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In Wisconsin Transcript #Poems about Places: An In Wisconsin Special    Airdate: 08/09/2007
[Captioning made possible by U.S. Department of Education]
  Poems about Places: An In Wisconsin Special

related links
Click Here to Watch Poems About Places - 25:50 (Real Media)
Click Here to Watch Poems About Places - 25:50 (Windows Media)
  Pine Hollow State Natural Area
Judith Strasser, a poet and essayist living in Madison, and videographer Frank Boll, who visit Pine Hollow Natural Area in Sauk County…

related links
Judith Strasser
Judith Strasser Writing Workshops
Pine Hollow State Natural Area
  The Joynt
Poet Bruce Taylor and videographer Chuck France, who check out a beloved Eau Claire institution - The Joynt…

related links
Bruce Taylor
The Joynt
Review of The Joynt
  Red Banks
State poet laureate Denise Sweet and videographer Everett Soetenga, who travel to Red Banks – the place where Europeans first set foot in Wisconsin…

related links
Jean Nicolet at Red Banks
Denise Sweet
Gathering Conservancy information on Red Banks
  Sciortino's Bakery
Poet Bianca Spriggs and videographer Wendy Woodard, who spend a sweet day at Peter Sciortino's Bakery in Milwaukee…

related links
Sciortino Bakery
La bella cuisine
Bianca Spriggs
  Sprecher's Tavern
Poet John Lehman and videographer Mike Eicher who grab stools at Sprecher’s Tavern in Leland to hear tales of turkey hunts and long journeys from home…

related links
John Lehman
Leland
Riding high in the hog zone
  Whooper Chix Poem
Another creation from state poet laureate Denise Sweet – who pairs with videographer Frank Boll to celebrate the first baby chicks to be hatched in more than 100 years in the eastern United States by migrating whooping cranes.

related links
Whooping Crane Flock Status
International Crane Foundation
Operation Migration


Wisconsin Public Television
Transcript: In Wisconsin Special: Poets About Places
Original Air Date: March/April, 2007

Major funding for “In Wisconsin” is provided by the people of Alliant Energy, who bring safe, reliable and environmentally friendly energy to keep homes, neighborhoods and life in Wisconsin running smoothly. Alliant Energy, offering energy saving ideas on the Web; the University of Wisconsin Comprehensive Cancer Center, providing cancer research, education and treatment. UW Comprehensive Cancer Center, “comprehensive,” as designated by the National Cancer Institute. Information available on the Web; Wisconsin's Technical Colleges, providing local education for the crucial occupations essential to our communities. Wisconsin's Technical Colleges, communities first.

Patty Loew:
Hi, I'm Patty Loew. We're here at a coffee shop in Madison called Café Muse. An appropriate place, for our “In Wisconsin” special, “Poems About Places.” These are visual poems and here's how it works. We pair a Wisconsin poet with a videographer from Wisconsin Public Television, and take them to a place, an interesting place, a beautiful place, a place that could set a person musing about Wisconsin. The poet writes to the images captured by the videographer. And the videographer edits to the poet's words. The twining and interplay of these two artists make up the visual poems in our “Poems About Places.”
We start with a journey, when Poet Judith Strasser and videographer Frank Boll, went in search of a place called, Pine Hollow.

Pine Hollow
Searching for Pine Hollow, Judith Strasser, words; video

We seek a wild place, a narrow, wooded gorge
sheer cliffs, rock outcroppings
We discover remnant farm
silo of gray concrete, mossy foundation, stone
something that might have been water tank
civilization attempted
No sign of the faint trail
that the Guide to Natural Areas says takes off
from the northeast corner of the abandoned field

Above the cicadas’ rasp, wind in dry weeds
mimics the rush of a stream
We’re hopeful, heading into the beckoning crook of woods
that embraces mown clover and grass
We press downhill through blackberry bramble
and goldenrod gone to seed

