I had met Bill Holm in the Loft offices some years ago. Many moons later, on a lovely summer day, I was eating my lunch on the deck at Open Book. Bill came out to the deck to be in the open air and have a cigarette. This is post an extended hospital stay for his heart problems. He didn't flinch at all when I asked a smartass question.
"What would your doctors say about that cigarette?"
"Oh," he replied in his baritone voice, "I only have two a day. The rest of the time I use these." Upon which he pulls from his pocket a tin of snuff. Only the tin contained little paper packages of snuff, like tea bags filled with tobacco. "This is tobacco usage for Lutherans," said Bill. "Clean, neat, and discreet."
That's my Bill Holm story. Aren't I lucky?
—Dara Syrkin, associate director of communications and the editor of A View from the Loft
What a loss it was hearing about the death of a Minneota friend of mine, Bill Holm. I remember being with my dad who did Bill's family's veterinary work in the late '50s, when Bill's mom and dad lived on their family farm north of Minneota. I knew both of his parents, and how protected Bill's mom kept him from the day to day farm work. Instead, his mother impressed upon him the arts like music, debate and literature. I recall his dad being a very big man with a deep voice, and my dad telling me years later, that on veterinary visits, Bill's dad would always offer him a "snort," from a little bottle that he kept in the barn.
Being in the company of Bill was always enjoyable, as he had such a big smile, was very animated, and had a hearty laugh. I remember when he was a teenager, he used to play the piano at the "piano bar," in Ghent, when it was Ted's Bar, owned by the DeRoode family. After coming home from the military in the early '70s, other friends of mine and Bill's, and my wife, would occasionally have a poker game over at Bill's house in Minneota. It was never a high stakes game, but Bill was a terrible poker player and would normally lose his gambling money early in the evening. He would then spend the rest of the evening entertaining us with his harpsichord or piano in the other room, and kept "refreshing our refreshments."
Bill, or Billie, as many of his close friends called him, never forgot his hometown of Minneota, as he always mentioned it in his books, or whenever he gained some acknowledgement through either local, state or national fame.
I recall a conversation I had with him a couple decades ago. I mentioned how much I enjoyed trees and was surprised by his answer: he told me, "I don't enjoy trees, but love the treeless prairie landscape."
He was a great story teller, a wonderful friend, and a truly gifted person.
—Rick Merritt
About 15 years ago my daughter and I, while on a road trip to California in late September, stopped to camp overnight in the Black Hills. Being off-season, the campground had few tourists but a very friendly, older woman checked us in and made us feel welcome. She commented on the Gustavus Adolphus sweatshirt my daughter was wearing, saying that her nephew had graduated from Gustavus. When we asked about him, she said maybe we'd heard of him: his name was Bill Holm and he'd recently been teaching in China. She said that he loved the enthusiasm and passion of the Chinese students who would come to his apartment late at night because they were fired up and wanted to have a discussion with their teacher! Then she shared a personal story about Bill and the image has stayed with me, as well. Bill wanted to borrow her and her pickup truck to move a piano to some location up a mountain. She agreed, on one condition: Bill had to play the piano. And so she had fond memories of being serenaded by Bill Holm playing the piano from the back of the truck as she drove the instrument to its new home.
—Eleanor A. Leonard
Wherever Bill's writer friends gather these days to mourn their loss, a dominant theme in the conversation is the helping hand that Bill always had extended. No one was kinder, more sympathetic, more helpful when it came to giving a fellow writer a leg up.
When my husband retired from journalism and we moved back to Minnesota, we had been away for 25 years. And except for a few old friends, I had no huge readership here. Bill called me to tell me how much he liked my book, The Cape Ann. He had heard that I'd had a disagreement with my then-publisher over requested changes in the sequel, and he asked if I'd be upset if he talked to Emilie Buchwald at Milkweed about the manuscript. I assured him that I certainly would not be upset. The long and short of it was that Milkweed has subsequently published three of my novels, and if I live long enough, I hope they'll publish a fourth.
My case is but one example of the hundreds of times Bill extended that helping hand. Nearly every time I heard him read his prose or poetry, he began the event by reading someone else's work. In this way I was first introduced to the work of Phebe Hanson, Bart Sutter and others too numerous to mention.
