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Home of Michael Perry – Author, Humorist, Singer/Songwriter, Amateur Pig Farmer

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Archive for September, 2010

Gene Logsdon’s Bleeping New Book

From the moment I met him at a fancy author dinner and we bonded over the fact that we had both been wrassling sheep (for agricultural – not entertainment – reasons) less that 24 hours previous, I have felt an affinity for Gene Logsdon.  Just the other night in response to a question about raising chickens and pigs I recommended his All Flesh is Grass, which I re-read every year.  And the fact that we are actually going to be able to feed our chickens from our own fields over the coming winter is a direct result of many sessions spent dog-earing Gene’s Small-Scale Grain Raising.

At this point, I think of Gene as a friend, although I would never treat him with the informality of a “pal,” because where I come from, one always reserves a measure of deference for wise elders.

When I recommend Gene’s books, I often refer to his plainspoken outspokenness…two qualities I tend to admire because neither comes naturally to me.  Gene tends to just lay it right out there.  Which brings us to the whole point of this post.

Gene has a new book out.  It’s doing well.  Getting good reviews, and the interviewers are calling.  But no one seems to want to mention the actual title of the book…

Thank You to My Wife…

…and daughters, feeding the chickens and running the farm and household and teaching and generally keeping the whole deal together while I tell stories on the road.  This happens a lot and I don’t say thank you enough.

In Green Bay right now (a tinge of gray in the air, the after-effects of last night’s loss to the Bears), headed for Kiel tonight.  To the good people of Kiel, I shuffle my feet and say, yep, it’s K-i-el, not K-e-i-l.  Somehow I missed that one on the postcard.

But we’ll see y’there.  Yep.

It’s a Good Life

When your insurance agent sends you paperwork but also bowhunting tips.

I Wondered…

…when I put the CD in for the first time in a couple of years, if I could make it through Beth Nielsen Chapman‘s “Sand and Water” album without tears, and of course I could not, with the first verse of the title song all the faces, presences, memories gather as if looking on from a close but unreachable distance…

I heard the song for the first time in the dance studio of my friends Barry and Michael, and in the years since, the layers of resonance have only grown.  Chapman herself (who wrote the album after losing her husband to cancer) has spoken of how profound sorrow is a source of deep learning and deepened meaning.  She also says there is no way around grief: “there is only through to the other side.”

Gonna Get to That

From my writing desk I can see three fence posts that I leaned against a sheep shelter, making a mental note to move both the fence posts and the shelter into the pole barn.

Two autumns ago.

Maybe this weekend?

Poetry, Day by Day

The leaves have only just begun to loosen, and yet one must prepare for the year to come.  As such, I am pleased to announce that the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets has released its Wisconsin Poets’ Calendar for the year 2011.  The calendar pages are filled with poetry by Wisconsin residents and – of course – plenty of room for scribbling appointments or scattered verse.

I am honored and privileged to say a poem I wrote about loons (the feathered kind) was included.  I am even more tickled to say that other poets present include: at least one of my former babysitters; a guy from Chetek who was at many of the first poetry readings I ever attended some 20 years ago; the legendary Antler; downright famed poet Todd Boss, of whom I have written previously; our dear departed Norma; a “housewife” poet (spare me the emails, the joke is shared and well-burnished); and many more friends, regional mentors, and fellow scribblers.

Art for the calendar was provided by Candace Hennekens of Fall Creek, Wisconsin (yep, we share the same post office).

Again, ordering information available here.