Joe Starita to Present Wednesday, February 2 Lunch at the Library Program

Distinguished journalist, author and University of Nebraska College of Journalism professor Joe Starita will present the Nebraska Literary Heritage Assocation's February Lunch at the Library Program here at Bennett Martin Public Library. As you may remember from a previous posting here, Joe's I am a Man: Chief Standing Bear's Journey for Justice was the One Book, One Lincoln book for 2010. An earlier book, The Dull Knifes of Pine Ridge (1995) garnered a Pulitzer Prize nomination. Joe has broad interests, and along with Tom Tidball, he is also the author of A Day in the Life: The Fans of Memorial Stadium (1996), a book of photographs and observations on this aspect of our local culture. He delivers an exciting program.

The Program will begin at 12:10 p.m. on Wednesday, February 2nd, in the auditorium on the fourth floor of Bennett Martin Public Library at 14th and N Streets in downtown Lincoln. Please join us.

2011 Nebraska Poet's Calendar will be introduced by Sarah Fairchild at Sunday, January 16th Ames Reading

Sarah Fairchild grew up in Norfolk, Nebraska, and studied English at Doane College and the University of Nebraska. Her Poetry has appeared in many publications, including Plainsongs. Sarah runs Black Star Press, which is once again publishing a Nebraska Poet's Calendar. At our Sunday, January 16th Ames Reading, Sarah and her friends, poets John Johnson, Mary K. Stillwell and Rex Walton will present an exiting program of poetry to celebrate the publication of the Calendar.

The original artwork used in the 2011 Nebraska Poets Calendar is being shown in displays at the entrance to Bennett Martin Public Library and on the library's second floor. Artists Connie Backus-Yoder, Sally Cox, Su Harvey, Sue Kouma Johnson, Tom Meyers, Max Miller, Marilyn Reynolds, Gene Roncka, Donna Schimonitz, Melissa L. R. Sinner, and Richard Terrell contributed to the Calendar and the displays.

The program begins at 2:00 PM Sunday, January 16, 2011 in the Heritage Room on the 3rd floor of Bennett Martin Public Library in downtown Lincoln. Come see the displays and join us for a stimulating reading and discussion.

Some New Titles in the Heritage Room, January, 2011

What follows is a sampling of some of the new and notable titles acquired by the Heritage Room in the last six months.

Mari Sandoz "I Do Not Apologize for the Length of This Letter" The Mari Sandoz Letters on Native American Rights, 1940-1965, Introduced and edited by Kimberli A. Lee, with a foreword by John R. Wunder. (Plains Histories) Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 2009.

Kimberli Lee, who compiled this collection and wrote chapters introducing the volume and the four carefully chosen groupings of letters within it, became acquainted with the letters when she was a doctoral student as the University of Nebraska. Lee created the online finding aid for the National Endowment for the Humanities supported project that preserved some 20,000 pages of Sandoz letters, and some 32,000 of Sandoz's research cards on microfilm.

The selection that Lee has made focuses on four themes: Sandoz's concern with historical accuracy in the portrayal of Native Americans; her indictments of federal Indian policy; her criticism of the negative and simplistic stereotyping of American Indians in advertising, film, and fiction; and her support for Native writers and artists.

Sandoz was driven, to the point of obsession, by her concern for historical accuracy, with getting the details right. She hated it when she found the history that mattered to her most obscured by confusion, inaccuracy, and carelessness. Thus her raging contempt for the films that borrowed freely (plagiarized, she thought) from her books on Crazy Horse and on the Cheyenne, only to present, yet again, new and sensational versions of that stereotyped, cliché-ridden false history she worked so hard to correct. She was equally clear-headed about the economic and political forces that were driving contemporary Indian Policy. She was also remarkably prescient in understanding what historical materials and themes were going to grow in significance as the years passed. At times she came close, long before it became popular, to writing a sort of environmental history. On the subject matter in question here, Lee quotes Vine DeLoria, Jr. on her insights into Native history: "Sandoz had an amazing ability to develop themes and issues that plagued Indians during her time and that continue to disrupt us today."

While these attributes are perhaps not in themselves exactly the source of Sandoz's literary greatness, they are still very much part of what made her a great writer. This is an important book because it introduces a vast collection of material that reflects Sandoz's way of thinking about these matters. Perhaps it's worth noting, too, that well considered collections of this sort have been an important part of the intellectual landscape, but that may not be true any longer. As Lee notes in closing, such a collection of Sandoz's letters "may never again be produced on paper, given technological advances in digital and electronic communication." Will anyone take the trouble to do this kind of work, if the product is to be as ephemeral as a blog posting?