With Bill's example before me, I try to extend a hand to fellow writers. Whenever I'm unsure what to do when approached by a struggling author, I ask myself, "What would Bill do?" His help and caring is the benchmark by which writers should judge themselves in this regard.
Bill understood that we are all sailing in this precarious ship of art together. And if we don't fight like hell for one another, going forward as shipmates, we will all go down together.
As you were our captain and friend, Bill, we feel a bit rudderless at this moment. But, in remembering you and honoring you, we will try to remember also what you taught us about dedication to craft and to our shipmates.
We send you a hug and a kiss out there on whatever sea your ship is plying.
—Faith Sullivan, book author
I think it was 1998 or 1999 when Bill Holm agreed to be our annual meeting keynote speaker for The Nature Conservancy. The new state director had just moved to Minnesota from the East Coast and I'll never forget his face when big, blustery Bill came to our office to meet him and shake his hand! (I think his whole body got shaken.) Later, when Bill spoke to the crowd of 300+ about where he was from ("Minneota, a very small dot on the ghost of a large ocean of grass"),he conveyed his passion of place. He re-inspired us to save Minnesota's remaining tallgrass prairie, both for its human and plant inhabitants.
—Julie Muehlberg, communications coordinator for The Southern Minnesota Initiative Foundation in Owatonna, former communications manager at The Nature Conservancy of MN
Bill was that rarest of combinations: devastating in his critique of provincialism, militarism, and the abuse of power in all forms; but also profoundly tender, musical, and filled with compassion for all living creatures. Though I knew him for just a few years, I came to love him, and while his work will live on-in Chinese, Icelandic, and Italian editions, not to mention ours-all of us here at the press will miss him deeply.
—Daniel Schlager, publisher and CEO of Milkweed Editions
We knew Bill as a musician and high school eccentric who was obviously headed for great things without Jonah's drive. At my Uncle Bill Gislason's farm, town kids and country kids picked rocks and baled hay, but Bill was not allowed to help because of the danger to his fingers for the piano.Most people, then, thought his real gift would be as a pianist. Everyone has been quick to send copies of his poems and newspaper obituaries. Bill was such a complex person that his bio-info is frequently wrong. He will be diverse legends.
—Roland Johnson
Waiting for the Saga of Bill: A Tribute to Bill Holm
By Barbara J. Gislason, Esq.
I set my laptop down on the cherrywood conference desk at my law office and look out the window at another March day. The pine trees are there, not blowing much, and the snow sits still on the pine needles, anchored by frozen rain.
Finally, I open my laptop and keep seeing the subject: Bill Holm, Bill Holm, Bill Holm. I release a message, and Bill Holm, my cousin, is dead on February 25, 2009.
What will it be like, living in a world without Bill Holm, I thought? Did Bill cause the sun to rise, the spring to come, or raccoons to see in the dark? With Bill, it seemed as if all things were possible.
At 6'5", with his unkempt hair, full beard and redhead's complexion, he stood illuminated and illuminated those he touched. Bill knew all about musicians playing the piano, then suddenly, shape shifted and became the music itself. He spoke of this in one of his robust audio books, Notes from the Black Piano.
Bill was a poet, an author, a musician, an independent thinker and an admirer of lawyers. According to Bill, "the law, like the priesthood or the making of literature, ought not to be a job, but a vocation. If the universe awards you a gift for it, it is your duty as a human to use that gift to honor it."
Around the turn of the 20th century, three of five immigrant Icelandic brothers, the children of Bjorn Gislason, earned their law degree at the University of Minnesota. Bill was the great-grandson of their sister and always honored his Icelandic lawyer cousins, and even wrote about them for Minnesota Law & Politics.
The first three Gislason lawyers were Bjorn B., Halldor B., and Arni B. Gislason. Bjorn B. Gislason, after law school graduation, became the Lyon County Attorney, and later the father of Sidney Gislason. In 1959, New Ulm's Sidney ran against and beat the famous Melvin Belli as president of the International Academy of Trial Lawyers. Law was not Sidney's profession according to Bill, "but his religion."
