Tuesday, 1:30 p.m.
Introducing Bart Sutter, Susan McLean said "Like wild mushroom hunting, poetry is a game with mortal stakes." Sutter's reading was entitled "Farewell to the Starlight Whiskey."
"Ted Kooser is the master of looking at the old farm house kind of thing," Sutter said.
"In the small towns where I grew up, there was always at least one of these lonely men at the edge of the community," he said.
"Those who have spoken ill of me need not apply...."
"Hermits are eccentric. Just like us, but different...."
"The man enjoyed making things. Why the hell hadn't he learned to weld...."
"If God loved Emil Olson, why had he given Emil such a life?"
"After all, it's not just crazy people who value solitude...."
"Writers were pretty rare in my kidhood...."
"Where are the scholars writing about these people...." Sutter was talking about writers like J.F. Powers: "The man had a face like an axe...."
"My friend, you did what you believe, and so did I...."
"He sees how the ladies leave their lipstick when they kiss the crucifix...."
"'Eggs or kisses?' 'Sunnyside up,' Betty said."
"I've got problems nobody can help me with...."
"It might take him all day to write one sentence. If he published it, by God he meant it...."
"I almost didn't write it becuse once I started it I thought 'This isn't the kind of poem I write....'"
"I thought I would write a not-drinking song, but it would have to have a little regret in it...."
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