Wisconsin Poetry News

Friends of Lorine Niedecker Receive Grant from the Poetry Foundation

By Ann Engelman

Photo of Lorine Niedecker used with permission, Hoard Historical Museum.

The Friends of Lorine Niedecker were surprised by an unsolicited $5,000 grant from the Poetry Foundation. The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine, is an independent literary organization committed to a vigorous presence for poetry in our culture. It exists to discover and celebrate the best poetry and to place it before the largest possible audience.

I almost deleted the e-mail not knowing the name of the sender but the message had “poetry” in the subject line. After I read the words “The Poetry Foundation is pleased to provide the Friends of Lorine Niedecker with $5,000 in general support of its poetry programs,” I just stared at the screen. . . .I could only think that maybe they would like one of our bookmarks, such a small, condensed thought compared to such a generous gift.

This is a great honor for us. The Poetry foundation contributes to the PBS Newshour and Garrison Keillor’s “Writer’s Almanac” on NPR. They do not accept solicitations. We are not sure how or who or when we came to their attention but suspect the Lorine Niedecker Wisconsin Poetry Festival last fall might have helped. We really don’t know. We feel this grant helps to validate our poetry activities on behalf of Lorine Niedecker and Wisconsin poetry and will help us think creatively about our programming goals.

The grant helped the organization elevate thinking to another level. The board acknowledged the need for strategic planning and asked Karen Goeschko, Assistant Director, Programs and Services for the Wisconsin Arts Board and manager for their grant programs to facilitate.

The day-long gathering generated four program priorities for our focus.

1) The center from which the Friends of Lorine Niedecker extends globally is the Web site. Our limited resources and, generally, those of students and scholars necessitated access as the priority. We are blessed with Lorine’s personal library and the Hoard Historical Museum that safely curates papers and artifacts and has a room dedicated to her memory. Most of the papers, pictures and scrapbooks have been digitized for Web access. The site was generated in 2004 and has grown to accommodate more research, resources, and the Solitary Plover newsletter which has become a venue for poets to publish. The site is in need of an update.

2) Getting Lorine Niedecker into the schools has been a frustrating exercise. We created a high school curriculum meeting Wisconsin standards, announced its availability, attended teacher conferences and partnered with the University of Wisconsin-Extension’s Ide@s Web site for teachers. The unit includes a video component. What we learned is that teachers are very busy with their current requirements. In discussions with the Wisconsin Humanities Council we are hoping to identify qualified people to take a poetry unit into the classrooms directly.

3) The Friends of Lorine Niedecker have included arts and music into their programming. With funding from the Wisconsin Arts Board, we recently commissioned an artist to create a Poetry Wall on a busy street corner in downtown Fort Atkinson. We would like to continue to commission poetry installations.

4) The Lorine Niedecker Wisconsin Poetry Festival launched last year with great success. The goal of the Festival is to celebrate poetry in Wisconsin and to introduce Lorine Niedecker to a wider audience. We plan to continue the Festival to generate support for poets in Wisconsin. This year the Lorine Niedecker Wisconsin Poetry Festival will be held September 25, 2010. This was originally meant to be a biennial event but the board felt that the success and momentum created last year should continue.

The Friends host researchers and scholars regularly. We often hear, “I never knew about Lorine Niedecker and I have become captivated by her poetry and her story.” Lorine Niedecker was born May 12, 1903 and grew up near Fort Atkinson on Blackhawk Island. She is often called “a poet of place.” During her lifetime of writing poetry she was influenced by the sounds around her from nature and human speech, reading and correspondence with peers. The simplicity of her images helps us sense our own experiences with the elements around us. Her words weave the textures of her culture, family and neighbors. She has secured her place among the Objectivist poets and appreciators of poetry. Though she is known nationally and internationally, Wisconsin is still discovering her.

My Life By Water

My life
    by water-
          Hear

spring’s
      first frog
           or board

out on the cold
    ground
        giving

Muskrats
    gnawing
         doors

to wild green
     arts and letters
         Rabbits

raided
     my lettuce
            One boat

two-
     pointed toward
          my shore

thru birdstart
     wingdrip
          weed-drift

of the soft
    and serious-
           Water

We feel a parallel kinship with the Poetry Foundation. In 2003, they were also surprised. Ruth Lilly, the sole living heiress to the Eli Lilly and Company pharmaceutical fortune built by her grandfather, Colonel Eli Lilly, was the generous philanthropist. Over the course of her life, Lilly gave away the bulk of her inheritance, an estimated $800 million. She made headlines in November 2002 when she pledged stock worth $100 million to the Poetry Foundation, then a tiny, obscure Chicago non-profit organization. Lilly died on Dec 30, 2009 at age 94, 39 years (less one day) after Lorine died on December 31, 1970.

The Friends of Lorine Niedecker hope to grow the legacy of Lorine through the celebration of poetry in Wisconsin.

Ann Engelman is the President of the Friends of Lorine Niedecker. Read about a newly discovered poem by Lorine Niedecker in this issue of VWOnline.

