Musician.
Curmudgeon. Trailblazer. Prairie Populist. Teacher. World traveler.
Cultural critic. Humanitarian. Scholar. Skeptic. Insightful humorist.
Charismatic speaker. Firebrand. Seer. Bill Holm was never afraid to say
what was on his mind, and the readers of his more than a dozen
books—many of which have been published by Milkweed Editions—are all
the better for it.
Collecting the best and the newest poems from Bill Holm’s oeuvre, The Chain Letter of the Soul
paints a portrait of a man of great heart, broad vision, and startling
prescience. Fans will recognize many of their favorites, and new
readers will be introduced to an enduring voice of American literature.
In
2008, the McKnight Foundation granted Bill Holm the eleventh annual
McKnight Distinguished Artist Award, and in his artist statement he
provided the phrase for the title of this new and selected volume of
poems: "For it is life we want. We want the world, the whole beautiful
world, alive—and we alive in it. That is the actual god we long for and
seek, yet we have already found it, if we open our senses, our whole
bodies, thus our souls. That is why I have written and intend to
continue until someone among you takes up the happy work of keeping the
chain letter of the soul moving along into whatever future will come."
Ultimately, in recording the individual observations of later life in
this context, Holm confounds mortality by honoring a sense of an
organic system that extends beyond birth and death.
BILL HOLM was born to Icelandic immigrants on a farm north of Minneota,
Minnesota in 1943. A long-time resident of Minneota, Holm lived with
his wife Marcie and taught at Southwest Minnesota State University in
Marshall from 1980 until he retired in 2007. He traveled widely, to
Iceland on a Fulbright in 1979, and more recently to his summer home in
Hofsos; and to China, where he taught on an academic exchange program
in 1986 and again in 1992. The recipient of the 2008 McKnight
Distinguished Artist Award, Holm is the author of several books of
essays and poetry including, most recently, The Windows of Brimnes. Known both regionally and nationally as a humorist, writer, and prairie radical, Bill Holm passed away on February 26, 2009.
“The Chain Letter of the Soul gathers together the best of Bill Holm's work.” —Pioneer Press
“Bill Holm, one of Minnesota's greatest champions of the arts, passed away not too
long ago. The Chain Letter of the Soul is his last book—a new and selected
poems (heavy on the new) that is not at all one of those thrown together
collections. It is a great testament to his life and his writing.” —Hans
Weyandt, Micawber’s Books,
St. Paul,
MN
“Readers will progress no more than a few pages before understanding that in Holm beats a great, compassionate heart.” —Internet Review of Books
Praise for Bill Holm
“The sage of Minneota, a colleague of Whitman though born a
hundred years too late.” –Garrison Keillor
“Bill is one of our country’s few essential contemporary writers. What he has
had to say to American readers has, it seems to me, a quality of insight and
intelligence right up there with, say, Thomas Paine or Henry David Thoreau.” –Ted
Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006
“One of the few . . . writers I revere rather than merely read.” –Jim Harrison,
author of The English Major and Returning to Earth
“I think we all feel an immense gratitude for Bill’s tenacity in defending
literary culture in the face of forces that actively encourage mediocrity,
thoughtlessness, and television. We have a right to feel genuinely proud of
him.” –Robert Bly,
Minnesota Poet Laureate
“Bill Holm’s is a classic American voice. It’s the voice of the prairie
radical, the village agnostic, toting volumes of Walt Whitman.” –Los Angeles Times
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Price:
$ 18.00 Binding: Paperback with flaps
Availability
In Stock: 244
Available Immediately
Publisher: Milkweed Editions Published: 2009 Size: 5.5 X 8.5 Edition: 1st Genre: Poetry Pages: 256 pp ISBN: 978-1-57131-444-4
