The Two Boots Word Vault

In 2015 my wife Dalyce published her first picture book for children. She wrote, illustrated, and composed the theme for her book.   Sue Scott, previously with The Prairie Home Companion, narrated the audio version. Dan Chouinard composed and played the underscore for the audio book.  Here is the url for the YouTube version. Ellie and the Golden Cricket by Dalyce Elliott Young.

Poet and friend Maureen Skelly invited Dalyce and me onto her show at KFAI 90.3 Fresh Air Radio on December 15, 2024.  In the 1980s Maureen and I were cohosts with Roy McBride and Susu Jeffreys for the weekly Northland Literary Review. It was a pleasure to be back in the chair presenting some of the work Dalyce and I have done.

Here is the first section of my 2010 book of poetry, Herds of Bears Surround Us, published by Red Dragonfly Press.

At a Como Cottage Salon I told the Greek Tale of Orion.  My version tells of how Orion was cast into the night sky, and chases Scorpio because of the shadow in Apollonian divinity.

On December 22, 2018 Como Cottage Salon Series hosted an Evening of Stories. The storytellers included Timothy Young, Jesse Young, Walton Stanley, and Marty MIller.  This is the recording of a tale from the Finnish saga, The Kalevala.  Here is The Minstrel and the Maid of Beauty.

Thomas R. Smith introduced me to the poetic form of the Cinquain. At the beginning of the 20th century Adelaide Crapsey, who loved haiku poetry, thought that American English did not suit the haiku form and developed the cinquain as an American alternative for the short poem.

Decades ago I found this story among those collected by William Butler Yeats.  I always felt that highly educated men needed to hear it and learn something. In 2012 I told it at the Minnesota Men's Conference Winter gathering, Into the Belly of Ice and Snow.  Ten years later I told it to two men's gatherings, the Australian group, The Fifth Direction, and the Minnesota group, The Folktale Gardening Club.

On October 29, 2022 the Como Cottage Salon Series featured a poetry scrum with poets Thomas R. Smith, Michael Moos, James Lenfestey, and Timothy Young.  A poetry scrum is our way of describing a poetry reading where the poets take turns choosing a one of their poems to read, inspired by a word, a theme, an action, or rhythm in the poem the previous poet read. One after another the series of poems take on a life of its own and everyone is surprised. 

There is a deep yearning for communal feelings in our digital age. There is a deep grief at its loss.  In my ruminations on the 2024 presidential election, I see that yearning across all divisions and divides. Individualism as a cultural concept has led to this.