Sidney sired another two generations of Gislason attorneys, Daniel Gislason and Daniel's son, Adam Gislason. Adam graduated from the University of Minnesota exactly one century after his great-grandfather, Bjorn.
Another of the three brothers, attorney Halldor B. Gislason, was a professor of elocution at the University of Minnesota. He was also the University's debate coach, a published author and the advisor to the Minnesota Daily newspaper.
The third lawyer/brother was my grandfather, Arni B. Gislason, who served as a District Court judge in New Ulm for 24 years. He is the father of Robert W. Gislason, my father, who always called himself a trial lawyer, as if there was any other kind.
My grandfather Arni, Sidney's mentor as his father died young, Sidney, and Bill set the bar high for what Icelanders could, and in fact, should be. They also expanded their sphere of influence to non-Icelanders through carefully crafted words rich in power and through their authentic selves. These were real people.
While contemplating Bill's death, I thought of his longtime Milkweed Editions now emeritus publisher, editor and friend. Carefully, I emailed Emilie Buchwald, "A star has fallen from the sky," and left a message for her to call me. When she did, I found that she had learned of Bill's death through a reporter. She also told me about the 25 years she worked with him and listened to him laugh, heartily, as they enjoyed good food.
Then I called Thorunn Bjarnadottir, who is originally from Reykjavik, Iceland, and whose father is from a farm just south of East Iceland's Vopnafjordur, Bill and my great-grandfather's farm. Thorunn came with me long ago to attend a Minneota, Minn. festival named after Bill Holm's book, Boxelder Bug Variations.
For Thorunn and my Boxelder Bug Day's initiation at the Minneota High School auditorium, Bill brought out English professor and poet, John Rezmerski, who exemplified Bill's good taste in people. Thorunn and I embraced Boxelder Bug Days, which represents every small town's eccentricities, into our consciousness. She continues to return there, now bringing her husband and son, to connect to Bill's world, one she considers quite magnificent.
"Who else would I call?" I asked myself. I called my dad, Bob Gislason, who at 84 exercises two hours per day. My dad was a little mad at Bill for dying, like others I talked to were. Bill, the scoundrel, ate, drank, smoked and lived as he pleased, and never became enamored by exercise.
It is true that Bill did not live like other people. His values were reflected by what his wife, Marcy Brekken, placed in his casket. There was Bill, resplendent in his best Icelandic sweater embracing Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass and a classical music book.
Who is here? I looked around at Bill's visitation and saw 6-foot-5-inch Walter Gislason of Willmar, Minn. He handed me a linen handkerchief with the red monogram "G" when my tears suddenly came. Claire Eckley, president of the Minnesota Icelandic Association, gained a pressed handkerchief, too. And there is Bill's best friend, Daren Gislason, his lifelong confidant.
There were three people of Chinese descent in the corner, and I wondered if they once had been Bill's students from China. I introduced myself to Xiao Wang. She had traveled all the way from Florida to pay tribute to Bill, who had changed her life. He mentioned her singing "Red River Valley" in his book Coming Home Crazy: An Alphabet of Chinese Essays.
Professor Wang told me, with unbridled enthusiasm, about how Bill made literature come alive for her English class in China, and how she traveled into China's desert with Bill Holm and Marcy Brekken, when they fell in love. She explained that in Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass, the leaves were actually a metaphor for people. She wanted a picture of me, because she saw Bill's essence there, and embraced me into her life like a long-lost relative. "You must lecture to my English class in Florida," she said. After all, Bill had done that, and how wonderful he had been.
Another one of Bill's students, teacher Dingman Yu, remembered Bill as having been described as not larger than life, but as big as life, which is as large as anyone gets. One of Bill's relatives who became an artist and made Iceland her home, Cathy Josephson, described one of Bill's last letters to her: "In June, he wrote angrily, clearly grieving, for America's political, economic and literary condition." I imagine that she was there in Reykjavik last Sunday, at Wincie Johannsdottir's home, along with two of Iceland's most talented authors, Einar Mar Gudmudsson and Vidar Hreinsson.
