Festival a celebration of words

By Kevin Woster, Journal columnist | Monday, October 01, 2007

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Some of the big names didn't show for the South Dakota Festival of Books up in Deadwood last weekend.

Richard Ford, Ted Kooser and Susan Powers couldn't make it at all. And airline delays caused Bill Holm to miss two of his Saturday sessions that Mary and I hoped to attend.

With such diminished star power, it would have been easy to go home disappointed. It also would have been silly.

How can you spend much of two days engrossed in words and come away anything but inspired? In the end, who didn't make it mattered less than who did.

Los Angeles screenwriter Terri Jentz was there. And the live public-radio broadcast of her chilling brush with death in an Oregon campground 30 years ago - depicted in her first book, "Strange Piece of Paradise" - set a tone of real-life drama during the opening hour of the festival on Friday.

That was followed in the Deadwood Pavilion by readings from "On the Homefront: South Dakota Stories," a collection of essays written mostly by people who didn't serve in combat but were touched by the war experiences of others.

South Dakota State University English professor Charles Woodard, a combat veteran in Vietnam, compiled the essays and used the Friday session as an eloquent reminder of the pervasive, often-overlooked impacts of war, as well as the truth that "war stories" don't have to involve the life-and-death drama of the battlefield.

Naida McKinney of Sturgis proved that in two of her short essays in the book. One describes her visit to Arlington National Cemetery after she learned that her paratrooper fiance had been killed in action while serving in Africa during World War II.

And in dramatic emotional counterbalance, McKinney also describes a very different scene from her rebuilt life 26 years later with a son's unannounced return from Vietnam.

"There are no words to describe my surprise and joy when a glance from the window revealed my son striding across the lawn!" McKinney wrote. "For a moment I thought: 'This can't be true ... I must be hallucinating from war-time worry.'"

Then McKinney watched as her young daughter ran from a neighbor's house, shrieking with joy: "My brother is home - he is home, he is home!"

The essayists in "On the Homefront" show a wide range of writing experience and skills but a commonality in their straightforward accounts. The same was true of the book festival itself, which presented an even wider range of talent but a universal love for words and language and personal expression.

Pete Dexter was there, hobbling around in an outfit - including Bermuda shorts and a pink baseball cap - that made him look more like a crack-head golfer than a nationally recognized author. As always, he didn't fail to entertain.

Lydia Whirlwind Soldier offered her resonant poetry, honest prose and engaging insights. And Ivan Doig's presentation showed that I've done myself a considerable disservice by only reading one of his books, an error I intend to address.

I found familiar comfort in the always-relevant imagery of South Dakota poet laureate David Allan Evans and the increasingly compelling words of Patrick Hicks, an Augustana College professor whose poetry travels the world.

As usual, the book festival also allowed me to make a personal discovery. This year, it was Jim Reese.

When I arrived at the Deadwood Public Library Saturday at 11 a.m., there were seven people in their seats. I made eight. A woman arriving late topped off the crowd at nine.

Such is the poet's life. But Reese seemed to think the turnout was fine. He's an English professor at Mount Marty College in Yankton - a non-practicing Lutheran teaching at a Catholic school, married to a Catholic wife, learning to appreciate the power of Catholic nuns.

I'd guess there's a book of poems in all that, someday. But on Saturday, Reese read mainly from "These Trespasses," a jarring collection of real-life poetry that kicks like an old pump-12 gauge.

As noted Nebraska poet Don Welch says in praise of the collection, "If you want poems smooth-tongued or surrealistic, don't look here."

Welch is right. Rather than self-indulgent esoterica gone soft around the edges, Reese offers sharpened words about tough people and hard lives and landscapes. In a style that's rugged as washboard gravel, he introduces people like Harold Cummins, who never learned to drive because he never had anywhere worth going.

He takes us to a Main Street bar where you can "in one corner listen as Harold Tahatchenbach, blinder than a coon in headlights, bends the truth," and watch as Linus Cummins prances around with antlers on his head.

And he travels the lonesome byways of Cedar County, Neb. - "blasted country" populated with tough people who have been "pounding the dirt since they could first stand."

People like that are worth meeting. Trips like that are worth taking.

And the book festival is always worth your time, no matter who doesn't show up.

Contact Kevin Woster at 394-8413 or kevin.woster@rapidcityjournal.com