But the forest we find is a sham
jack-pines and orderly corridors, barren understory
Just beyond the plantation, we stumble on weathered chain-sawed logs
scattered like pick-up-sticks
hardly wild nature
But we have a mission here
TV minutes to fill, a video poem to write
Perhaps we can prod this scene into some semblance of Art
We take notes, run tape, record what we see and imagine
hope gone awry, disaster, better luck someplace else

And then we, too, move on
Muted color, yellows and reds
make spectacle of the trees
But it’s threatening rain and every trail we try
shrinks to a path for deer

We find a grapevine, thick as an arm
a snag pocked with woodpecker holes
An old barbed wire fence
And whenever the wind, leaves falling like rain
But no gorge
This is not what we wanted at all

Then someone spots the yellow sign
nailed to a distant tree
And here’s the way down
browned moss on the rocks, maidenhair fern
and Solomon’s seal in the crease of a dry stream bed
Somewhere below us, Pine Hollow
But we’re running out of tape
The poet sits on a rock
imagine spring’s burble of snow melt
a steep, moist ravine, warblers and thrushes

Cicadas fall silent
Rain patters the leaf-carpet floor
We give up
Pack up the gear, climb toward the car
past an old birch, forked and scarred
that clings to the lip of the hill
“Do you have what you need?”
the producer asks
Do we know what that might be?
Beyond, the silo, the city
Behind, bold hope for some other season
a trunk, live heart of a maple cased in ephemeral gold


The Joynt: Bruce Taylor, words; Chuck France, video

The Joynt

You may meet at a salon, posse up at a saloon, party at the pub, gather at a tavern or Beer Garden, where you bring the dog and kids. Everybody goes to a bar. But you always come to the Joynt.

All great bars are a lot of different bars in one. This is a Tuesday, around 2:00pm. You ought to be here when it’s Friday night right around 11:00, the placed packed to the max, everybody, like Dirty Doug used to say “Starting to be somebody.”

You’ll notice there’s no longer a sign out front. This has become the kind of place doesn't need one.

Everybody has to have a third place. You’ve got to have work. You’ve got to have home. And the other place, whether it's a saloon, a barber shop, or a styling salon.

Music:
Sittin’ in the morning sun
I’ll be sittin’ when the evening comes

Bill Nolte:
That chair became sort of Harry's domain. He was from Eau Claire. As a kid he went down the Mississippi on a raft when he was 16, from here. And then, when he retired, he would come here every morning and sit in that chair. And so, that was Harry’s Chair.

Music:
Looks like nothing’s going to change
Everything still remains the same

Bruce Taylor
This place is unimaginable without music. The boss starts it off with whatever he's listening to lately when he comes down stairs to clean up at 7:00 am. I call three people “Boss,” the guy that signs my check, Springsteen of course, and Bill, who owns this place. He calls me “Taylor,”last nome only, just like prep school.

This place spins at different speeds, around the juke box, 45, LP, compact disc. Odetta, Caruso, Big Head Todd and the Monsters, Dock of the Bay, Georgia, Georgia On My Mind.

Everybody whose picture is up here played here. This is not the kind of a place they put just anybody on the wall.

The bartenders have to keep saying, “No light beer,” so often that the Boss put up that neon sign. And now all they have to do is point, contemptuously. There are a lot of other rules here. And it takes you years to learn them. No spitting in the sink. Peanut shells must always be thrown on the floor. Only certain people can sit in the big chair. The Boss is always Right.

Bottoms up. Cheerio. Cheers. Down the hatch. Here’s looking at you. Here’s mud in your eye. Here’s to you. L’chaim. Many happy returns. Na zdororye. Cin Dan. Salud. Sante. Skal. Skol. Where you going to get more welcome than that? Where else you going to find so many people concerned about your health and your luck?

Music:
Good night, Irene
Good night, Irene
I’ll see you in my dreams
I’ll see
Oh, no, I’m going to get you in my dreams


Red Banks: Denise Sweet, words; Everett Soetenga, video

The People of the Sea

Beauty at its best is undisturbed in winter;
The white wings of ice and snow
Wrap around this forest without
so much as a whisper.

