Marianne Murphy Zarzana
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"...Paradise will be a kind of library."

11/20/2011

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Writer Jorge Luis Borges wrote, "I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library." I agree wholeheartedly.

Last week the doors swung open to a brand new library in Marshall, Minnesota. Bright, spacious, and--though quiet--teeming with life. A kind of paradise, judging from the beaming faces of patrrons, young and old. As part of the library's grand opening, SMSU History Professor Emeritus and writer Joseph Amato gave a fascinating talk on the "ordinary versus the extraordinary" as viewed through the historical lens of daily life. Refreshments included nn 8-foot long cake in the shape of an open book, complete with a book mark, which you can view at the Marshall Independent story, "This open house takes the cake."

Another Independent story you may want to read, "New library is more than a building, speakers say," gives the full scope of the library open house.

Having spent many delicious hours in libraries in my childhood through graduate school and now at SMSU's McFarland Library, I'm thrilled to have a new public library in town complete with a cozy fireplace, study rooms and all the latest technology. 

Now for some more great quotes by writers about libraries:

"I attempted briefly to consecrate myself in the public library, believing every crack in my soul could be chinked with a book."
-Barbara Kingsolver, "The Poisonwood Bible"

"I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book! When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library." -Jane Austen, "Pride & Prejudice"

"The very existence of libraries affords the best evidence that we may yet have hope for the future of man." -T.S. Eliot


Reading obviously relates to libraries, and my husband, Jim Zarzana, posted on his website's "The Eclectic Blog" on 11/11/11 an essay titled “All Children Left Behind: The Decline of Reading in Our Lifetime." I encourage you to read it and join in the conversation by leaving a comment.

What is the library like in your town? What do you think the libraries of the future will be like? How important have libraries been in your life? Do you have a favorite library? Do you have a favorite poem, story or essay about a library? I'd love to hear your comments and stories!

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Shakespeare's Twelfth Night & Reality TV at SMSU

11/5/2011

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Last night my husband Jim and I joined some friends to see SMSU's production of Shakespeare's ever-popular Twelfth Night. The play has a light tone, is accessible, and we recommend it highly. Tomorrow, Sunday, Nov. 6, is the last show, a matinee at 2 p.m. Get thee to the SMSU Theatre for high-quality acting and lots of great laughs.

The 50's style costumes are terrific (bravo, Sheila Tabaka!), and the beachfront set is beautiful (bravo, Ray Oster!). 
In the Director's Note, Nadine Purvis Schmidt writes, "One thing that struck me in preparing for this production is how modern the play feels. With their colorful personalities, conflicts, pranks, and confusing love lives, many of the characters in Twelfth Night would be right at home on today's reality TV shows. The way scenes flow and are structured reminds me of film and television--scenes shift quickly and often, there are few extended monologues and there is much interaction between characters who come and go and reappear." 

Shipwrecks, survivors, gender-bending, comic sub-plots are all part of the fun. And nobody beats Will Shakespeare for snappy word-play, great dialogue, and the ability to capture our full humanity from the foolish to the arrogant to the noble. As writers we need to "fill the well," expose ourselves to the best writing whether that's in print, on the screen or on the stage. And you can't do better than Shakespeare on that score.

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\"An Early Morning Cafe\" by Bill Holm

9/11/2011

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By now, you've probably read, listened to and watched countless stories related to 9/11 on this 10th anniversary. 

Here's a poem about 9/11 that I love because it takes me right into the heart of the story--the beating hearts of real people. Bill Holm, one of my former colleagues at Southwest Minnesota State University who wrote this poem, passed on February 25, 2009. His spirit lives on in all the words and books he left behind. I encourage you to get your hands on some of his books of poetry and prose listed below. If you want to get a better sense of our corner of fly-over country here in Southwest Minnesota, Bill's books are a good place to start.

An Early Morning Cafe
I
One hundred and seven stories into the air
the Windows on the World Cafe
served pate and poached salmon
to diners staring over Manhattan,
but early this September morning,
the sommelier and maitre d’
were still asleep in their faraway flats,
only the sous-chef and banquet staff
had arrived to peel the shrimp,
trim the artichokes and wash
the leaves of the escarole.


II

Simple work with your mates
in a quiet early morning cafe
is a pleasure: jokes, mild complaining,
a hummed tune or two,
when suddenly a berserk machine
decides to murder a building with fire.
Like a badly shot elephant,
the hundred-and-six stories holding up
your peeling knife and lettuce drier
wobbled and shook a little while,
but when flames melted the bones
it all tumbled down on top of itself
in a gray heap, shrimp,
artichokes, escarole, fifty thousand
bottles of elegant wine,
and you yourself, unless you leapt
out one of the windows of the world
to finish with imaginary wings
the flight to the city of angels.