The funeral itself, on March 8, 2009, was an occasion that Bill would have appreciated. Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass was open and decorated by flowers. His four-hand partner, Daniel Rieppel, played classical music beside Raeanna Gislason. Julieta Alvarado played Bill's harpsichord to perfection, and Southwest Minnesota State University (SMSU) musicians sang the sweetest of songs.
The minister, Stephen Rasmusson from SMSU was, as Bill would have put it, "Not half bad." He was able, through carefully manicured prose, to accomplish the lift of spirits the way Bill always had. And there was John Rezmerski, who took the great body of Bill's work and blended it into a eulogy, thereby creating Bill's worldview, in Bill's own words. How Professor Rezmerski was able to keep his composure, I will never know.
As we left the building, I saw U.S. poet laureate Ted Kooser and a few of Minnesota's literary giants who came to pay their respects. Garrison Keillor, who had just lost his brother, drove the three hours west, as did renowned poet Robert Bly, and others who represent the heart and soul of Minnesota literature and culture.
This, of course, made me think of Bill's many houses, including his home in Minneota, his "Litja Hus" next door, and of course, his house called Brimness in the village of Hofsos overlooking the Arctic Sea. But I was thinking of a different house.
A few years ago, I returned to Minneota for Boxelder Bug Days and learned that Bill owned another house across his back alley. "Bill bought that house for his piano!" said Daren Gislason. When I gained access to the house, there was a card table, with Bill's handwritten notes, a card table chair, a small bookcase behind the chair full of books, and a stately grand piano. Otherwise, the house was empty.
At Bill's funeral, John Rezmerski said that in Bill's opinion, people should pay him for "just being Bill." I looked around me in the Icelandic church and found that Bill had been well paid by the people who knew him, either in person, or through his art, through respect, loyalty, and gratitude.
And finally, in Bill's own word in Eccentric Islands, "You gain immortality not by amassing money, but by some act or gesture that captures the imagination." I await the Saga of Bill.
About Bill
By Cathy Josephson
Bill has touched all of our lives through his writing, through his conversations with us, through his willingness to open his door - although if you knocked, you would most likely hear a faint bellow from inside somewhere: "Door's open!"
My own welcome whenever Bill came to visit us here at Refsstadur, our home in the countryside in East Iceland, was met with a bear hug and a cousins' kiss and, "It's good to be here again! Same room? Sverrir, my friend!!"
These summer visits began in 1998, when Bill and Marcy were driving around Iceland with two friends. I was then alone, living in an old farmhouse that no one wanted, running a guesthouse for unknown friends, with a view as wide as the world just outside the windows and a cat and dog that both slept and wrestled arm-in-arm. For some reason - perhaps because I did such a backward thing as return to the small island where my grandparents were born - Bill decided that I was a person of great good sense, even wisdom, and I was just dishonest enough to smile and thank him for his wisdom in figuring this out.
When they left, everyone wrote their thanks in the Red House by the Sea guestbook - for fish, for fun with the pets, for two days by the sea with low clouds and animals that talked. But Bill, as he has done for others over the years, left a poem "for the only C in the Vopnafjörður phonebook":
So get on the boat in the wrong direction
collapse the sails and back it
into the cold harbor: re-moor it to the half-rotted past.
As in a re-wound film rushing toward
its beginning at double speed,
the lovers put on their clothes for their first kiss,
the cars uncrashed and whole again.
If you do this, then everything in the universe
can be done twice from each direction,
dawn and sundown pushing the light
into each other's bodies.
Bill's words seem to have some curious power: within a year, I answered a knock on the door to greet a woman who asked me if I knew her grandfather, who had moved from Minnesota to Canada. I interrupted, "Yes, I was just thinking about him last week ... " She finished with " ... who died in 1896."
Then, a year later, good news in a small note in the only corner left on that page: "Aug. 19. Cathy - I was here again. Nothing to look at. Nothing to do. Just a bunch of damn Icelanders - ho, hum .... Soon MJB and I will be your neighbors, my dear. Love, Bill."
