind myself)

i   

Make a place to sit down.   

Sit down. Be quiet.   

You must depend upon   

affection, reading, knowledge,   

skill—more of each   

than you have—inspiration,   

work, growing older, patience,   

for patience joins time   

to eternity. Any readers   

who like your poems,   

doubt their judgment.   

ii   

Breathe with unconditional breath   

the unconditioned air.   

Shun electric wire.   

Communicate slowly. Live   

a three-dimensioned life;   

stay away from screens.   

Stay away from anything   

that obscures the place it is in.   

There are no unsacred places;   

there are only sacred places   

and desecrated places.   

iii   

Accept what comes from silence.   

Make the best you can of it.   

Of the little words that come   

out of the silence, like prayers   

prayed back to the one who prays,   

make a poem that does not disturb   

the silence from which it came.

Berry's poem demonstrates to me that poetry is both local and universal? Agree?

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