Ill


Humans so riddled with hate they turned
from men to bombs smashed the girders
under your cafe, though they’d never met you,
to murder you for the glory of God
with your apron still smeared with shrimp guts.
It was always thus. Try to kill an abstraction
by murdering a building from the air,
but all you kill is Bob and Edna
and Sollie and Rodrigo and Mei-Mei.
A building is only a set of artificial legs
to hold up human beings in the air,
and an airplane only a sheet of folded paper.
But fifty thousand bottles of good wine
and a hundred pounds of fresh Gulf shrimp,
and Bob and Edna and all the rest–
that is something real!

IV

If you think you’ve bagged the one truth
and that truth wants final sacrifice,
then you’ve stepped outside the human race,
and your plane will not land in heaven
wherever you think it might be.
Heaven is an early morning cafe
wherever you are.

–Bill Holm

(Copyright © 2004 by Bill Holm. From Playing the Black Piano published by Milkweed Editions, Minneapolis, Minnesota. All rights reserved. www.milkweed.org)
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Though born in the middle of the North American continent, Bill Holm was a devotee of islands as well as an essayist, musician, and poet. His books include Windows of Brimnes, Eccentric Islands, Coming Home Crazy, Playing the Black Piano, The Heart Can Be Filled Anywhere on Earth, The Dead Get By With Everything, The Music of Failure, Faces of Christmas Past, Chocolate Chips for Your Enemies and Box-Elder Bug Variations. 

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Yellow Medicine Review at SMSU

5/9/2011

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In 2008, thanks to a generous grant from the Ford Foundation, on behalf of the Difficult Dialogues Initiative on the campus of Southwest Minnesota State University, a new publication, Yellow Medicine Review: A Journal of Indigenous Literature, Art, and Thought, was launched by Dr. Judy Wilson, Associate Professor of English at SMSU.

The title, Yellow Medicine Review, incorporates the name of a river in Southwest Minnesota. According to the YMR website, "The Dakota came together at the river to dig the yellow root of a special plant that was used for medicinal purposes, for healing. Such is the spirit of Yellow Medicine Review." 


The website notes that "Yellow Medicine Review opens a new pathway for scholarly and creative expression. New paths lead to new places, into the territory where emerging voices and visions are beginning to take their places among already established indigenous writers, artists and scholars." 


YMR encourages submissions from indigenous perspectives in the area of fiction, poetry, scholarly essays, and art.  The journal defines indigenous universally as representative of all pre-colonial peoples and is published twice yearly. The Spring 2011 issue is now available.

See the website for details, to order single copies, and for subscription information.
You may also order current and past issues via Yellow Medicine Review's Storefront at Amazon.com.

If you've already read YMR, I encourage you to post a comment here with your feedback.
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A Farewell Poem to Honor Dicksy Howe-Noyes, Professor Emeritus, SMSU

5/7/2011

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What Dicksy Found at the Library

-For Dicksy Howe-Noyes, May 2011

From the first, she found herself
at home in the stacks,
embraced by books,
by government docs,
by all those words
and all those worlds,
her rich treasure-trove.
                                    
Later, she found herself
at home in the classroom
with a passion,
a creative knack
for teaching students
how to navigate
the information highway,
how to hang on tight
for the rocket-ride
of research, discovery.


And she found her spirit
much at home in a team
of Global Studies profs
prepping students
for travel far
from the prairie,
far from the safety
of preconceived notions,
of limited, parochial plans. 


Always, she found herself
at home with change,
hungry to learn more,
to seek a better way to help
others map their future,
never content to stay still,
always moving, reaching
for another reference book,
turning the page to find
a new idea to spark learning,
to open hearts to all they might
hold while traveling through
this spacious, shining universe.

 -Marianne Murphy Zarzana

If you know Dicksy as a fellow SMSU colleague, as a library instructor, or in another capacity through the library, please mail her a note or card (to the SMSU Library) to congratulate her on her retirement from SMSU this spring and to wish her well with all her new creative adventures.

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More Than Writing Conference at Minnesota State University, Mankato

4/24/2011

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On Saturday, I attended the More Than Writing Conference at Minnesota State University, Mankato, organized by the MFA grad students in the Creative Writing Program, including two SMSU grads, Jessica Welu and Jason Zahn.
  
A panel of first-year grad students gave a wonderful reading that included Chris Oveson, an instructor at SMSU, and Jessica Welu, a 2010 graduate of SMSU. A terrific panel titled "The Juggling Act: The Writing and Life after the MFA" was presented by writers Becky Fjelland-Davis, Gwen Hart and Roger Hart. I read on an SMSU panel with poets Susan McLean, Chris Oveson and Jerry Schaefer. So great to connect with some of my former professors, Rick Robbins, Roger Sheffer, Donna Casella, and good friends from grad school. Many thanks to Chris Oveson for organizing this panel. And thanks to all those at MSU, Mankato who made this conference happen.

As I head into the home stretch of this semester, the readings and conversations with fellow travelers on the writing path re-energized me, reminded me of all the unexpected joys to be found along the way.

