Poetry Friday

The Bass Tournament is in town this weekend but I'm not going to try and find a poem suitable for a fishing tournament. Last week I said I was going to tell you about another new poetry book in our collection.

This book is entitled "Papermill: poems, 1927-35" by Joseph Kalar, edited by Ted Genoways.
Joseph Kalar was International Falls own poet. He is most well-known for the title poem "Papermill".

"Resignation"


Let there be no weeping, friends,
when I return to the ground,
just the sound of church bells calling
and the thud of hard clods falling
on my wooden box, scented and sound.
Let there be no weeping, friends.

What I found most fascinating was the introduction that included biographical information about Mr. Kalar, including the fact that he taught in a one-room schoolhouse, grades K-8, for a year in Wayland, a small town accessible only by traversing into Ontario and back. He found it too isolated and lonely even for a boy who had grown up in the small town of International Falls.