Several related works have come in over the last several months, including:

Wynne L. Summers, Women Elder's Life Stories of the Omaha Tribe. Macy, Nebraska 2004-2005, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2009

Hugh J. Reilly, The Frontier Newspapers and the Coverage of the Plains Indian Wars (Native America: Yesterday and Today), Santa Barbara: Praeger, 2010.

Linda M. Waggoner, Fire Light: The Life of Angel De Cora, Winnebago Artist, Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2008. A fascinating biography of one of the first Indian artists to make it in the mainstream of American art.

We are now a bit behind in noticing new materials and hope to catch up in later postings.

"Great Books to Give as Gifts"--Vicki Wood will present December 1st Lunch at the Library Talk

Our Wednesday December 1st Lunch at the Library will feature Lincoln City Libraries Youth Librarian Vicki Wood. Vicki will present her very popular annual review of books that make great gifts for all ages. We look forward to hearing her suggestions.

The program begins at 12:10 pm in the auditorium on the 4th floor of Bennett Martin Public Library at 14th and N Streets in downtown Lincoln. Bring your lunch and enjoy coffee provided by The Mill! Please join us!

2011 One Book, One Nebraska Title by Ted Kooser

One Book, One Nebraska has chosen Ted Kooser's Local Wonders: Seasons in the Bohemian Alps (University of Nebraska Press, 2002), as the featured title for 2011. Although Kooser is one of America's most distinguished poets, this is not a poetry book at all, but a kind of intimate travel guide to Kooser's backyard. Kooser, who lives in Garland, Nebraska, served two terms as United States Poet Laureate, 2004-2006 and has published many collections of poetry, including Delights and Shadows (Copper Canyon Press, 2004) which won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.

Local Wonders won the Nebraska Book Award for Nonfiction in 2003 and Third Place in the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Award in Nonfiction for 2002. The book was chosen as the Best Book Written by a Midwestern Writer for 2002 by Friends of American Writers. It also won the Gold Award for Autobiography in ForeWord Magazine’s Book of the Year Awards. Like his poetry, Kooser's prose parses the details of a rural American landscape, illuminating the hidden lives of its natural and human worlds with humor and insight.

One Book One Nebraska 2011 sponsors include the Nebraska Center for the Book, Nebraska Humanities Council, Nebraska Library Association, Nebraska Library Commission, and University of Nebraska Press.

Cather Event at UNL, 7:00 pm, Wednesday, December 1

The Robert E. Knoll Lecture Series is sponsoring a lecture by American novelist and editor Bradford Morrow. Morrow will present "My Willa Cather" Wednesday, December 1 at 7:00 PM at City Campus's Union Auditorium. Morrow, who currently teaches at Bard College, is the founder and editor of the literary journal Conjunctions. He is Kenneth Rexroth's literary executor. Morrow is also a prize winning short story writer and a distinguished novelist whose work has been published in Portuguese, French, German and Polish translation.

Joseph Wydeven will explore the work of Wright Morris at our Ames Reading on Sunday, November 21

Joseph Wydeven, Professor emeritus of English and Humanities and former dean of Arts and Sciences at Bellevue University, has had an enduring interest in writer and photographer Wright Morris. Wydeven began to read Morris and study his photographs in the early 1970s. He wrote his Purdue University dissertation on Morris, and has since published numerous articles and book chapters on Morris, as well as the 1998 biography Wright Morris Revisted. He first met Morris and his wife Jo in California in 1979 and had at least six visits there with Morris before the writer's death in 1998. He presented a special program on Morris in the Heritage Room in 1985.

Wydeven has sought to give us a deeper appreciation of Morris, who is surely one of the most independent, original, and complex writers to come from our state. Morris was the most productive writer of his generation. He was one of the few who can claim the invention, in the photo-text, of a new literary form. Morris won great critical acclaim, but far less popular success. His works chronicled disquieting aspects of the American experience, and a post-Depression world in which anchors of history and place, seemingly renewed in the 1930s, were once again drifting away. Since Morris' book, The Home Place, has been the 2010 One Book One Nebraska selection, it seemed appropriate to invite Joe Wydeven back to talk about one of his favorite topics.

The program begins at 2:00 PM Sunday, November 21st in the Heritage Room on the 3rd floor of Bennett Martin Public Library in downtown Lincoln. Please join us.