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SMSU Perceptions Literary Magazine - 2011

4/21/2011

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As part of SMSU's Fine Arts Celebration, a reading and reception was held today in the Whipple Gallery for Perceptions, the annual student literary and arts magazine. Students read their published poetry, fiction and non-fiction, and the top submission in each genre was awarded a "Don't Starve for Your Art" gift certificate for groceries. Afterwards, faculty, staff, students and family members enjoyed punch and delicious marble cake with fondant frosting that matched the brilliant green leaf image on the Perceptions cover. 

I love the energy in a room after a reading--the hum of intense conversations, the laughter a welcome release from the jitters of a public reading, the lit talk--"send out that poem, don't sit on it!"--and exciting news of acceptance at graduate school next fall. 

The student editors looked triumphant as they handed out copies of Perceptions, the finished product. What had they put into it? A semester of weekly night meetings, lunchtime at a table in the Student Center encouraging fellow students to submit their work, hours huddled around the computer screen choosing student art work, discussing submissions, making selections, emailing, and handling myriad tasks large and small. Now a new crop of SMSU student writers are in print, their words on their way out into the world.

Congratulations to all of you for your hard work andon a great publication!
 Ashley Nyren, Managing Editor; Laura Bania and Patrick VanNevel, Fiction Editors; Ari Copenhaver, Poetry Editor; Amanda J. Ochs and Courtney Casperson, Art/Design Editors; Brittney Heimermann, Submissions Manager; and staff members: Carrie Long, Daniel Kilkelly, Jamal Michel, Dannica Dufur, Kathrin Dzimian, Rochelle Luebke, and Brianna Johnson-Schaar.
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More Than Writing Conference at Minnesota State University, Mankato on Fri. & Sat.

4/19/2011

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The graduate students in the Creative Writing Program at Minnesota State University, Mankato are hosting the "More Than Writing" Conference this Friday afternoon, April 22, and all day Saturday, April 23. There is no registration fee or admission. It is free, and the public is encouraged to attend. Click on the conference name above to read the schedule--a great line-up of outstanding writers and interesting topics.

I will be reading on an SMSU panel with writers Susan McLean, Jerry Schaefer, and Christopher McPherson Oveson on Sat., April 23 at 2:30 p.m. We'd love to have you join us.
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Young Writers Converge at SMSU

4/17/2011

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Today I attended one of my favorite SMSU events of the year: the 7th Annual Creative Writing Contest Award Ceremony and Reception, sponsored by SMSU and the Southwest/West Central Service Cooperative. 

Young Adult writer Rebecca Fjelland Davis, author of Jake Riley: Irreparably Damaged and her new YA novel Chasing AllieCat, gave an inspiring, energizing keynote talk about our need for stories and about how to grow as a writer.

The top 3 winners from grades 3-12 in each category--Fiction, Non-fiction, and Poetry--received a medal and a copy of the Creating Spaces anthology with their published work. The top writers in 11-12th grade received $2,000 scholarships to SMSU. Parents, grandparents, siblings and teachers all applauded the young writers. SMSU creative writing students served as first-tier judges, and SMSU English Department faculty serve as the final judges.

Each year the quantity and quality of the writing grows, and the turnout at the award ceremony increases. In a culture where we often lament that reading by children and teens is declining, this event speaks volumes otherwise. These young writers have much to say, and they're not holding back.
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Thanks...Thanks...Thanks...

4/14/2011

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Many thanks to all the students, faculty, staff, friends and community members who came to my poetry reading at SMSU today as part of the 5th Annual Fine Arts Celebration. I love writing, sitting alone at my desk, finding out where the words will take me. But I also need this juicy part--sharing those words in public, trying to be a good spigot, letting the poems flow through me, and hearing what comes back, completing the loop. 

After the reading, the audience had great questions. I crave that give-and-take, the wider conversation about writing, the process, where poems come from, how a poet knows when a poem is "done," how often we write, which poets and writers have inspired and influenced our work. 

I like to read other poets' work at my readings to honor them and share their work with my audience, a practice I picked up from poets such as Robert Bly and Bill Holm. Today I read "Go to the Limits of Your Longing" by  Rainer Maria Rilke,(you can read it here) and two Beth Ann Fennelly poems, "The Myth of Translation" from "The Impossibility of Language" (you can read it here)  and "Cow Tipping" by Fennelly (you can read it here). 

Much more to come in the next few weeks with the SMSU 5th Annual Fine Arts Celebration. Big thanks to Dr. Jan Loft, Chair of the Art, Music, Speech Communication and Theatre Department, for all her hard work organizing this month-long feast of the arts. Check out the online schedule. Join us. Feed your soul.
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    Author

    I love to play with words. To capture moments on the page. To explore the physical and spiritual geography of what I call "fly-over country." I write from imagination, observation and my own experience of wandering in fly-over country--the literal, physical spaces of my life on the Minnesota prairie and the inner territory of the soul. 

    I teach writing at Southwest Minnesota State University in Marshall, Minnesota. I enjoy cooking and traveling with my husband Jim, reading, practicing yoga, playing tennis, biking, hiking and gardening.

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