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Authors: Lorine Niedecker

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Revised to the present text for
Origin
ser. 3, 2 (July 1966): 24.

1965-1967

These years saw the start of her friendship with Gail Roub, a Black Hawk Islander and history teacher at Fort Atkinson High School.

In mid-1965 she prepared the typescript for
T&G.
She also began summer vacation car trips with Al Millen that would take them to the Black Hills in South Dakota in 1965, around Lake Superior in 1966, and to Copper Harbor, Mich., and Door County, Wis., in 1967. These travels provided impetus for major poems such as
“LAKE SUPERIOR”
and
“WINTERGREEN RIDGE.”

Autumn
       Unpublished in book form.

Poor.Old.Tired.Horse.
9 (undated, possibly 1965): 1. The poem derives from the long version of the FPOP poem “Dear Paul,” lines 188 and 191 (see p. 400).

Last night the trash barrel         Unpublished in book form.

Poor.Old.Tired.Horse
. 9 (undated, possibly 1965): 1.

The boy tossed the news         Unpublished in book form.

Poor.Old.Tired.Horse
. 9 (undated, possibly 1965): 1.

Popcorn-can cover      
T&G, MLBW
[EA].

Poor.Old.Tired.Horse
. 9 (undated, possibly 1965): 1; variant line 3: over the hole

Truth         Unpublished in book form.

Poor.Old.Tired.Horse
. 9 (undated, possibly 1965): 1.

Lights, lifts      
T&G, MLBW.

Lines 5 (May 1965): 32.

O late fall      
T&G, MLBW
[EA].

CHURCHILL'S DEATH
     
T&G, MLBW.

Arts in Society
3.3 (Winter 1965): 429.

LN to CC, Feb. 11, 1965: “I did see Churchill's funeral, the Thames, St. Paul's, the solemn faces, Handel on the organ—I found it very moving. I didn't see the mechanical cranes along the Thames dip in salute as the body passed down, but the papers said they did. I hope it wasn't an order, an order from the top” (
BYHM
54).

The Badlands     T&G, MLBW
[EA].

Origin
ser. 3, 2 (July 1966): 14.

LN was visiting the Badlands of South Dakota when she heard of Adlai Stevenson's death (July 28, 1965,
BYHM
68).

A student      
T&G, MLBW.

An early version in
Poor.Old.Tired.Horse.
13 (undated, possibly 1965): n.p., is composed as two five-line stanzas:

A student

my head always down

of the grass as I mow

and my low

pillow

I missed the cranes

“These crayons fly

in a circle ahead”

            said

a tall fellow

The same version appears in a June 20, 1967, letter to Gail Roub.

LN to LZ, Jan. 14, 1962: “Man here says ‘these crayons’ (cranes) ‘fly in a circle but ahead’” (
NCZ
298).

Bird singing      
T&G, MLBW
[EA].

Origin
ser. 4, 16 (July 1981): 28-30, prints the three versions which LN sent to Gail Roub in 1965 after she had seen Gail's vivid acrylic painting. LN published the second version. Here are the other two plus her annotations:

Version I:

Prothonotary Warbler

Clerk of May Court

singing ringing

yellow green

St. Francis image

as perch—why judge—

a niche in the wall

and the man made green ring

in his painting—grass

the sweet bird flew in

and the friend took it

to testify: (Willa)

“they know how to live”

Version III:

 

                 
Warbler

 

St. Francis' image

        —no grimace—

looks down

      past the nest in the niche

      and the yellow green

                      sound

It is right

      to delight

in this ringing

          bird-light

          from the emerald

                  ground

I—Fairly conscious. II is the one I'll probably keep as the one
sleeping under
the other, in large part subconscious. I might have laid an egg (I) tho—?—in any event the egg out of the bird. In II the bird out of the egg and the song before that and the color—

Cather (last two lines of I—you remember she said that in Avignon they know how to live. (That was 1902—wonder what that place is now?)—

Version III—This might be
it
—or is it only fooling around, a kind of Mother Goose warbler?

