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Fiddlers & Poetry from 2002featuring Billy Collins, Fiddlers 4, and Kate Rusby
Garrison’s newest book: Brisk VerseFRESH ON THE SHELVES: BRISK VERSE by Garrison Keillor. A collection of almost 200 poems, offering the reader whimsy and tomfoolery, solemn thought-provoking lines, mischievous observations, and tons of fun. Topics run the gamut. To name a few — brevity, thongs, Minnesota, manners, Mozart, Marilyn Monroe, failure, fatherhood, Episcopalians, plumbing, spaghetti, spring, online love, being eighty, and the National Anthem as it might’ve been written by Whitman, Dickinson, Eliot, Frost, and other poets. Plus, the book is illustrated with quirky antique advertisements for tonics and gizmos. First edition copies autographed/inscribed by the author are available if ordered before May 15. Get the book. Here is a brisk verse Garrison shared from the book on his Facebook page, a poem about his father called “My Old Man.” MY OLD MAN Daddy was a gardener, He loved his corn and peas, The strawberry beds he kept While tending all the apple trees. Tomatoes, melons, row by row He cultivated with his hoe. I think of him in the sun, Mowing the yard till it was done. Daddy was a carpenter, He loved to cut and trim. Whenever I hear a power saw I always think of him, Nails in his mouth, hammer in hand Way up high on a ladder he’d stand. I think of him in his coveralls Packing up the tools as evening falls. Once a month I sat on a chair With his big hand on my head And he carefully cut my hair As clean and true as a carpenter could do. Daddy liked to work on cars, Open up the hood, Adjust the timing, tighten the belt, Grease the bearings good. He and my uncles looked at cars Parked in the driveway And never tired of arguing About Ford vs. Chevrolet. He died in the house he built And we carried him through town In a long black Cadillac And we laid him in the ground. I think of him when I happen to say Something he would’ve said And then I feel his hand Resting on my head. We had few conversations, I can’t recall a one. He was a Midwestern man And I am his son. I think of him when I drive a car And when a train goes by And when I hear the hymns he loved Or smell a homemade pie. The living leave, they move away, My friends have drifted far apart But the dead are with us every day. On our mind and in our heart. Listen to the classic show from April 20, 2002. The Daily Telegraph called singer-songwriter Kate Rusby “the brightest light in English folk music,” and the BBC deemed her “one of the ten top folk voices of the century.” She bears up well under all the fine words, maintaining a sense of humor, and singing “heart-stopping ballads about death, destruction, jealousy, unrequited love, and drowning,” which she calls “castle knocking down songs.” She has released more than a dozen solo albums. Among them, 2022’s Happy Returns and 2023’s Light Years (a collection of songs for Christmas). John Updike said: “Billy Collins writes lovely poems. Limpid, gently and consistently startling, more serious than they seem, they describe all the worlds that are and were and some others besides.” True. Poet laureate of the United States from 2001 to 2003, his poems have been published in The Paris Review, Poetry, American Poetry Review, The Atlantic Monthly, The American Scholar, The New Yorker, Harper’s, and many others. He is a Guggenheim Fellow, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellow, and a New York Library Literary Lion. His collections include Questions About Angels (winner of the National Poetry Series publication prize); The Art of Drowning; and Musical Tables. Fiddlers 4 began after a Fiddle Tunes Festival in Port Townsend, Washington. It was an informal jam session that included Michael Doucet, Darol Anger, and Bruce Molsky. Things went well and the three reunited later that summer for an intense two-day session in Colorado, along with cellist Rushad Eggleston. The album that resulted carried the modest title Fiddlers 4. Michael Doucet brings the pepper intensity of his multi-Grammy band BeauSoleil; Darol Anger the dazzling weld of jazz and bluegrass from the Turtle Island String Quartet; Bruce Molsky, whom they like to call “the Rembrandt of Appalachian Fiddling,” provides the old-time high lonesome drive; and all of it held together by the talented and innovative Eggleston on the cello. Here are the lyrics to “Nobody Know You” from this week’s classic show: Once I was living on Central Park West Nobody knows you when you move away, Before I went back to the Range to get a home on it, But nobody knows you, when you’re out of town. Nobody knows you when you’re not from here. This is a FREE NEWSLETTER. If you want to help support the cost of this newsletter, click this button. Currently there are no added benefits other than our THANKS! Any questions or comments, add below or email admin@garrisonkeillor.com
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