Landward: Recent Episodes
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Driftless area writer Catherine Young shares her personal work and that of other writers she enjoys. Catherine's writing "reimagines art, earth and spirit".
Poet Karen Nystrom wonders at the language of ravens and her poem of the same name, RAVENS.
Poet Paulette Lauder writes a love letter to place in DEAR APOSTLE ISLANDS NATIONAL LAKESHORE.
Poet Gigi Macaset of Viroqua, Wisconsin recounts the loveliest of details of childhood visits to that County in FISH CREEK DOOR COUNTY WISCONSIN HOME OF MY CHILDHOOD SUMMERS. Lucy Johns gives visceral details of childhood at the lake in her poem, SHAWANO LAKE.
Poet Susan Twiggs uses the form of the "little villain", the villanelle, to portray an expert angler in THE ANGLER’S VILLANELLE.
In the poem JULY 4TH ON LITTLE SISSABAGAMA by Jeffrey Johannes, being on the lake in a canoe holds as much richness as the fireworks. For Phyllis Wax, the lake itself becomes a celebration in her poem NEAR THE LAKE.
Poet Wendy Vardaman responds to the art installation of hundreds of homing pigeons representing world languages and the grounds of Write on, Door County in HOW TO HANG AN INSTALLATION.
In PUMPKINVINE ROAD CIRCA 1960 poet Christy L. Schwan maps place with the finest details of riding a bike and knowing all the holes in a road, with destination to corner store in summer to its welcoming freezer treats.
The poet’s wonderful mind sees giraffes’ relationship to ferns in Sandy Stark’s poem A POET AND A SCIENTIST TAKE A WALK and Jim Landwehr considers Lake Michigan the littler — and friendlier — sister of Lake Superior in his poem SUPERIOR SISTER.
Wisconsin’s tallgrass prairies are so alive and full of sound in summer. Margaret Rozga considers this in her poem WALKING THE PRAIRIE. Catherine Young shares her poem JUNE IN BUDDY’S PRAIRIE capturing the blue of June in the Faville Grove Sanctuary. Her poem was written for the Southern Wisconsin Bird Alliance.
DRAG RACING by Kelly R Samuels. Cars racing and revving in the city at night bring memories of another era in a small town.
A barn is taken down, and dairy farm childhood memories rise with the chaff in DOWNFALL by Linda Schaller.
WRITE ME A POEM ABOUT LOVE, YOU SAY by Ronnie Hess portrays an older couple on a walk finding what endures.
In DRIVING HIGHWAY 29 poet Kate Maude drives her children to apple picking while facing family memories along the route.
WHERE THE SOUL IS MEANT TO BE by Elizabeth Farris portrays Horicon Marsh in its autumning as the poet, in the gesture of crane, speaks to migration.
In RAINY by Suzy Wedeward the curving roads of the Driftless Area are the shifting backdrop to memory.
OCTOBER IN FAVILLE GROVE by Catherine Young
Poet Catherine Young considers Emily Dickinson’s lines that to make a prairie it takes a clover and bee and revelry, and spins a poem portraying the complexity of prairie in the interweaving of people. This poem was written for the Southern Wisconsin Bird Alliance to celebrate the thousand acre prairie of Faville Grove Sanctuary near Lake Mills, Wisconsin.
In OCTOBER by Robert Frost, the poet pleads with October to go slow. OCTOBER is in the public domain.
CONFLAGRATION INVOCATION is by Wisconsin poet Karen Ostrov. While watching over her toddler grandson in Oregon during the September 2020 wildfires and Covid 19 restrictions, the poet considers Rosh Hashanah 5781 and the binding of Isaac along with her role as a grandmother, sheltering her grandson for future generations.
Wisconfluence is a series of four poems created for the MidWay Atlas, a seven-state Midwest artist project in 2022. WATER MEMORY is the contribution of Wisconsin Poet Laureate Laureate Kimberly Blaeser.
As the seasons change, so do the sounds of insects until they are gone. SEPTEMBER MIDNIGHT by Sara Teasdale captures the change.
AUTUMN AGAIN by Minnesota Poet Laureate, Joyce Sutphen, is from her collection Carrying Water to the Field.