This dry oak savanna fills and fills
without warning, without a witness
And then one day we're buried
in our own mock amazement --
"Where did all this snow come from?"

As though drifts of snow and slates of ice
would not be here had we paid attention,
had we not slept through the howl of storm
or let go of the rope that tethers us to autumn.
I wander the wooded corridor
on the way to Red Banks
surrounded by silver maple, poplar and birch,
slender red cedar stemming skyward.
I'm left to plod and stammer through drifts of snow,
no tracks for me to follow
or posted map with arrows and stars
to mark the spot on which I stand --
"You Are Here."

The sky is all I recognize.
The star stories
And the legends of naked-eye astronomers
Stir and sway within the wind,
as I whisper my real name
and reach through to the anishinaabe adisokan.
In my third season of life,
I have finally learned to be still.
I have finally learned to wait.

Here, the People of the Thunders
gathered around the stranger on the shore of this inland sea,
they listened to the one who spoke with eloquence
and grand gesture, his splendid robe,
ornate with feather stitching,
folds of satin and tiny beads,
the one who could throw lightning with his hands
and split open the sky with a crashing thunder
no one could remember ever hearing before.

A red-tail hawk has begun to follow my curious wandering.
I tighten my scarf and wrap my thin coat closer to me as I leave.
Beyond this stretch of forest is a highway
and the distressing sound of 18-wheelers and SUVs
sailing through this moment towards an urgent other place.

Some may be unaware of the slow searing stare of the hawk,
or have not witnessed the mincing steps
of a white-tail deer
before she leaves the wooded grove,
before she races frantically, back and forth
and then across the highway
into an open field or another stand of trees.
But we can imagine what moves, moves.
What moves within
can bring us back to the remembered earth,
back to the shores of where we began together.
A star story sweeping through the sky
pours over us each dawn,
hoping to be remembered,
hoping to be told to the children of the Seventh Fire.

The story of the heart of the earth,
shuddering like thunder beneath our feet
with a pulse we recognize as our own.


Sciortino's Bakery: Bianca Spriggs, words; Wendy Woodard, video

At Peter Sciortino’s Bakery

I can smell them baking
beyond the mosaic of wheat
that tiles the outside of the building.
Beyond the sea-foam interior
and the strings of lights
and vines that illuminate
Maria del Lume and Porticello,
the votive candle that burns,
blurs into maps of home
and the beaming faces
of original owners.

Their faith is frangrant
has kept the Sciortino name outside
for almost sixty years.
Has kept the display cases
with their sliding doors
so a customer may gape
at the sweet sins
and indulgences alike:
cream puffs, amaretti
cheese cake,
pinwheels, streudel
batons, cassatas
croissants, macaroons,
muffins, made-to-order
freshly-filled canoli
and hundreds more
loom and swelter
beneath a patron's gaze.

But, I can smell them baking
beyond all of this in the metal
hum and heat of the kitchens.
They rise before the bread
to mix and roll and march
legions of vanilla biscotti
onto metal sheets
to join the baking rolls,
with the precision
of a percussion ensemble.

Scraping and slicing and stacking
they pace from the ovens
to the worktables over hardwood floors.

Their forearms are the size of loaves
and the glint of gold glimmers
from their third left fingers
beneath the flour and dough;
they remain a family recipe of prosperity.

I can smell them baking
from the street.
The warm blast of yeast
and sweet
the scent of home and time
that dons the walls.
Here, at Peter Sciortino's Bakery,
I can smell more
so much more rising than bread


Sprecher’s Tavern: John Lehman, words; Michael Eicher, video

Wisconsin Stories

Well, I guess, living in Wisconsin
is a lot like the tavern that sells rifles and beer.
It doesn’t make much sense but it feels right
when you’re there.
Roger, Johnny, Gordy, Elden and the rest
tell stories or watch the Packers on TV.
“Hey, Junior, why don’t you tell this guy
about the time you fell from the deer-stand
and hung upside down for an hour from a tree?”
Junior, now 79, pulls two mugs out of the freezer,
fills them from the tap,
gives me one and slowly takes a swig.