Good news, indeed. He had bought Brimnes, the small house by the sea in Hofsós, and was absolutely giddy with delight. We have all enjoyed visits to Bill's haven through Eccentric Islands and The Windows of Brimnes and the poems and essays he wrote during his summers there. And I have enjoyed, most of all, the summers since then - his visits here, my visits to Brimnes either with guests or on my own, and the opportunity to work with him on his books, poems and essays. We spoke only in passing about events in the worlds of politics or economics - we spoke rather about people, stories and tall tales, poetry - and even enjoyed the comfort of not needing to speak at all.
During his summers at Brimnes, Bill began to watch the birds - like a true birder, he tallied up his sitings, checking them against his bird book, binoculars not far from reach, creeping the car down country gravel roads because one of the locals had seen something hopping between fenceposts. Sverrir and I were visiting one summer, and Bill herded us into the car - thought we might see something in the meadows not far away. Windows down on a warm, sunny day, we rolled slowly along and the terns began their screeched warnings, hovering over the car, threatening a peck on the head if we dared to stop and get out. A slight skittering in the grass, moving away from the car, and we saw a tiny baby tern was fleeing for shelter. Sverrir got out, and an amazing thing happened: the terns did not attack, they did not screech and whir and dive at him. There was a sudden and complete silence all around, a soft sound of wings above, a watching and hovering as he walked toward the young tern, scooped it up gently and cupped it in his hands, and brought it to the car so Bill could see it. After returning the tern to safety in the grasses, we drove on - silence inside the car while outside the terns began guard duty again.
In 2004, we bought a house in Vopnafjörður's big valley, Hofsádalur, and re-opened our guesthouse at Refsstaður - "Under the Mountain." On another visit, Bill added birding as one of the entertaining things to do in Vopnafjörður - and wrote again in our guestbook, "Bill Holm - back in Sunny Vopnafjörður - Found my tjaldur above the quarry! - And found the rugbrauð entirely satisfactory - Love again from Minneota ..."
Summers during these years went quickly. Bill's writing seminars continued, followed by steady work with the pen - poems, books, essays, reviews - work begun most often in the early morning hours with a short nap in the afternoon. Then the visitors began to knock - from the States, from Canada, from Reykjavík, from the next house - and there were occasional trips for public readings, singing, playing for weddings.
Bill's visits to us here "Under the Mountain" were increasingly a time away, a time to be nobody-in-the-crowd. On one sunny, summer day Sverrir announced that Bill's long-awaited visit to the end of Langanes would begin within the hour. When the sun shines in Iceland, you get a move on if you have outdoor plans: enjoy the moment. We grabbed cameras, notebooks, water bottles and headed north over Sandvíkurheiði, along Langanesströnd and turned right in the village of Þórshöfn on the gravel road leading out along the timber-strewn coastline. Bill drove slowly, enjoying the birds and scenery and loneliness. We stopped to look over the cliff's edge at "Stórikarl," known as one of the best spots to see a large gannet nesting colony.
Bill stood for a long time watching the gannets crammed together on their nesting rock, screeching and scrapping for room, flying off to hover over the sea, hunting for food - a sudden dive, wings folded close, straight into the sea for the catch. A few ewes with their lambs had taken shelter from the wind on ledges at cliff's edge, but moved quickly to a safer distance away from this large man standing above them.
On to Skoruvík, where there is now very little to prove it was once inhabited. I left Bill to ply Sverrir with questions about the life there, about his uncle Bjössi, about the weather, about the arctic terns - who mostly left after the farm was empty of human life. Then we drove on to the end of the road, on the other side of the peninsula, where there was a small town. Bill heard there about the last years of the village, why the little cemetery was far away, just visible on the hillside a mile or so distant. From the remains of the old pier, it is possible to look south along down the east coast, across Bakkafjörður to Digranes, across Vopnafjörður to the small island Bjarnarey at the end of Kollumúli, to Glettinganes - blue and misty in the distance. Bill and Sverrir stood there, talking quietly, I suppose - or perhaps enjoying the silence, thinking or talking of nothing in particular.
In 2007, Bill called in mid-June. Much writing to do, he was behind on his schedule, lots of interesting guests - but that meant the pen was not up and writing. If he came, would we ignore him? Back bedroom open?
