Yooper Poetry E-Book

• Herausgeber: Modern History Press
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Seitenzahl: 122

Beschreibung

Sometimes the best way to learn about a unique region is to listen to the stories told by those who've actually lived there. You learn things that no guidebook would ever tell you. You meet unforgettable characters who've strayed far off the beaten path. And you see clearly again how the power of memory is so strong that they can still recall incidents decades later. Michigan's Upper Peninsula has always been filled with remarkable sensations and indelible stories.
With this anthology, the editor Raymond Luczak sought to include poets who not only live in the U.P., but also who used to live there. What did it mean to be a Yooper then? What about now? Even for those who no longer abide there, the U.P. is indeed a special place, and it isn't just thanks to Mother Nature. The Yooper mindset requires a particular kind of faith in resilience against persistent odds.
The poets in this collection have never forgotten what it means to be a Yooper. Come partake in our celebration!
Featuring Martin Achatz * Jennifer Elen Brid * B. Harlan Deemer * Chad Faries * Deborah K. Frontiera * Kathleen M. Heideman * John Hilden * Jonathan Johnson * Kathleen Carlton Johnson * Ellen Lord * Raymond Luczak * Gala Malherbe * Beverly Matherne * R. H. Miller * Jane Piirto * Dana Richter * T. Kilgore Splake * Suzanne Sunshower * Russell Thorburn
"Yooper Poetry is a very thoughtful and beautifully published book... Some of the best Yooper writing reaches toward the poetic heights that resonate with "danger"... I love the resonance that exists and helps to feed our various literatures across time and distance."
-- Mack Hassler, U.P. Book Review
RAYMOND LUCZAK is the author and editor of over 30 books, including U.P.-centric titles such as Far from Atlantis: Poems (Gallaudet University Press), Chlorophyll: Poems about Michigan's Upper Peninsula (Modern History Press), and Compassion, Michigan: The Ironwood Stories (Modern History Press). His poetry collection once upon a twin: poems (Gallaudet University Press) was a top ten U.P. Notable Book of the YearPoetry, Prairie Schooner, and elsewhere. A proud Yooper, he lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Leseprobe

ALSO BY THE EDITOR

POETRY

Far from Atlantis

Chlorophyll

Lunafly

once upon a twin

Bokeh Focus

A Babble of Objects

The Kiss of Walt Whitman Still on My Lips

How to Kill Poetry

Road Work Ahead

Mute

This Way to the Acorns

St. Michael's Fall

FICTION

Widower, 48, Seeks Husband

Compassion, Michigan

Flannelwood

The Last Deaf Club in America

The Kinda Fella I Am

Men with Their Hands

NONFICTION

A Quiet Foghorn: More Notes from a Deaf Gay Life

From Heart into Art: Interviews with Deaf and Hard of Hearing Artists and Their Allies

Notes of a Deaf Gay Writer: 20 Years Later

Assembly Required: Notes from a Deaf Gay Life

Silence Is a Four-Letter Word: On Art & Deafness

DRAMA

Whispers of a Savage Sort and Other Plays about the Deaf American Experience Snooty: A Comedy

AS EDITOR

Lovejets: Queer Male Poets on 200 Years of Walt Whitman

QDA: A Queer Disability Anthology

Among the Leaves: Queer Male Poets on the Midwestern Experience

Eyes of Desire 2: A Deaf GLBT Reader

When I Am Dead: The Writings of George M. Teegarden

Eyes of Desire: A Deaf Gay & Lesbian Reader

Reprints

Raymond Luczak's "Chipmunk" appeared in Laurel Review (Issue 55.1, 2022).

Gala Malherbe's "I Look for You" appeared in her chapbook No One Told Me (2019).

Beverly Matherne's "The Vision of Eziel" appeared in Here: Women Writing on Michigan's Upper Peninsula (Michigan State University, 2015).

R. H. Miller's "Economy" appeared in A Long Glance (Finishing Line Press, 2010).

Dana Richter's "Time of the Blackflies" appeared in The Brockway Lookout (Vol. 22, No. 2, 2015) and "The Warbling Vireo" appeared in The Brockway Lookout (Vol. 27, No. 1, 2020).

