New Titles
The Shining Hands of My Ponca Ancestors
In sincere, from-the-heart storytelling, The Shining Hands of My Ponca Ancestors depicts the life of a young, contemporary Ponca, who—with the help of friends, relatives, spirits, and ancestors—is learning what is really possible for him and his tribe and how dramatically different that is from the dominant cultural messaging of his youth. An account of inspiration, ancestor intervention, the indestructible Indigenous core of his Native people, and the immense beauty of an ongoing way of life, Shining Hands is rife with meaning for Native and non-Native readers alike. Viewed through his personal life, Shining Hands is a prayer for the young that they may see their own powerful potential, too.
History & Memory in German-Russian Country
The Germans from Russia—an agricultural people who settled, survived, and prospered—formed strong ethnic communities where farmers still plant and harvest, the faithful still gather for worship, and the cooks still feed their families from the garden. This is a story of German-Russian persistence on the northern plains and its emergent consciousness—a sort of heritage husbandry—in the late twentieth century.
Echoes of the Old Country: Growing Up German-Russian on the Northern Plains
Unique in its topic and methodology, Echoes of the Old Country reveals purpose and power in childhood memory for the Germans from Russia who survived and prospered on the northern Great Plains. Historian Jessica Clark’s study draws on nearly two hundred oral interviews collected during the Dakota Memories Oral History Project, conducted from 2005 to 2010. Clark and a team of oral historians and videographers recorded the voices and memories of participants as they responded to various memory prompts—browsing scrapbooks and diaries or walking through towns and cemeteries where familiar storefronts and headstones stirred vivid recollections. No history of childhood draws from such a rich oral history source. Clark reveals that second-and third-generation German-Russians adhered to a collective identity rooted in the struggles and hardships experienced by their immigrant forebears. Yet, they simultaneously forged a new identity—one that found sport in chores and responsibilities and joy in pranks and play. Their evolving self-image contrasts with narratives of toil and deprivation often associated with growing up in rural and agricultural environments.
Fifteenth Commandment, The
It is the summer of 1965, and seventeen-year-old Nick Baarda is under pressure from his religious sect to conform to its rigid rules of behavior, including prohibitions on “worldly” activities like dancing and going to movies. On the other hand, Nick and his best friends are determined to enjoy modern life to the fullest, and they devise their own Commandment to give themselves free rein. They also plan to leave town the following year when they graduate from their parochial high school. When a new minister arrives, he makes it clear that he intends to keep the boys firmly under his thumb, and this sets in motion an extended contest of wills. Complicating things is the pastor’s daughter, who becomes Nick’s intellectual soulmate while not reciprocating his romantic overtures. The result for Nick is a roller coaster of infatuation and frustration, while he and the other boys share raucous adventures and deal with relationships, conflict, and calamity. Through it all, Nick wrestles with the quirks and hypocrisy he sees in his religion, and as graduation nears, he is forced to decide whether he will stay or break free.
Forgotten Frequencies
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Winner of the 2023 Poetry of the Plains & Prairies (POPP) Award
Volume 8 of the POPP Award Series
From the author:
I began writing Forgotten Frequencies while working as a country radio broadcaster in my hometown of Montevideo, Minnesota. During this time, I began to conceive of the poetic imagination as a kind of underground radio station of the soul, hosted by the muses. When I am lucky enough to catch the signal, I hear hymns and folk songs and sonnets, sounds of ancient glacial rivers, messages from fields, and voices from this region’s past. This book is a record of my attempts to transcribe this staticky inner music.
Brendan Stermer is a poet from Montevideo, Minnesota. His work is influenced by the rich literary and artistic tradition of the Upper Midwest. He is also the host and producer of Interesting People Reading Poetry, a podcast where artists and luminaries read a favorite poem and share what it means t them. He currently lives in East Grand Forks, Minnesota, and works as a writer exploring rural health issues across the country.
ISBN: 978-1-946163-62-2
Page count: 40
Picture Count: 2
Paperback, stitched
Publication Date: December 12, 2023
Seasoned
It seems that everyday life is dotted with moments that one wants to remember and share. When the circumstances and situations of my life provide me such moments, I try to make notes or a rough draft of a poem as soon as possible. Such events might be coffee with a friend, a walk around a park, a weekend camping trip, cleaning the house, a family celebration, or vacation travel. Sometimes I read, hear, overhear, or glimpse similar events of other people. In those cases, I imagine the cause or result of a situation of which I don’t have actual knowledge. After a period of informal meditation (usually days or weeks, but sometimes years) I revise the draft into a poem to share my experience, insight, discovery, or surprise. My lifelong goal as a writer is to have my readers, at least for a moment, perceive something as closely as possible to the way I perceived it. This collection of my recent work features the perceptions of a post-retirement guy paying attention to the current events of his life and times, and often commenting on his discoveries of how he and the world have changed through the seasons of the seventy-some years of his existence.
Available early December 2023
David R. Solheim, the North Dakota Statehood Centennial Poet, has published writing in more than two dozen periodicals and had work in several anthologies. He wrote two poetry chapbooks published by Dacotah Territory. His four previous books of poetry and a literary travelog related to Thoreau’s 1861 visit to Minnesota are available via buffalocommonspress.com. Solheim is an English Professor Emeritus of Dickinson State University, where he taught for almost 30 years, and, thanks to the late Larry Woiwode, an Emeritus Associate Poet Laureate of North Dakota. He holds degrees in English and creative writing from Gustavus Adolphus College, Stanford University, and the University of Denver. Early in his career, he was a temporary faculty member at NDSU and conducted numerous programs for the North Dakota Humanities Council (now Humanities North Dakota) and the ND Council on the Arts. After residing in Minnesota for the last 10 years, he and his wife, Dr. Barbara Laman, also an Emeritus English Professor of DSU, have resettled near family members in the Portland, Oregon, area. Between them, Dave and Barbara have five adult children and seven grandchildren.
ISBN: 978-1-946163-52-3
Page Count: 78
Paperback
Publication Year: 2023