Minnesota Poet Laureate Joyce Sutphen combs the road in search of the elusive agates in her poem IN QUEST OF AGATES from her collection Carrying Water to the Field.
Dioramas is from the memoir Black Diamonds: A Childhood Colored by Coal by Catherine Young, published in 2023 by Torrey House Press. The memoir looks back on childhood in a Pennsylvania coal mining valley, and Dioramas tells of the strange underground exhibit, a coal mine with mannequins.
EFFIGY HAND is an ekphrastic poem created in response to the image of a mica carving from the Hopewell culture. The poem by Catherine Young was published by the Ekphrastic Review in 2022.
In the poem RECOLLECTION, the poet Catherine Young both remembers and collects inside a small-town antique store. The poem is from the ecopoetry collection Geosmin published by Water’s Edge Press.
With summer come the memories of other summers, layered on, including what is here and what is now gone. BECAUSE OF THE SUN by Minnesota Poet Laureate, Joyce Sutphen, is from her collection Carrying Water to the Field.
Prairie restoration, the Grim Reaper, mentors, and a rusty scythe all compound the images in this poem by Tom Boswell MEDITATION WHILE CUTTING BUCKWHEAT from the poetry collection Heart on a String.
Sometimes with the memories of lost objects if we pay attention – come the best insights – and the best stories. RESTORATION by Catherine Young is from the ecopoetry collection Geosmin published by Water’s Edge Press.
Sometimes it’s difficult to answer a question about farming. IN ANSWER TO YOUR QUESTION byCatherine Young was published in the journal Farmerish in 2020
East Mountain is from the memoir Black Diamonds: A Childhood Colored by Coal by Catherine Young, published in 2023 by Torrey House Press. The memoir looks back on childhood in a Pennsylvania coal mining Valley, and East Mountain tells of the relationship between the narrator and her firefighter father in the early 1960s.
In the poem COUNTRY COMMUTE the journey across the rural landscape to the office on a June day is a hard transition. COUNTRY COMMUTE by Tom Boswell is published in his collection Heart on a String.
The poem TWO GIRLS ON A HAYRACK captures a childhood moment, a glorious memory of high summer on a farm. The poem is by Minnesota Poet Laureate, Joyce Sutphen from her collection Carrying Water to the Field.
Wisconfluence is a series of four poems created for the MidWay Atlas, a seven-state Midwest artistproject in 2022. BEDROCK is the contribution of Wisconsin Poet Laureate Max Garland.
Wisconfluence is a series of four poems created for the MidWay Atlas, a seven-state Midwest artist project in 2022. WATER MEMORY is the contribution of Madison Poet Laureate Angela Trudell Vasquez.
Wisconfluence is a series of four poems created for the MidWay Atlas, a seven-state Midwest artist collaborative in 2022. WATERWAYS is the contribution of poet Catherine Young.
How can anyone describe the colors of water as it reflects everything in our world? In the two-voiced poem COLOR OF WATER, Catherine Young explores the palette. The poem is from the ecopoetry collection Geosmin published by Water’s Edge Press.
In the poem COMFORTS OF THE SUN by Joyce Sutphen growing up on a farm is a more intimate connection than knowing. The poem is from her collection Carrying Water to the Field.
GIRL ON A TRACTOR by Minnesota Poet Laureate, Joyce Sutphen, is from her collection Carrying Water to the Field.
FIRST WORDS by Minnesota Poet Laureate, Joyce Sutphen, is from her collection Carrying Water to theField. Sutphen names the first words of the child on a farm and the world that they build.
TORNADO WARNING by Minnesota Poet Laureate, Joyce Sutphen, is from her collection CarryingWater to the Field.
DEAR SKY, DEAR BLUE PLANET is a community poem created from responses to KimberlyBlaeser’s prompt at the American Geophysical Union 2022 conference as part of Poets forScience. A video of the poem and its collaborators can be viewed on YouTube.
In almost childlike verse, the poem IN THE TIME OF CLIMATE CHANGE describes the devastationof floods in southwest Wisconsin in 2018, and it was published in Catherine Young’s ecopoetrycollection Geosmin by Water’s Edge’s in 2022. DANDELIONS, also by Catherine Young, is a poemof resilience and it was anthologized in Tiny Seed Journal in 2023.