Copyright

Yooper Poetry: On Experiencing Michigan's Upper Peninsula

Copyright © 2024 by Raymond Luczak.

ISBN 978-1-61599-793-0 paperback

ISBN 978-1-61599-794-7 hardcover

ISBN 978-1-61599-795-4 eBook

Cover Design: Mona Z. Kraculdy

Cover Photograph: Adam Kauwenberg-Marsnik

All rights reserved. No part of this book can be reproduced in any form by any means without written permission. Please address inquiries to the publisher:

Modern History Press

5145 Pontiac Trail

Ann Arbor, MI 48105

Toll-free: 888-761-6268

Fax: [phone]

E-mail: [email protected]

Web: modernhistorypress.com

Distributed by Ingram (USA/CAN/AU)

contents

Yooping It Up: A Quick Foreword

***

Kathleen M. Heideman

Now Playing | Miss Iron Range Sings Reba | Father Vaaramäki's Homily | Poor Rusty, He Was Always Somebody's Weary Young Husband Broken, Dying Early | Olson Bros. Waste Management | An Educational Program Concerning Mining

R. H. Miller

The Drowned Boy | Columbines | Casino at Watersmeet | Night Fishing for Trout | Cooks Run, Michigan | Economy | The Wreck | One Vision

Gala Malherbe

The Storm | Our Lake | I Look for You | A Perfect Place to Find Cranberries | Spring in March | What the Doctor Did Not Know

Suzanne Sunshower

60th Birthday Song | Putting the UP in North | Tonight | Snowy Day with Wind | Brother / Sister | April Ice Storm | Invasion of Bear Shack | In Respect for Spirit Mound

John Hilden

Bad Blood | A Lover of Pageantry | Portent | The Day Comes | Messiah Complex | Towpath | Stasis | Essence of Hope

Kathleen Carlton Johnson

Hunting Season | Mistress of Information | Two Stones | The River | Letter to Father, at Sea | Evening in Late Summer

Russell Thorburn

The Bus Driver's Singing "Real Cool Time," an Iggy Pop Song to Keep Himself Awake | The Fox | A Union Soldier Drifts in His Canoe Toward the Lake Superior Shore | Beside the Breakwall Near Five-Foot Splashing Waves | At the University Library in Marquette

Jane Piirto

Meteor Showers | Ketchimaki's Farm | Pinecone | Spectre on the Seney Stretch | Iron Man

B. Harlan Deemer

names | half moon at twenty to noon | a sleek, white winter sentence | ahead of wishful thinking | stomach | slowly rising temperatures | nest

Chad Faries

Teach: Field Trip | Empire | Iron Family Vignettes | 9th Avenue Song and Run

Ellen Lord

Unscheduled Guest | North Country Haiku | Ontonagon at Da Noonlight | A Rain Poem | Lake Effect Sky | A Snow Day (Again) | Hometown | Porcupine Mountain High

Jonathan Johnson

Emily the Dōan's Text | Marquette Update | Twenty-Five Miles from Milk | Two Daughters | Process | Samu as Cutting Wood a Winter Ahead

Raymond Luczak

John A. "Curley" Krainak | That One Time I Fell Asleep in the Garden Behind the Three-Stall Garage | Chipmunk | Here Lies the Body of a Deaf Boy | Segueing | News Record Printing and Supply | My First History Teacher

Dana Richter

Time of the Black Flies | A Mushroom Is a Microscopic Kind of Thing | Rutabaga! | Mushrooms in the Huron Mountains | The Warbling Vireo | Any Wayside Place

Jennifer Elen Bríd

Scorcery | Reverie | Passion | The North Shore | Sweetness, Shared | Sap Season

Beverly Matherne

Come Like a Thief | First Snow at Sunrise | The Vision of Eziel | Resurrection

Martin Achatz

Bigfoot and Jim Harrison Skinny Dip in Morgan Pond on Father's Day | Bigfoot's New Year's Resolutions | Bigfoot Meets a Homeless Man on Presque Isle | Crossing the Straits | Moose | Portrait of the Virgin Mary as Skunk | Doe After a Blizzard