Version II in
Combustion 15/Island
6 (n.d.): 31, and in
“EIGHT POEMS,”
Monks Pond
1 (Spring 1968): 7.

Easter Greeting
       Unpublished in book form.

Origin
ser. 3, 2 (July 1966): 1, and posthumously in
BC
(1976).

CITY TALK
       Unpublished in book form.

Origin
ser. 3, 2 (July 1966): 15, and posthumously in
BC
(1976).

As praiseworthy      
T&G, MLBW
[EA].

Origin
ser. 3, 2 (July 1966): 16;
“EIGHT POEMS,”
Monks Pond
1 (Spring 1968): 8; and
The Voice That Is Great Within Us: American Poetry of the 20th Century
, ed. Hayden Carruth (New York: Bantam, 1970).

They've lost their leaves      
MLBW.

Origin
ser. 3, 2 (July 1966): 17.

My mother saw the green tree toad      
T&G, MLBW.

Origin
ser. 3, 2 (July 1966): 19, and
The Voice That Is Great Within Us: American Poetry of the 20th Century
, ed. Hayden Carruth (New York: Bantam, 1970).

TRADITION
       Unpublished in book form.

Origin
ser. 3, 2 (July 1966): 29, and posthumously in
BC
(1976).

Autumn Night
       Unpublished in book form.

Origin
ser. 3, 2 (July 1966): 31, and posthumously in
BC
(1976).

The poem refers to Aeneas McAllister, who was LN's neighbor and close friend from 1953 to 1960. He was a pianist, composer, and amateur astronomer.

Sky      
MLBW.

Origin
ser. 3, 2 (July 1966): 33.

Nothing to speak of      
MLBW

Origin
ser. 3, 2 (July 1966): 34.

Swedenborg     MLBW.

Origin
ser. 3, 2 (July 1966): 35.

I lost you to water, summer      
MLBW.

Origin
ser. 3, 2 (July 1966): 36.

Another poem addressed to Aeneas McAllister. See note for
“Autumn Night,”
above.

I married         Unpublished in book form.

Origin
ser. 3, 9 (April 1968): 38, and posthumously in
BC
(1976).

LN to CC (letter plus poem), July 20, 1967: “Just a few minutes ago rather spontaneous from a folk conversation and I suppose some of my own dark forebodings. We shd. be true to our subconscious? Sorry it is another
I
poem. My god, I must try to get away from that” (
BYHM
129).

You see here         Unpublished in book form.

In a group of eleven poems titled
“HEAR & SEE,”
Origin
ser. 3, 7 (Oct. 1967): 56, and posthumously in
BC
(1976).

Your erudition         Unpublished in book form.

In a group of eleven poems titled
“HEAR & SEE,”
Origin
ser. 3, 7 (Oct. 1967): 53, and posthumously in
BC
(1976).

Alone      
MLBW.

In a group of eleven poems titled
“HEAR & SEE,”
Origin
ser. 3, 7 (Oct. 1967): 53.

Why can't I be happy         Unpublished in book form.

In a group of eleven poems titled
“HEAR & SEE,”
Origin
ser. 3, 7 (Oct. 1967): 54, and posthumously in
BC
(1976).

And what you liked         Unpublished in book form.

In a group of eleven poems titled
“HEAR & SEE,”
Origin
ser. 3, 7 (Oct. 1967): 54, and posthumously in
BC
(1976).

Cleaned all surfaces         Unpublished in book form.

In a group of eleven poems titled
“HEAR & SEE,”
Origin
ser. 3, 7 (Oct. 1967): 54, and posthumously in
BC
(1976).

Young in Fall I said: the birds      
MLBW
[EA].

In a numbered group of
“FOUR POEMS,”
Poetry
111.3 (Dec. 1967): 159, and
The Voice That Is Great Within Us: American Poetry of the 20th Century
, ed. Hayden Carruth (New York: Bantam, 1970).