THE BLUE IN THE DISTANCE by Minnesota Poet Laureate, Joyce Sutphen, is from her collectionCarrying Water to the Field. The poet paints April’s color shift as it moves on the land.
STRAIGHT OUT OF VIEW by Minnesota Poet Laureate, Joyce Sutphen, is from her collection Carrying Water to the Field. The poet moves us from page — to rural land — and then back again.
In this essay, And Then I Went Back to the Land, Catherine Young takes us on a journey from the Great Depression through food co-ops considering where our food comes from and why.
Rich in description of desert landscape, Mussentuchit Badlandsis from the memoir When I Was Red Clay: A Journey of Identity, Healing and Wonderby Jonathan T Bailey, published in 2022 by Torrey House Press.
In this memoir piece In That River I Saw Him Again, Catherine Young tells a story of trains, photography and what the heart remembers.
DENDROUS AND MATTER by Catherine Young are two poems that look at the poetry in science. They are from her collection Geosmin published in 2022 by Water’s Edge Press.
Perhaps you remember mimeograph coloring sheets at school? How did they help celebrate season? Catherine Young reads Purple Lines from her collection Geosmin.
Learning to read and decode the woods is like climbing into a canoe and letting the waters carry you. Catherine Young reads from her collection Gesomin.
August’s ripening elderberries bring to mind the return to school and letting go. Catherine Young reads Elderberries from her collection Geosmin
Wishes might be like soap bubbles that disappear or they might be like dandelion seeds that multiply. Catherine Young reads Letter to the Fifteen Year Old Artist:On Winning from her collection Geosmin
How would a life long dairy farmer tell the story of a place? Catherine Young reads For Those Who Thought They Could Buy a Farm from her collection Geosmin.
Summer is fair time. Catherine Young reads a poem of a child’s experience at the State Fair
Waters Silvered & Rime by Catherine Young are 2 poems of endless summer in the waters of a Great Lake, from her collection Geosmin.
Catherine Young reads 2 poems celebrating the sweetness and long light of June from her poetry collection Geosmin: Midsummer and Firefly Nighrs.
Catherine reads a farm poem by Minnesota poet Joyce Sutphen from her collection Carrying Waterto the Field.
Catherine reads Poems Appear from her poetry collection Geosmin where a dreamer has to choose to follow Muse or reality.
Catherine reads Passerine from her poetry collection, Geosmin where the poet becomes a swallow in the afterlife.
Catherine reads her farm poem, When Freshly Painted, from her poetry collection Geosmin
Catherine reads a poem by Tom Hennen from Darkness Sticks to Eveything:New and Collected Poems
Rexalling our role in averting tragedy is like walking a tightrope. The poem Tightrope by Catherine Young is from her poetry Collection, Geosmin.
Catherine reads 2 poems from her collection Geosmin. Many colors refill the April landscape in Verdancy. Hornets build homes in Hymenoptera: Wasps l
Catherine reads from her poetry collection Geosmin. Eloquence in Stone uses and epigraph from Tony Hoagland's poetry to describe Driftless region geology
Catherine reads Shepard of Trees from her poetry collection Geosmin where a caretaker asks trees what they need.
Catherine reads Panoramic from her poetry collection Geosmin and descirbes a lifetime as a landscape.
Catherine reads 2 poems from her collection Geosmin, Compost and Revolution are two views of the cycle of life on a farm.
Catherine reads Volute from her poetry collection Geosmin. In Volute a fossil tells people how everything in the world curls-whether we can see it or not.
Women Tending by Catherine Young from her poetry collection Geosmin.
Women Tending moves through time and is told in 3 voices
From women tending house and home; the women making bricks & pottery for home; the women who make art-those women who tend towards what calls us to create. The poem celebrates the gifts of women have given to the world throughout history in March- Women's History Month.
Aubade for the Never Ending Flow of Milk by Catherine Young from her poetry collection Geosmin.
An aubade is a poem that is written for dawn, a poem that greets the morning, lamenting the end if night wehn lovers ms part. On a farm, audbade can take quite a different meaning after a long night of tending the birth of livestock and readying for the day.
Catherine reads two poems from her poetry collection, Geosmin. In February it Begins and Maple Syruping for the spring season of change and the sweetness we crave.