So we worked, he and I, like mad for some days - he wrote from the early hours, and I typed after my breakfast and coffee. Then he corrected a bit, I typed a bit more, and we took the rest of the day off to have a drink or two, to have a good meal, to take a short walk up to our neighbors, Marie and Gunnar, just to chat. And the bird-watching continued, resulting in a poem for us and another note in the guestbook:
Vopnafjörður Aubade
Morning after the solstice
the sun already a quarter of the way up,
rising with almost noisy light
over the high ridge and the broad green valley.
Cathy and Sverrir say they live in a quiet house,
but a pair of snipes disturb the high air
with their loud whirring wings, darting
back and forth in some dance step I can't figure out.
A big raven flies low overhead
its slow pumping wings churning the still air.
A half mile away in the meadows by the Hof River
a gang of geese honk their plaintive aubade.
A whimbrel comes to sit on a fence post not far away,
clacks a trill with its crabby beak,
then disappears... If this gets any louder,
his expression seems to say,
my beak will curve even steeper down.
Then the new lambs start their racket
bleating for breakfast.
Dawn is a noisy business here in a quiet house
at 2:00 in the morning.
"Dear Sverrir and Cathy - what a grand port in the storm Refsstaður was! You did a splendid job of ignoring the lazy old coot in the back room! I've made friends with your pair of hrossagaukur - I'll miss their buzzing. Soon again, dear friends. - Bill."
Last summer, he came again to be ignored, to disappear for a time. It was National Museum Day, and I talked him into visiting Bustarfell Folk Museum, not far away. Bill never spoke fondly of visits to these old turf houses, but he agreed to take a look inside this one. After the first low beam, I interspersed my comments with, "Head!" "Duck!" and managed to get him to sign the guestbook before he escaped to spaces with more head room. While I visited with the local people and looked around, he got himself a cup of coffee and sat in a quiet corner with a book, squinting into the bright day, ignored again.
Back at Refsstaður, he said he had enjoyed himself immensely - not least because he was able to be anonymous for a short time. People nodded politely, most did not know him, those who did simply said hello and went for their own coffee. He had, of course, the perfect guardian: a book to read, in a country that respects book-readers and writers of poetry.
Other than reviews and essays, Bill's main work in the summer of 2008 was poetry - we did quite a bit of going through poems from the last few years, and he was pleased to have completed a new collection of his poems for the people at Milkweed.
We have all been greatly enriched by Bill's written works - books, poetry, essays, letters. Many of us have also learned more about music, and enjoyed it more, through Bill's writing and performing music, both at the piano and singing. I, too, have benefited by his work - perhaps, at last, with a bit of the good sense and wisdom he thought I already had! But I consider myself even more enriched by our time together as friends, enjoying the moments as they came. I am sorry that there won't be more - but I am glad for all the times we shared here on this small island where both Bill's and my ancestors had their roots.
It could have been worse for us all. What if there had been no Bill to write to his "dear readers" to remind us of the need to think, to learn, to question, to explore, to enjoy, and to give something of ourselves to others?
W H I L E D U M P I N G H O R S E M A N U R E
in memory of Bill Holm
Blake, as a boy, saw a tree aflame with angels, was scolded from the window by his mother, and told to stop lying. This morning I think of Bill Blake as I wheel manure from barn to pasture—that my well-meaning mother accuses me, also, of making things up, of benign delusions.
Past the lone box elder tree, to my destination: hills of dark road apples, the consistency of desiccated fish cakes, emblazoned, now, with electric red! Box elder bugs have hatched and commune in frantic clots. No one tells me to come away, so I kneel to watch.
The dog jukes her head, trying to figure a point of attack, but cannot. A few elders in dusty black capes with red chevrons pause among the madding crowds. The voices of the hatchlings are thin and bell-like, archangels invented by Corelli. Etched, forever, in the wires of my brain. If I could have played it for you, with the left hand, my other Bill, I would have. If I could have sung that tinny chorus to your ice blue eyes, in that big ruddy face, I would have, to hear your laugh of recognition.
Original poetry by Ken McCullough in memory of Bill Holm
All of the stories below were originally collected by the Marshall Independent, posted to http://www.marshallindependent.com/page/content.detail/id/508243.html on March 7, 2009.