T. Kilgore Splake

untitled | god's country | memories | yooper obituary | keweenaw reflections | of water | yooper samizdat

Deborah K. Frontiera

In Search of the Giant Killer | Night Sky | Sounds While Sitting in Silence | The Crocus Race | Leaving Home

***

Contributors

forSteven Schuster

foreword

Yooping It Up: A Quick Foreword

by Raymond Luczak

Up north, nobody cares for rambling speeches, so I'm not going to pad this one with scholarly distractions and squint-causing footnotes about how poetry can be some sort of a salve against the onslaught of seasons, particularly when it comes to the relentless grip of winter. However I must run the risk of offending those trolls still living under the Mackinac Bridge by explaining what the term "Yooper" means. The acronym for Michigan's Upper Peninsula is "U.P.," and "Yooper" is derived from saying the blended word "U.P.-er" unlike the word "upper." Got that? Awesome!

So let's yoop it up, shall we?

Now, if you're new to the U.P. experience, you must understand that Yoopers, especially those who live there year-round, are tough. Those long winters can feel more interminable especially when the first snow arrives with joy in October and lingers like a cold that just won't go away until April. You can bitch and moan all you want, but last night's snowdump of two feet—surprise!—is not going to shovel itself out of the driveway. You just have to don your longjohns (or longjanes), plop your feet into your snowmobile boots, zip up your parka, get your butt out there, and push the big-assed scooper, stockpiling that snowbank which never seems to stop growing until the last gasps of spring.

The funny thing is, despite the tiny icicles dripping from your nose, you find yourself blissfully alive while sipping that marshmallow-laden mug of hot chocolate and feeling the happy wriggling of your toes inside your thick slippers while you watch a sitcom on TV. Sometimes I swear there's nothing better than feeling that slight snap in the night air while sleeping under a weight of blankets; my body feels wonderfully blessed by the heat that's been trapped. Being a Yooper requires the ability to appreciate such small miracles as they occur. In that sense, living in the U.P. could be considered almost a spiritual experience.

Given the rigors of winter, the summers there can be shockingly glorious. The hours of sunlight are blissfully long enough to make us forget the previous winter. The lush green everywhere is occasionally punctuated with the most electrifying thunderstorms that leave behind in the air a startling chill, almost like a glass of icy lemonade on a sweltering afternoon. (Well, sometimes you have to learn to ignore those pesky bugs. No wonder that I love the dusky challenge of tracking those bats who gobble up those annoying mosquitoes left and right in the first leak of night. But I digress.)

Many of the poems chosen for inclusion often end with a hard-earned clarity of recognition; it may not always be as warm as a firepit on a cool August night, but it is emotionally honest. Otherwise, poetry might as well be a futile pursuit.

Oh, no no no. We all deserve better.

Some of the poems here allude to the lingering residual power of the mining industry in the U.P. At one time, the Iron Range (and the Copper Country too) brought forth so much iron and copper ore (and lumber, too!) to the world that entire towns, enriched by immigrants from the Old World bringing along their languages, cultural norms, and recipes (well, the Cornish-inspired pasty which has become the U.P. dish), seemed to appear out of nowhere along with the riches for the owners of the mining companies. Then the deposits of such ore did eventually run dry, so the towns shrank accordingly. Thankfully, Mother Nature hasn't left.

While I love nature poetry, I felt that this anthology needed more than that. What about living there as a resident? So many of us who've moved away have never forgotten the personal landmarks that loomed large in our formative years. Yes, there is indeed more to life in the U.P. than the powerful rhythm of its seasons. All the poets in this collection have been given approximately eight pages each. This enables us to savor their work more intimately as one might with making a new friend.

Well, that's all I've needed to say, folks. Welcome to da U.P. and enjoy!

kathleen m. heideman

Now Playing

Down at the Delft Theater we're all watching that silent film, Taming the Michigan Wilderness, for the umpteenth time. When it's done, the projectionist plays it backwards, to rewind, & everyone stays to watch that too, even better, like it was a vaudeville Magician's act—O how astonishing!—to see our black trains running backwards uphill from the oredocks, engines swallowing smoke, broken ore pouring out from trams, back down shaft-holes where it came from, our grandfathers unbent & growing younger, smiling now, the roads un-ribboning, replaced by ferns & upholstered slopes of pin-cushion moss, the Miner's Bank & Trust building dissembled, dragged stone by stone back to the quarry & best of all, great logs rolling uphill from the riverbanks, bouncing a few times like boys on a diving board, and bounding upright: White Pines! White Pines! Wild-haired virgins! Pine trees, ancient trees, far as the eye can see!

