She was a poet of place in Wisconsin. Lorine Niedecker (1903–1970) didn't want her poems published in her lifetime, but she had her poems published in England and Japan. She lived most of her life in rural isolation.
She was born on Blackhawk Island, not an island, outside of Fort Atkinson, off Lake Koshkonong, closer to Mud Lake. She was born May 12th 1903.
Links:
Video about Lorine Niedecker with Ann Engelman, the president of the Friends of Lorine Niedecker.
Margo Peters (2011) did a biography (link)
My Life By Water (YouTube)
Newspaper profile
I rose from marsh mud
I rose from marsh mud,
algae, equisetum, willows,
sweet green, noisy
birds and frogs
to see her wed in the rich
rich silence of the church,
the little white slave-girl
in her diamond fronds.
In aisle and arch
the satin secret collects.
United for life to serve
silver. Possessed.
My friend tree
My friend tree
I sawed you down
but I must attend
an older friend
the sun
Poet's Work
Grandfather
advised me:
Learn a trade
I learned
to sit at desk
and condense
No layoffs
from this
condensery
When Ecstasy is Inconvenient
Feign a great calm;
all gay transport soon ends.
Chant: who knows—
flight's end or flight's beginning
for the resting gull?
Heart, be still.
Say there is money but it rusted;
say the time of moon is not right for escape.
It's the color in the lower sky
too broadly suffused,
or the wind in my tie.
Know amazedly how
often one takes his madness
into his own hands
and keeps it.
Poem:
I rose from marsh mud,
algae, equisetum, willows,
sweet green, noisy
birds and frogs
to see her wed in the rich
rich silence of the church,
the little white slave-girl
in her diamond fronds.
In aisle and arch
the satin secret collects.
United for life to serve
silver. Possessed.
Poem:
The land of four o’clocks is here
the five of us together
looking for our supper.
Half past endive, quarter to beets,
seven milks, ten cents cheese,
lost, our land, forever.
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