'An incredible gift'
I first met Bill Holm in the late 70s or early 80s when I was lucky enough to ride shotgun in Bill's vehicle on a tour of the area he knew and loved. He left the college parking lot and made stops at Ghent and Minneota. Visited "Daren's Garden" north of Minneota and on the Yellow Medicine River. Bill was in his element and not only did we see where he grew up, but several churches, cemeteries and "favorite spots" leading to Wilno and Ivanhoe. It was an incredible journey. I could never find many of those places today, or remember what Bill said, but like all great teachers you would "never forget" Bill himself. What an incredible gift to southwest Minnesota.
Bill later came down to Lake Shetek State Park where I worked many summers, to do a "gig." He told stories, read poetry and played the piano we had placed in the box of a park pickup. No one camping at Shetek could miss Bill and visitors from Tracy, Westbrook, Currie, Walnut Grove and Slayton areas also attended. Every summer for years people would ask, "When are you going to get Bill back?" I did one more time.
At an Elderhostel session at the Lake Shetek Lutheran Ministries an instructor from Gustavus who had had Bill in class decided to call him to see if he would drive down to help out with a 10:30-11:45 a.m. session the following day. Bill was there at 10 a.m., was an absolute sensation to approximately 25 participants (few from Minnesota) and he ended up spending the day with us leaving around 7 that evening following dinner. A sidelight to this surprise visit was that one of the participants was a cousin of Bill's from Michigan who hadn't seen Bill in more than 25 years.
No doubt hundreds of people could share "Bill Holm moments." They are as unforgettable as Bill's presence and his writings. When he stopped into our "Heritage of the Prairie" course at SMSU he "lit up the room." What a loss, but also what a memory.
—Bill Bolin, Lake Sarah
Unforgettable
Bill Holm and I
sat talking at a table
in a bar, drinking
with some friends.
As he talked, I drew
a tiny sketch
on a matchbook, or
a tiny scrap of paper.
His Icelandic eyes
intrigued me as much as
his words and laughter.
Occasionally he glanced in
my direction and I would
add something to the
conversation.
—James E. Dahl, Cottonwood
Treasured notebooks
As a non-traditional student at SMSU I enjoyed a different relationship with Bill than most of his students. Toward the end of my first semester with Bill, he sauntered up to me at a university social function and loudly proclaimed "Mr. Lucker, I just want to say it is a great pleasure having you as another old fart in my classroom!" Even though I was 16 years his junior, he repeated that sentiment often (in public and in private) during my three years on campus, evoking odd looks from others and smiles from me.
There were a few other non-trads in the SMSU writing program, but I never heard him call them "old farts" in public. I've always taken special pride in that.I still have the notebooks from each writing class I took with Bill.I enjoy leafing through them once in a while as his comments on my writing are every bit as entertaining as anything he wrote for publication; brutally honest, richly detailed, biting, laugh out loud funny - you can find it all in the margins. I treasure those battered ring binders.
—Mark Lucker, SMSU class of '06, Poet, teacher; New Orleans, La.
'A great wordsmith'
My experiences in knowing Bill Holm while trying to assist him in his health care were likely more valuable to me than to Bill. Although a man of his own direction, he cared dearly for his family, friends, fellow poets, writers, and musicians. I found him to be a great wordsmith in describing his rural roots, thoughts, and experiences, especially those impressions concerning the ethos of Minneota and the prairies...and Iceland. His most recent comment to me was an insightful one: "The only good thing about a recession is that people might read more..."
—C. Paul Martin, M.D., Marshall
Minneota's ambassador
Minneota has lost a wonderful ambassador for its local community. Bill, or Billy, as many of his friends called him, always remembered and acknowledged his place of birth. Regardless if it was accepting local, regional, state, or national recognition, he always mentioned his home town of Minneota, Minnesota.
—Rick Merritt, Missouri
Three short blips about Bill
(1) Literally and figuratively, Bill was a true giant of a man who cherished his Minneota roots. His sweeping popularity gave Minneota a positive source of recognition that money can't buy. People in our state and throughout the nation knew of Minneota, Minnesota, vicariously through Bill Holm.