Catherine reads 2 poems from her collection Geosmin: Lichen and Late Winter
Lichen-decorates the bark lke a living wrapping on gift, one that's hard to put into the woodstove.
Late Winter in Wisconsin is the difficult time of freeze and thaw, an anxious dance. We want the melt, but not all at once!
Catherine reads January Brink from her poetry collection Geosmin.
There are people who love summer as a time fo gathering outdoors, but some love snowy winter even more. January's clean and spare, and the snow and ice catches is the most beautiful light. January is an edge; a brink.
Catherine reads Mapping the Empty Lot from her poetry collection Geosmin.
The narrator in this poem visits a childhood house after many years and finds it a gap in the city block where it had stood.
Catherine reads Stone Circle from her poetry collection Geosmin.
From the perspective of geologic time, stone is always in motion. Glass is a slow liquid that pools over time. Stone Circle was inspired by a lively and colorful painting of Gathering Stone Circle in Cumbria U.K. where time becomes relative.
Catherine reads Minus Forty from her poetry collection Geosmin. In the deep cold weather there is a garden made of ice.
Catherine reads two poems of season.
Chickadees by Minnesota Poet Laureate, Joyce Sutphen, from her collection Carrying Water.
Sylvan (L'Homme Vert) from poet, Donna Carnes, portraying each of the four seasons hrough the eyes of a tree in the imagist style.
Catherine reads A Parallelogram from her poetry collection Geosmin
A Parallelogram is based on the photo "Met" of a many storied, many painted atrium with reflections and echoes of parallelograms through which could be seen snow-covered trees. The poem is an ekphrastic response to imaginary divisions of latitude and longitude lines as all lines are imaginary.
Catherine reads 2 poems, Lost at Sea and At a Loss from her poetry collection Geosmin
Lost at Sea considers how coal has given us light, heat, electricity, clothing, medicines-but it is fossil fuel, sunshine stored in carbon, and it has been the major contributor to climate change, which in turn leads to glacial melt and sea level rise.
At al Loss refers to "at al loss for words" for the amazement of the living lad here in Southwest Wisconsin and concern for what we could lose. The word Migizi- at the end of the poems is the Anishinabenowin word for bald eagle. Migizi flies at dawn to see if humans remember to greet the day so that the world may continue. And canon refers to a song round that wraps round and round.
Catherine reads In Dark Times We Gather Light from her poetry collection Geosmin. The poem is a hybride about bees and nuns, darkness and light and the ceremonial procession St. Lucia Day, December 13th as well as spring's promise of renewal.
As the sun sets across the world, people light up the darkness. In each hour the menorah candles are lit, prayers are sung, and light steadily progress in homes as the sun leaves them behind. Lighting the Menorah honors Hanukkah, one of many celebrations of creating light in the darkness.
Catherine reads In The Antique Mall and Art Goes Unbidden from her poetry collection Geosmin.
Perhaps you've had the experience of walking into an antiques store to find objects and tools that you've grown up with are now antiques. That's where In the Antique Mall started.
It is said that the hills of southwest Wisconsin harbor a lot of creative eccentric people. The second poem, Art Goes Unbidden is an observation of my rural neighborhood.
The essay "Smoke" by Catherine Young is reaction to and and experience of the wildfire ash that began to cover our Midwestern skies in the fall of 2020 against the background of having grown up in the in the smoke of the largest coal mining valley in the world.
The essay "Smoke" by Catherine Young is a reaction to and experience of the wildfire ash that began to cover our Midwestern skies in the fall of 2020 against the background of having frown up in the smoke of the largest coal mining valley in the world.
Catherine reads 2 poem from her poetry collection Geosmin that address the loss of farming in Wissconsin's Driftless Region. The Janus in Farmer.Janus refers tot the two-faced Roman god of beginnings, doorways, passages and endings. The farmer looking forward and back while letting go. Barn Elegiac focuses on the empty barn and all it once held.
Catherine reads from her poetry collection, Geosmin. In his piece "The Word Hoard" British writer-naturalist Robert MacFarlane noted the proposed removal of worth about the natural world in the children's Oxford Dictionary-and this led to an outcry across the English-speaking world. Gathering Acorns, Hoarding Words asks if children do not know the words describing land, how will they know land?
