Announcing our new FRIENDSHIP Sonnet Notecard Collection
 

Petrarch to Shakespeare, John Milton to John Berryman, Elizabeth Barrett Browning to
Longfellow to Langston Hughes — poets across centuries have found the sonnet to be a compelling form of poetic expression.

Garrison Keillor has too. Now eight of his uplifting sonnets — echoing aspects of friendship or kindness — are printed on quality card stock, each poem paired with a handsome photographic illustration.

Make someone’s day!

SET 1 (horizontal format: approximately 5" x 7") $15 -

Four different poems paired with four different photographs
2 cards of each, 8 envelopes
T
hemes: Lost Glasses; Good Workers; Secret of a Good Life; Chairs
 

Get Set #1 >>>

LOST GLASSES

When I consider how my life is spent
Searching through the house, high and low,
Trying to find out where my glasses went,
Where I set them down an hour ago.
From room to room I search in drawers and shelves

While others compose and paint and write
Books and bring great honor to themselves,
I struggle to regain my sight.
The irony of one with such poor vision
Searching for glasses is a symbol, rather clear,
Of the fragility of the human condition,
And then, my friend, I imagine you here.

“I lost my glasses,” I say, “can you find them, please?”
And you find them and clean them and the blind man sees.

GOOD WORKERS

Here’s to good workers (you know who you are)

Who see the job and do what they can
To stop the leak or fix the car
Or clean house or counsel the troubled man.

Who go at the work straight through

Without complaint and carry the freight,
Who joke around but do what they need to do,
And chaos is cleared and the crooked made straight,

The hygienist polishing our incisors,
Or the guy who does shoe repair,
The ophthalmologist, the financial advisors,
It comforts us to know they are there.

     Good workers give us cheerful and peaceable days,

     And this is a workmanlike poem in their praise.

SECRET OF A GOOD LIFE

The secret of a good life is to keep going and not fade

Nor think about your goodness for one minute.
It’s like becoming Tallest In The Sixth Grade,
Stick around and you’re bound to win it.

Fyodor Dostoevsky took his time
And found a punishment to fit the crime,

And slowly as a centipede trots off
He wrote The Brothers Karamazov.
Each has a gift to be discovered.
Think of how Dostoevsky suffered.
Thank goodness he had friends who knew it.

If friendship is your calling, do it.

     And depending on how good a friend you be,
     You may be mentioned in your friend’s biography.

CHAIRS

We make our way through corporate jungles,

Trying to satisfy corporate wants,
Life is a struggle, just ask your uncles,
But life can be beautiful, look at your aunts.

The doorbell rings and we welcome relations,

Pull up the chairs out on the lawn,

The river flows and the conversations

And the sun sets and the stories go on.

Kindred souls, sister, brother,
Leaving regret and failure behind,

One family tangled up with each other,

A secret language, of unified mind,

     Voices rise and fall melodiously

     Sitting beneath the family tree.

SET 2 (vertical format: approximately 7" x 5") $15 -

Four different poems paired with four different photographs
2 cards of each, 8 envelopes

Themes: Walking; Summer’s Bounty; Quietude; Friends — the most valuable acquisition

Get Set #2 >>>

WALKING
 
It’s good to take a brisk walk every day
And it does wonders to improve your mood.
And you may run into Claude Monet
Or hear Chopin humming his sweet étude.
Jack Benny, Bessie Smith stand not far apart,
Marilyn Monroe, Bill Monroe, you never know,
The Duke of Earl, Amelia Earhart,
Vincent van Gogh out looking at the snow,
Melville whose book you meant to read,
Out walking, despite all he’s been through.
“To comprehend a nectar requires sorest need,”
Said Emily Dickinson. (She’s here, too.)
     Life is hard. Lord, the injuries we bear
     And yet it’s good to get out in the open air.
 

SUMMER’S BOUNTY
 
One day it’s over, the snow and icy fog,
Our imprisonment in the Winter Institute,
And the corner store becomes a seed catalogue,
A carnival of vegetables and fabulous fruit,
A botanical Times Square and Las Vegas—
Oranges, pineapples, lemons, beans,
Stunning onions, phenomenal fennel, rutabagas,
And the beet that can’t be beat: the Ruby Queens.
And O the tomatoes! Bearers of pure joy!
From tasteless imported stuff, Lord, deliver us!
The Crimson Defender, and Pink Delight, and Big Boy,
And the Beefeater—the tomato carnivorous.
     Thank you, Lord, who is powerful, whose Word is valid,
     Who has set a table before us, a miraculous salad.
 
 
QUIETUDE
 
In a world of crunching and grinding and humming
And the confusion of people going and coming
TVs, cellphones, Muzak, hysteria
It’s a blessing to locate a peaceful area
And escape the tumult and travail
And leave a message on your voice mail:
“Just me. Nothing of great import to say,
Except that time is slipping away
And so I wanted to say hello
And hope you are well and all your brood
And that you can sometimes let go
And find something like serenity and quietude.
     A quiet day: so much happiness depends upon it,
     And that is why I sent you this quiet sonnet.
 
 
FRIENDS — THE MOST VALUABLE ACQUISITION
 
We are trying to dispose of excess stuff,
A great estate-sale accumulation,
And achieve what plainly is enough
To maintain daily civilization.
Meanwhile, we think of you, dear friends,
You, our most valuable acquisition,
As we float over rapids and around the bends
On life’s long curious expedition.
We admire your careless elegant style,
Lively or quiet, questioning or devout.
Friends, more than possessions, are ever worthwhile.
Friendship, not stuff, is what it’s all about.
     This is true today, as it always has been.
     Good health. When do we see you again?
 
 

Boom Town: A Lake Wobegon Novel AUDIOBOOK

The wait is over! Many have inquired about getting Boom Town read by Garrison himself. Well, last year Garrison visited a recording studio in New York City for over a week to read his most recent work, which he feels could be his best. The result is a download or CD set that spans over 12 hours.

Lake Wobegon is having a boom year thanks to millennial entrepreneurship — AuntMildred’s.com Gourmet Meatloaf, for example, or Universal Fire, makers of artisanal firewood seasoned with sea salt. Meanwhile, the author flies in to give eulogies at the funerals of five classmates, including a couple whom he disliked, and he finds a wave of narcissism crashing on the rocks of Lutheran stoicism. He is restored by the humor and grace of his old girlfriend Arlene and a visit from his wife, Giselle, who arrives from New York for a big love scene in an old lake cabin.

Read the first chapter >>>
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Get a signed copy >>>
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