(2) Bill had an eye for the ordinary. After Minneota remodeled its city hall, Bill proclaimed it to be simply the "Gray Box." He was fond of saying that the bland, gray, steel-sided, flat roof structure was functional, but clearly not your typical government edifice. To Bill, the Gray Box was a practical tribute to the frugality of our pioneering ancestors. I viewed that as his personal stamp of approval.
(3) Bill was an unabashed liberal who proudly wore the label on the sleeve of his Icelandic wool sweater. The day after John Kerry was defeated in the 2004 election I spotted Bill having lunch in the Wooden Nickel. He waved me over, hung his head and muttered, "Not a good day to be a Democrat!" Four years later he jubilantly approached me while chanting, "OBAMA! OBAMA! OBAMA!" An OBAMA lawn sign still stands today in front of his Minneota residence as a testament to his zeal and commitment to his unwavering beliefs.
—Paul Larson, Mayor of Minneota
Live your life
Ending a brief story in "The Music of Failure" about a befuddled old man's reaction to a poetry reading in a Canby nursing home, Bill Holm looks back at one of the inmates "wondering what revelation I missed that would do me any good at ninety."
This is the question Bill has left us with.
Bill Holm taught us a lot of lessons.
(1) Yes, you can make literature out of your own crumby little southwestern Minnesota place.
(2) You can make literature out of own experience whatever, wherever it is.
(3) But while you keep one place firmly planted in your place, reach out with the other foot into the world of music, of ideas, of other people and places. Good writers are not solipsistic.
(4) And no matter what, never compromise.
That's Holm's most important lesson: live your life on your own terms, even in the face of forces more powerful than you. If the state wants to see your papers, tell them, "I'm an American; I do not carry papers." If signs warn, "Smoking May Be Hazardous to Your Health," step outside and light up. If your publishers favor electronic files, give them hand-written manuscripts on yellow tablet paper. If Mr. Death looks you in the eye and says, "You have to change your life style," tell him, "I live my life on my own terms."
Even if you're old. Especially if you're old. This jibes with Yeats's advice in a poem Bill knew and quoted: "and louder sing for every tatter in [your] mortal dress." It jibes with advice Bill's mentor Robert Bly was passing out a few years ago, when he wondered aloud why nobody was protesting the Iraq War, "not even the old. And why not? What have we got to lose?"
Bill knew where he's been headed these last few years, and he chose to keep on living life on his own terms. Why not?
I learned of Bill's death Thursday night, after visiting my 92-year-old father in the "personal care" unit of a home similar to the one Bill described in "The Music of Failure." Those places are not a pretty sight, and dad's reaction to the call for supper was a resigned "oh, hell. . . ." I got the message - the same message, perhaps, that Bill heard in Canby. Was that why he looked Mr. Death in the eye and said, "I live my life on my own terms." Is that his message to us? What have we got to lose?
—David Pichaske, Granite Falls
Holm Haiku
Bill, warm and wild, was
suited to a wide expanse.
The wind blows colder.
—Janet Timmerman, Lake Wilson
Man of many passions
I heard about Bill's death just after spending a night in an airport being forced to listened to piped in Muzak while trying to sleep on a bench.
I think Bill's idea of Hell would be listening to piped in Muzak for all eternity. In Bill's Heaven, you can be sure there's Bach.
We all - Minnesota, SMSU, the community of writers - were lucky to have Bill. I consider it a privilege not just to have known him but to have been able to work with him at the college in Marshall. I'd say his essence was his energetic and creative intelligence, which was a spur for every one of us.
Bill was passionate about many things - music, good food and drink, justice, books, the list is long - but about nothing more than language. That's why his poem "The Icelandic Language" tells us a lot about Bill. He lived in language. It was his primary home. And it is now where we can find him.
Bill's renunciation of television and computers and sports-mania was one of the many reasons he inspired the love he did in so many people. He was larger than life, one of a kind, the man for whom the phrase "seize the day" could have been invented.
His capacity for friendship must be mentioned - for both creating friendships and loyally maintaining them. He had a genius for many things, including one for friendship.
—Phil Dacey, New York
Cafe visits
Bill's visits to the cafe were a performance every time! He was our big teddy bear, great friend and loyal customer. We'll never forget him.
—The M&M gang from Ghent
Back to Articles
