Month: March 2005

Kieran’s Letter of the Month: SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT
The Rake rightly deserves enormous credit for advising Bob Dylan in June 1963, “Move away and write your own damn songs,” and for predicting the date of Garrison Keillor’s conception in Anoka [Good Intentions, March]. Concerning mistakes and missteps, you do not seem to recognize that your failure to have Spoonbridge and Cherry moved to the city impound lot was the result of weak analysis and poorly conceived strategy. A stream of liquid issuing from a cherry stem? If you had convinced the arts police to replace it with the kind of appendage from which a stream of liquid might actually issue, then the forces of prudery would have forced the destruction of the whole sorry sculpture. You report that you wish you “hadn’t cooperated in burning that last Minneapolis streetcar.” Do you make this stuff up? Don’t you know that all those streetcars were sold to Mexico City? Last time I was there, they were still rolling merrily along. Finally, you do not mention your failed campaign to persuade Senator Mark Dayton to change his name to Marshall Field. This was perhaps the most consequential failure: Look what has happened to him.
—Frank C. Miller, Minneapolis

WAR POETS
I usually enjoy and trust your magazine, so I was surprised to see Oliver Nicholson imply that the Second World War produced no poets of note except for Keith Douglas [Wine, March]. I like Douglas, too, but he’s hardly the only poet who served in that war and wrote well about it. Among American soldier-poets, the most celebrated at the time was Karl Shapiro, who came under fire in the Pacific theater, and whose V-Letter won the Pulitzer Prize; the most celebrated now is likely Randall Jarrell, who considered soldiers, airmen, and the civilians they sometimes bombed in poems such as “Losses,” “Eighth Air Force,” and that hardy perennial, “The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner.” There’s also Richard Wilbur (Army), William Meredith (Navy), and (for West Coast tastes) Robert Duncan. But these are Americans. Nicholson may be British, and may be thinking of British poets alone. How about Alun Lewis? Or Basil Bunting, RAF serviceman (and spy), whose war experience entered his poem “The Spoils”? Or Donald Davie, a Royal Navy man?
—Stephen Burt, St. Paul

BOY OH BOY
I burst out in laughs more than once reading Elizabeth Larsen’s “Boy Trouble” [March], but my situation was the opposite. I wanted just boys, no girls. My first child was a boy. Nothin’ else was gonna do and I was ecstatic. When I had a girl, my initial disappointment (I guess more fear actually) was soon replaced with joy. But as much as I tried to raise my son (and daughter) “gender neutral,” there was no denying the “nature vs. nurture” effect. Any object, no matter the shape, size, or color became a weapon of some sort complete with sound effects. (Daughter was very twirly, dancy-prancy—again, nature.) This same boy at age two wanted a doll, a specific boy-doll made for boys, but his father put his foot down thinking it was sissy. I thought it would be sweet. My son was a roughhousing, sports-loving, dirty, torture-the-little-sister, laugh at any gross-out fart-burp, etc. as any boy (or should I just say male?) can be. However, he has also grown up to be a very sensitive, compassionate young man who still thinks I walk on water (ahhh, the wonderful unconditional love of a son), who burned a CD of songs he knew I loved and had special memories attached to each one, bought a bracelet for his sister when he went to Mexico on break, absolutely loves babies and little kids, and votes Democrat. Even though he is now a beer-swilling college freshman, he still sleeps with his blankie (sorry, kiddo, couldn’t resist telling that). Having come into adulthood in the seventies, I consider myself a progressive, fairly feminist and humanist person. No matter what the gender and the inherent nature of that gender, the environment—emotional, spiritual, intellectual—they are exposed to is what truly shapes that person. Enjoy your boys!
—Deb Casserly, St. Louis Park

EYE-OPENER
Bravo to Elizabeth Larsen [“Boy Trouble,” March]. The article brought a new dimension to my understanding of feminists and the feminist movement. I am a red-state conservative Republican who found Larsen’s willingness to share her views and experiences with feminism as it relates to raising a boy to be refreshing and honest. Specifically, her willingness to challenge her previous beliefs on feminism has caused me to reflect on my stances towards feminism and its value in today’s society. Her article has also opened my eyes concerning my own daughter and the upbringing that my wife and I are trying to provide. I have always felt my daughter should have every opportunity in the world to do what she wants without societal restraints based on gender, but now also realize that our two boys have that choice as well.
—Chad Frost, Prior Lake

combat credit While it may be true that Emily Dickinson was a better war poet than Rupert Brooke, it’s not quite fair to say he never heard a shot fired in anger. While his combat experience was limited to the evacuation of Antwerp early in the war, he did see some combat. Sorry for the nitpicking, but that’s what I do best.
—Jeff Cawhorn, Minneapolis

OVERDUE APPRECIATION
Regarding “Who Needs All These Books Anyway?” [February]: Not long ago I asked my dad, who grew up in Minneapolis during the Depression, if he ever remembered a time when the city closed the public libraries or cut back their hours. He told me he couldn’t recall such a time, and this was during the greatest “budget crises” in our country’s history. My feeling is that the current crisis has nothing to do with budgets. It’s really a spiritual crisis, a shift in our values from the communal to the “private.” Anything with the word “public” or “social” in it is now under attack, to be replaced by an illusion of privacy and go-it-alone individualism. The New Deal values of cooperation, civic pride, and a communal sense of joint venture are succumbing to competition, distrust, and open warfare amongst fellow citizens. Public libraries were a refuge to me as a child. They were the one place, besides nature, where I could find some respite from the often brutal, competitive world of school and jobs. Librarians were usually kind and helpful to me. They never graded or fired me, just asked that I be considerate of others. Public libraries are the foundation of any decent society that cares about its children. More than mere warehouses of knowledge, they represent the human yearning to grow and learn throughout a lifetime, long after formal education has ended. An attack upon them is an attack upon the future and the common good.
—Kurt Seaberg, Minneapolis