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Poetry Featured at Milwaukee Zoo

Thanks to Pattiann Rogers and her “Language of Conservation” program, you can now find poetry permanently installed at the Milwaukee County Zoo—including poems by Wisconsin’s own Marilyn L. Taylor and Robin Chapman, along with nearly sixty other poets. Milwaukee’s was one of only five zoos chosen nationwide to participate in this project. More information at the Zoo's website.

Jumpstart Award Winners

Paula Sergi of the Foot of the Lake Poetry Collective in Fond du Lac won first place and $500.00 to collaborate with the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) office, the Association of Commerce, the Fond du Lac Public Library, the Fond du Lac Arts Council, and Park Ridge Organics to bring poetry to the farmers’ markets, the library, the Windhover Center for the Arts and two harvest festivals in the Fond du Lac area. The finalist was Phil Hansotia of Ellison Bay who received $250.00 to create “poetry trails” (poems in display cases mounted on posts) in Newport State Park, a partnership between the Wallace, Unabridged and Word Women poetry groups with the Newport Wilderness Society, Newport State Park, and Sevastapol, Gibraltar and Southern Door high schools.

Shoshauna Shy of Woodrow Hall Editions, Madison, WI, created the Woodrow Hall Jumpstart Award, an offshoot of the Poetry Jumps Off the Shelf initiative, designed to help other Wisconsin poets implement a project that brings poetry into the eye of the general public in an unconventional manner.

Learn more about this award and the Poetry Jumps Off the Shelf program at
www.PoetryJumpsOfftheShelf.com

WI Poetry Out Loud Champion in National Finals

Wisconsin Champion Madeline Bunke

“It has been a wonderful experience—not only did I meet people from all over the country, but I experienced poems in ways I have never heard before,” said Madeline Leigh Bunke, 2010 Wisconsin Poetry Out Loud champion, after competing as a finalist in April 27 championship round held on the George Washington University campus in Washington, D.C. One of nine out of a field of 53 state and territorial champions, Bunke won $1000 and $500 for her school. A senior at Brookfield Central High School Bunke joins 2006 state champ Anjulie Brekke from James Madison Memorial High School, Madison, as a national finalist. Judging were author Garrison Keillor, the notable English major of Lake Wobegone fame; poets, Adam Kirsch, Jane Shore and Valerie Martinez; and actress Alfre Woodard with actor/comedian John Leguizamo hosting the event.

Madeline Bunke won the Wisconsin Poetry Out Loud Contest held in March at the Assembly Chambers at the Capitol Building in Madison, competing there against nine strong regional champions from across the state. Coached by teacher Honore Schiro, she is the daughter of Joyce Young and Mark Bunke. First runner-up at that level was Jarrell Brannon Montgomery, a senior at Madison Memorial High School.

Poetry Out Loud, a national poetry recitation contest in its fifth year, is the brainchild of former National Endowment for the Arts chairman and poet Dana Gioia who teamed with John Barr, president for the Poetry Foundation, to bring back the art of poetry recitation for the nation’s high school students. Using a $200 million dollar gift from Ruth Lilly, an heir to the pharmaceutical Eli P. Lilly fortune, the Poetry Foundation helps fund the program partnering with the States Arts Agencies.

With the recent resurgence of poetry as an oral art form, recitation and performance are major trends in poetry. Poetry Out Loud builds on that momentum by inviting the dynamic aspects of slam poetry, spoken word, and theater into the English class. It gives students a superb experience in oral communication. As Madeline Bunke responded to her experience as a national finalist: “. . .a terrifying experience in some ways, but still a confidence booster. I had something to say and an audience to listen to it. I am really, really glad I participated!”

Poetry Out Loud uses a pyramid structure that begins at the classroom level. Winners will advance to the school-wide competition, then to the state competition, and ultimately to the National Finals. This exciting program helps students master public speaking skills, build self-confidence, and learn about their literary heritage.

In Wisconsin, Jacki Martindale, a retired veteran English teacher, forensics coach and poet, coordinates the contest for the Wisconsin Arts Board with five regional coordinators across the state. Wisconsin’s program is available to all high schools, distributes contest and curriculum materials, and offers in-service opportunities for schools that sign up with her at elumn8 (at) charter (dot) net. Wisconsin poet laureates, Marilyn Taylor and Denise Sweet, Madison poet laureates, Andrea Musher and Fabu Carter Brisco and other Wisconsin poets have supported the contest as judges and poets in the schools. Poetry Out Loud can provide workshops, readings and coaching by these and other poets free of charge for up to five schools.

While excited by the competitive showing of Wisconsin’s champions at the national level, Martindale sees the strength in the program at the individual school and student level. Though only a few become POL champs, those students of thirty schools who participated are the real winners. University School of Milwaukee, which has sent top-notch contestants for two years, has made the Poetry Out Loud program a major part of their English curriculum. According to teacher Susan Bell Zarwell: “Art has been elevated and energized here at USM because of this marvelous program. Poetry is alive and well in our halls, and we are the better because of it.”

Martindale hopes Poetry Out Loud can bring this energy and success to many more schools across the state. She looks forward to the continuing support of the Wisconsin Teachers of English and the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets.

Follow Poetry Out Loud on Facebook.