Miss Iron Range Sings Reba

How you done me wrong,

Baby crank it up!

Until you blow the speakers out your Chevy truck.

—Reba McEntire, "Turn on the Radio"

Come Sunday, Rusty, we'll stroll

along the Caving Grounds fenceline

down to Rautamäki Senior Center,

grab ourselves empty folding chairs

—saving this for anybody? No?

It's a creaky end to wondering at last

who'll win the local talent contest,

who'll be named least likely to escape

a collapsing town's gravitational field,

who'll be crowned Miss Iron Range:

most likely not your favorite niece

the one with straight As, braced teeth

and a job at the library, more likely

the neighbor's feral grandchild,

a blonde girl rough as beachgrass

wasting her summer swatting fish-flies,

oiling herself on lakeshore sand

in earshot of the ore dock's rumbling

freighters and the sooty coal yard,

a pre-melanoma case whose special talent

is brazen flirting, opening zippers with her lips

and lip-syncing along to the radio—

she sings Reba, singing loud, singing flat,

and when she blows the words she just laughs

like she's not on stage, like she's flying

down the road with her hair out the window

spit-polishing dust from her tin tiara,

flip-flops propped on a new boy's pickup

dash, her toenails painted black.

Father Vaaramäki's Homily

Poor Negaunee, so pure with snow, freshly white-washed, so studded with taverns and steeples and shaft heads, iron-stained as any butcher shop, and Father Vaaramäki*, who meant to say "sacrament" tonight and stood there blank-tongued in the middle of the mass, dumbstruck, moonlight leaking from every hole in his head. Silent minutes passed; we worried he was having a stroke—then he opened his mouth and homily poured out: O how the iron range glows and shimmers in Thy falling snow, luminous with well-scrubbed faithful, the white-sugared optimism of mine workings, ore dusted with snow! Must I mention failure or fracture here, this blessed night? I say no! No. For even X waits to deliver bad news, even catastrophe demurs, hangs back like a wolf at the edge of a clearing until Thy deer have ponded like Job floundering in deep snow. Progress! Optimism! Open the ledgers of Industry! Boughs greening our mantles while outside, the spruce grouse thrums and chews her meager needles! Bring out sour black bread and break it, share Thy bounty, Thy juustua and blood-sausages and pickled pig's feet! Thy wine is sweet, Thy wind is bitter. Let bacon-drippings be spread on sacramental wafers for every poor man tonight, and poor babes too, for it is Christmas Eve, a rare full moon swoops low to smile upon our town—grant now our dumb beasts the gift of speech, let the cow and kitten deliver prophecies, let the rooster forecast profits in the coming year, X-many million tons of ore shipped, X-many stopes emptied, X-many cracked streets. Now let us raise our voice in prayer, let us crank the Victrola and sing, for when we sing we are not poor, we are not hollowed, we are holy! And if we cannot be holy, let us cross ourselves and be certain—in X's name we tremble, in X's name make amends.

_______________________

* Finnish words—vaara means "danger" and mäki means "hill" translated by Teppo Pihlajamäki

Poor Rusty, He Was Always Somebody's Weary Young Husband Broken, Dying Early

You can't avoid him. Orangey-soda-bright-acid-pyritic

he puddles at your feet, omnipotent; Rusty's face on your beater pickup's

fender oxidizing into brittle lace, he was here from the start,

brittle photos of Rusty double-jacking in Jackson pit, 1856,

prying rock-pages open with his pick, holding drill or shovel,

carbide lamp, his black pupils swelling to fill the whole of his eyes,

O they swore he could see in the dark, that fellow!

He's there, dumping cantilevered

ore-carts down in the Negaunee, compressed air in Blueberry,

electrified mucker in the Mather B, running the sump engine,