Catherine reads 2 poems to celebrate October, Barbara Cooker's And Now It's October and Genevieve Taggart's The Last Hour
Smitten with the layers of limestone and sandstone that line these Wisconsin hills, these loveliest of golden layer cakes, how does one person dwelling in the Driftless area protect land and waters?
Smitten with the layers of limestone and sandstone that line these Wisconsin hills. these loveliest of golden layer cakes, how does one person swelling the Driftless Area protect the land and waters?
Invocation: Call it Home is from Catherine's poetry collection Geosmin and it was begun in 2007 in response to the first wave of devastating floods in our Driftless regions-as a way to speak what is beloved and why we stay. It was published as a poster with artwork by Stephanie Motz to celebrate and uplift the place where we dwell, and to ask all who view it to respond with art and poetry.
Catherine reads Stippled Passing from her poetry collection Geosmin. The poem is response to the Geald Manley Hopkins poem Pied Beauty and its "rose-molesall in stipple upon trout that swim"as well as the trouts in a farm's creek and the change of season slipping into autumn.
Catherine reads Stippled Passing from her poetry collection Geosmin. The poem is response to the Geald Manley Hopkins poem Pied Beauty and its "rose-molesall in stipple upon trout that swim"as well as the trouts in a farm's creek and the change of season slipping into autumn.
Deer hunting in our region is often a means of survival. Catherine Young reads The Shots Came Quick from her collection Geosmin
Catherine reads Joyce Sutphen's poem The Last Apples from her collection Carrying Water to the Field.
Perhaps you remember mimeograph coloring sheets at school? How did they help celebrate season? Catherine Young reads Purple Lines from her collection Geosmin.
Learning to read and decode words is like climbing into a canoe and letting the waters carry you. Catherine Young and guest Julie Agar read Baptism from the collection Geosmin
August's ripening elderberries bring to mind the return to school and letting go. Catherine Young reads Elderberries from her collection Geosmin
Wishes might be like soap bubbles that disappear or they might be like dandelion seeds that multiply. Catherine Young reads Letter to the Fifteen Year Old Artist:On Winning from her collection Geosmin
How would a life long dairy farmer tell the story of a place? Catherine Young reads For Those Who Thought They Could Buy a Farm from her collection Geosmin.
Summer is fair time. Catherine Young reads a poem of a child's experience at the State Fair
Waters Silvered & Rime by Catherine Young are 2 poems of endless summer in the waters of a Great Lake, from her collection Geosmin.
Catherine reads a summer summer celebration poem by Joyce Sutphen from her collection Carrying Water to the Field.
Catherine Young reads two poems to celebrate the south shore of a Great Lake in Summer. Shoreline Instructions for Lake Superior and Superior from her collection Geosmin
Catherine Young reads 2 July poems from the rural landscape: Clouds Rise Up Like Fish, a poem by Tom Hennen from "Darkness Sticks to Everything New and Collected Poems" and Carrying Water to the Field, a farm poem by Joyce Sutphen from her collection of the same name.
Catherine Young reads 2 poems from her collection Geosmin giving different views of the July 4 holiday.
July 4- an ekphrastic poem based on a painting, depicting viewers of a small town parade
Sweet Land of Liberty is a vibrant tableau of many cultures of America gathered at a state park holiday picnic
MIDSUMMER & FIREFLY NIGHTS by Catherine Young from her poetry collection Geosmin are 2 poems celebrating the sweetness and long light of June.
Catherine reads a farm poem, THE OAT BINDER by Minnesota poet Joyce Sutphen from her collection Carrying Water to the Field.
Catherine Young reads the poem FROM A COUNTRY OVERLOOKED by Tom Hennen from Darkness Sticks to Everything: Collected and New Poems
A dreamer has to choose to follow Muse or reality. POEMS APPEAR by Catherine Young is from her poetry collection Geosmin.
The poet becomes a swallow in the afterlife. The poem PASSERINE by Catherine Young is from her poetry collection Geosmin.
Catherine reads 2 farm poems, HARROW and WHAT EVERY GIRL WANTS, from Minnesota poet Joyce Sutphen's collection Carrying Water to the Field.