NORTH CENTRAL

This collection was published by Fulcrum Press in 1968. LN thought of the work as a long poem. She told CC on Oct. 13, 1967, “I'm mailing you today another envelope of poems that I think of as Part II of a long poem, the first section of which will be out this fall or winter in
Arts in Society.
Third section coming up (since Door Co. trip)…” (
BYHM
131-32). The first section she refers to is
“LAKE SUPERIOR,”
the second is what came to be known as
“TRACES OF LIVING THINGS,”
and the third is
“WINTERGREEN RIDGE.”
Between the first two sections she added the short poem
“My Life by Water.”

LAKE SUPERIOR
     
NC, MLBW
[EA].

The poem arises in part from her 1966 summer car trip with Al Millen around Lake Superior. Her notes for the poem, now in the Roub Collection, number close to 300 pages. They include detailed research into the history and geology of the region. An Oct. 6, 1966, letter to Morgan Gibson refers to an early version of the poem called
“CIRCLE TOUR.”
However, the only surviving early version is “
TRAVELERS
/Lake Superior Region,” in
Arts in Society
4.3 (Fall/Winter 1967): 508-13:

TRAVELERS
               

Lake Superior Region

I

In every part of every living thing

is stuff that once was rock

           that turned to soil

In blood the minerals

           of the rock

II

Iron the common element of earth

in rocks and freighters

Sault Sainte Marie

the old day
pause
for
voyageurs
,

bosho (bon jour)
sung out

by garrison men

Now locks, big boats

coal-black and iron-ore-red

topped with what white castlework

The waters working together

           internationally

Gulls playing both sides

III

Through all this granite land

the sign of the cross

Beauty: impurities in the rock

IV

Here we touch the polished

ruby of corundum

lapis lazuli

from changing limestone

glow-apricot red-brown

carnelian sard

from Uruguay

and silica-sand agate

from nearby shore

Greek-named, Exodus-antique

kicked up in America's

          Northwest

you have been in my mind

between my toes,

              agate

V

Let the English put sun

in the name Radisson

and make gooseberry jam

of Groseilliers

            (GrosaYAY)

river, falls, a whole country

gooseberry

“a laborinth of pleasure”

this new world of the lakes—

Radisson

Long hair, long gun,

no fingernails—

pulled off by the Mohawks

when they bound him to the stake

for slow killing

Forty years ago now

toward Rainy Lake

ospreys dived for fish

and eagles swooped to snatch

from ospreys as they did

when Radisson

Knife Lake-rendezvoused

with Chippewa, Huron,

Ottawa, Sioux for furs

this lake (State 65) named

for his gift to them

the first steel knife

they'd seen

VI

             The long canoes

“Birch Bark

    and white Seder

               for the ribs”

VII

Schoolcraft and party

left the Soo with canoes

US pennants, masts, sails,

chanting canoemen, barge,

soldiers

              for Minnesota

Their South Shore journey

              as if Life's—

The Chocolate River

              The Laughing Fish

and The River of the Dead

Peaks of volcanic thrust,

hornblende in massed granite

Wave-cut Cambrian rock

painted by soluble mineral oxides

washed by the waves and the rains

A green running as from copper

Sea-roaring caverns—

Chippewa threw deermeat

to the savage maws

Voyageurs
crossed themselves

threw a twist of tobacco in

VIII

Of the wild pigeon

did not man

         maimed by no

                  stone-fall

mash the cobalt

         and carnelian

                   of that bird

IX

Into Minnesota

beside the great granite,

gneiss and the schists

to the redolent pondy lakes—

lilies, flag and Indian reed

“through which we successfully

                    passed”

X

Came now to joy,

the shining lake-study-

pronouncement:

the primary source

of the Mississippi River

Itasca

(from
Veritas caput)

XI

The smooth black stone

I picked up in true source park

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