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A winner of the Minnesota Book Award in fiction, poetry, and non-fiction, Barton Sutter's latest collection details life on the Canadian border, presents portraits of northern plants and animals, rejoices in marriage, and traces the ancient ways of Siberian reindeer herders. The late Bill Holm called it "unlike anything Sutter (or anyone else) has done before." Sutter's poetry reminds us that other cultures have survived for millennia by living closer to the ground.
Born in 1949, Barton Sutter was raised in Minnesota and Iowa. He retired from the University of Wisconsin–Superior in 2011 and now lives in Duluth, Minnesota.
Price: $16.00
Pages: 120
Publisher: BOA Editions Ltd.
Imprint: BOA Editions Ltd.
Publication Date:
17 April 2012
Trim Size: 9.00 X 6.00 in
ISBN: 9781934414842
Format: Paperback
BISACs:
“In his newest collection, Barton Sutter, Duluth’s first poet laureate, takes us on a remarkable journey of mind and soul…Sutter’s wonderful sense of humor shines through in these poems…a gift to be treasured.” —Duluth News Tribute
“[A]n excellent collection and a philosophy tinged with humor and insight.”—Lake Superior Magazine
"My favorites constitute slivers of memory, although ultimately whether they are autobiographical or creative inventions hardly matters to their validity or value... the details make the poems real, which is more important than merely being true." —Zenith City Weekly
Born in 1949, Barton Sutter was raised in tiny towns in Minnesota and Iowa. He earned his B.A. from Southwest Minnesota State University and his M.A. from Syracuse. For ten years, he worked as a typesetter, then taught at various colleges for the next twenty-five, retiring from the University of Wisconsin, Superior, in 2011. He lives in Duluth, on a hillside overlooking Lake Superior, with his wife, Dorothea Diver.
The author of seven books, Barton Sutter has earned the Minnesota Book Award for poetry with The Book of Names, for fiction with My Father’s War and Other Stories, and for creative non-fiction with Cold Comfort: Life at the Top of the Map. Among other honors, he has won a Jerome Foundation Travel & Study Grant (Sweden), a Loft-McKnight Award in poetry, and the Bassine Citation from the Academy of American Poets. In 2006, he was named the first Poet Laureate of Duluth.
Sutter has read his work in a wide variety of venues—from Sandstone’s Quarry Days to the City College of New York, from Bayfield’s Big Top Chautauqua to Pittsburgh’s International Poetry Forum. He has written for Minnesota Public Radio, and he often performs as one half of The Sutter Brothers, a poetry-and-music duo. In recent years, his collaborations with composer Marya Hart--Bushed: A Poetical, Political, Partly Musical Tragicomedy in Two Acts and Pine Creek Parish: A Verse Play with Music—have won standing ovations.
The author of seven books, Barton Sutter has earned the Minnesota Book Award for poetry with The Book of Names, for fiction with My Father’s War and Other Stories, and for creative non-fiction with Cold Comfort: Life at the Top of the Map. Among other honors, he has won a Jerome Foundation Travel & Study Grant (Sweden), a Loft-McKnight Award in poetry, and the Bassine Citation from the Academy of American Poets. In 2006, he was named the first Poet Laureate of Duluth.
Sutter has read his work in a wide variety of venues—from Sandstone’s Quarry Days to the City College of New York, from Bayfield’s Big Top Chautauqua to Pittsburgh’s International Poetry Forum. He has written for Minnesota Public Radio, and he often performs as one half of The Sutter Brothers, a poetry-and-music duo. In recent years, his collaborations with composer Marya Hart--Bushed: A Poetical, Political, Partly Musical Tragicomedy in Two Acts and Pine Creek Parish: A Verse Play with Music—have won standing ovations.
Table of Contents
I
Alakazam 2
Nestlings 3
What Does This Mean? 5
The Plaster 8
My Father and the Trondheims 12
The Horse-drawn School Bus 15
The Snowlady 17
The Pit 20
What I Saw in Smitty’s Garage 22
The Rubber Breast 23
A Mighty Fortress 24
My Mother at Swan Lake 26
II
How to Say North 29
Dead Evergreens 30
Several Dozen Shades of Green 32
Those Finnish Folk 33
A Sad How-do-you-do 35
Mink 36
River Otter Rag 38
A Little Shiver 41
Lessons I Learned from Our Dog 42
An Afterlife After All 44
III
Why I Haven’t Bought a Cell Phone Yet 48
The Minnesota Department of Transportation
Plans to Straighten out Highway 1 50
The Buddhist Monks of Burma 52
Vice 53
“It’s Just a Goddamned Piece of Paper!” 56
IV
February Thaw 61
Minnesota Clerihews 63
The Pileated Woodpecker 64
The Sleepytalk Man 65
The Thinker 67
O’Gara’s Bar & Grill (circa 1978) 68
Nightnoise 70
Jukebox Tunes from the Dirty Shame Saloon 71
How Big Are You? 72
V
What My Daughter, Who Is Always Reading, Said 75
A Cautionary Tale for Condition Cranks 76
The Bone Yard 77
Hunger 78
J. F. Powers and the Fiction of Perfection 79
The New Clerk at Barnes & Noble Recites for Me in Russian 84
VI
Driving through a Blizzard on New Year’s Eve 88
Helpful Developments 89
Skin 90
Poem That Picks up Where Neruda Left Off 92
For My Wife upon the Garage Roof 93
With You in Spain 95
VII
The Reindeer Camps 100
I
Alakazam 2
Nestlings 3
What Does This Mean? 5
The Plaster 8
My Father and the Trondheims 12
The Horse-drawn School Bus 15
The Snowlady 17
The Pit 20
What I Saw in Smitty’s Garage 22
The Rubber Breast 23
A Mighty Fortress 24
My Mother at Swan Lake 26
II
How to Say North 29
Dead Evergreens 30
Several Dozen Shades of Green 32
Those Finnish Folk 33
A Sad How-do-you-do 35
Mink 36
River Otter Rag 38
A Little Shiver 41
Lessons I Learned from Our Dog 42
An Afterlife After All 44
III
Why I Haven’t Bought a Cell Phone Yet 48
The Minnesota Department of Transportation
Plans to Straighten out Highway 1 50
The Buddhist Monks of Burma 52
Vice 53
“It’s Just a Goddamned Piece of Paper!” 56
IV
February Thaw 61
Minnesota Clerihews 63
The Pileated Woodpecker 64
The Sleepytalk Man 65
The Thinker 67
O’Gara’s Bar & Grill (circa 1978) 68
Nightnoise 70
Jukebox Tunes from the Dirty Shame Saloon 71
How Big Are You? 72
V
What My Daughter, Who Is Always Reading, Said 75
A Cautionary Tale for Condition Cranks 76
The Bone Yard 77
Hunger 78
J. F. Powers and the Fiction of Perfection 79
The New Clerk at Barnes & Noble Recites for Me in Russian 84
VI
Driving through a Blizzard on New Year’s Eve 88
Helpful Developments 89
Skin 90
Poem That Picks up Where Neruda Left Off 92
For My Wife upon the Garage Roof 93
With You in Spain 95
VII
The Reindeer Camps 100