“It was like this,” he begins,
all heads turn toward him.
Outside, the world is changing.
But here, within stories, is where we live.


The Turkey Hunt

Listen, if a turkey could smell
you’d never kill one
because its eyesight and hearing
are the best there is.
One hint of motion
and a gobbler vanishes like a puff of smoke.
That’s why you scout before the season,
check creek banks and around mud holes for tracks,
listen at dusk for birds flying up to roost.
Why you wear camouflage and a face mask
and sit against a tree
wider than the outline of your back.
When you see a long-beard,
call to get him working toward you.
If he struts, wait till he extends his neck.
A clear, one-shot kill is what you want.
But note: hunts you recall the most
are those in which the gobbler wins.


Returning Home

You do something one day, and the next,
and it becomes your life,
she thinks looking out from the kitchen.
It’s two years since she left Atlanta,
quit her job to help her ailing mother.
105, since Edwin, her grandfather,
bought this grocery, now a bar,
and the wordless dialogue of work began.
But she knows we’re worth most
to ourselves and to others,
where we’re most ourselves, contented and at home.
Out the window, rock croppings rise
like old gravestones.
There’s nothing and then there’s something.
Wind across the hills at night.
A fragrance of leaves.
Or in the distance, the sound of returning geese.


Necedah National Wildlife Refuge: Denise Sweet, words; Frank Boll, video
All The Animals Came Dancing

All the animals came dancing
Somewhere between nowhere and shadow
You held still and quiet; a quick slip and
You would totter over the edge of the world,
Taking with you ancient songs of love,
of devotion, of longevity,
songs that celebrated the simple elegance
of living in balance.

So many whimpered in your absence.
The throatsingers tried in vain to call you back,
other winged creatures felt lost
and cut off from the harmonious crane song
that once trumpeted across the marshlands

It was in our ignorance we fell silent,
Helpless anxious to be of use;
we began to think of bogs and swamps
As eerie, ugly and useless.
We drained those windigo wetlands,
paved them over with asphalt
or planted crops that floundered
or refused to take root

Believe us, aashigsug, we tried to fill
and give function to the emptied camps
of the Whooping Crane.
Or were we fumbling to fill that empty nest
in our hearts shaped by your absence?

We are told by the Old Ones
That it is inborn in all beings alive
to return to the place of its beginning,
to rise and sweep with what strength is left
and begin that wondrous trek towards home,
no matter the distance
no matter how difficult the passage.

And so it is aashigsug.
Shy, secretive
And cryptic in coloration,
You appeared one day in the bright mist
As in your own emergence account,
You stood before us,
waiting for us to send out a simple prayer,
to properly greet you by simply standing still
You stood before us
elegant, erect and majestic in form.
You stood before us, a hooded shaman
From the farthest sky, a stellar space
Out of range of the naked eye.

Through the bulrushes and overgrowth
Of slender reeds, your mate steps forward
and with a slight, but mutual bow
and brief address,
you wander together,
winding through the wet meadows,
springing unto a sandbar
and then suddenly a flawless lift into flight
punctuating the sky with prehistoric
angles some have never seen.

It has been 100 years
since you have presented a clutch of chicks,
treasures of Necedah
Some indispensible guiding spirit
came into the hearts of humankind
and coaxed you out of the shadows.
This joyous birth
is a ripple away from the impossible.
While you nudge your brood
into thicker, safer confines,
we sang songs
Once again worshipping the ground you walk on
and all the animals came dancing.


Patty Loew
We began this special with poet Judith Strasser and videographer Frank Boll, searching for the State Natural Area called Pine Hollow. They didn't find it. But their quest became their poem. Well, the quest continued, Frank Boll went back with producer Jo Garrett to find Pine Hollow. They did. And so, we leave you, with this “Postcard from Pine Hollow.” I'm Patty Loew. Thanks for joining us for this “In Wisconsin Special: Poems About Places.”

 
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