Planning My Escape: Poetry by Mary Jo Homstad
By Mary Jo Homstad and Greg Brown
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About this ebook
A sparkling collection of poetry from the late Iowa poet Mary Jo Homstad (1947-1978). A sensitive and witty craftsperson shares her sense of magic in the people and unique landscape of northeast Iowa, her struggles with the chaos of love and her confrontations with the mystery of death. In his moving Foreword, folk artist Greg Brown writes that
Mary Jo Homstad
Mary Jo Homstad was born on March 21, 1947. She died in an automobile accident on December 1, 1978 at the age of 31. The daughter of Dr. Joseph Homstad and Lucy Hanson Homstad, Mary grew up in Denver Colorado. In 1965 she enrolled at Luther College, Decorah, Iowa, where she received a BA in English in 1969. After graduation she spent a year teaching English in Japan. She lived in rural Decorah. Mary had many jobs, but she always saw herself as a poet. She would fill small notebooks with thoughts, phrases, overheard dialogue, drafts of poems and quotations from her favorite writers. When she had accumulated several notebooks, she would transcribe and revise the thoughts and poems into a large hardbound volume. She had created several of these volumes when she died. In 1980 her mother Lucy, with the help of Mary's brother Joe and editor Douglas Anderson, put together a book of poems and drawings from Mary's journals called Weavings. The first print run of 600 copies led to a second printing.
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Planning My Escape - Mary Jo Homstad
Planning My Escape
Mary Jo Homstad
===== Springwater road =====
Decorah, Iowa
2020
Copyright Page
Published by
Springwater Road Publishing
3112 Springwater Road
Decorah, Iowa 52101
Copyright © 2020 by Carl Homstad
Most of the poems in this book were previously published in Weavings by Mary Jo Homstad (Bread & Butter Press, Denver, 1980), comprised of poems selected by Lucy Hanson Homstad following her daughter's death.
ISBN 978-0-578-82380-5
Cover design: Carl Homstad
Cover drawing: Mary Jo Homstad
Printed in the United States of America
Dedication
To Lucy Hanson Homstad
Table Of Contents
* Poems appearing in print for the first time.
Contents
Copyright Page
Dedication
Table Of Contents
Note on New Poems
Foreword by Greg Brown
Introduction
A Sense of Place
Iowa Countryside
Iowa Summer Poem
In Decorah Today
Decorah
dana
Farm Picnic
Canning Tomatoes
Smalltown, Iowa
Iowa Landscape
Conversation with John
Iowa
Leaving Home
Life’s Lessons
How to Catch A Husband
To Katherine
Woman, thy womb ...
Just before Winter in Iowa
He is miserly with his words ...
Keosauqua
* Des Moines
Machine Shop Poem
Innocence
Departure
A Train Ride Across Russia
Traveling Through Russia
* Today, Junk Shops
Learning to Tell Time
Used-Book Store
I remember ...
Gossamer voices
I see dolphins ...
Mr. Golden and His Circus
A Windy Day in Letts, Iowa
* Rain fingers the windows ...
* Profile of a Listener
The Guest
Love and Family
How to Love a Turtle
Messages
You.
My voice cracked like ice ...
World Affairs
Unrequited Love
Fantasy
He who I thought ...
In the Field
I look at maps ...
Steel-toothed young handsome ...
A Lover Like Fall
Conversations with My Father
My Father
My Mother’s Poem
A Birthday Poem
Lately when you walk through my mind . . .
Children
Promise
High school girls giggle ...
The evening wind blows ...
Lullaby
Thoughts on Children
poem
Twilight
To Mike
The boy put his head ...
Nature
I sleep outside ...
The cat eats a fly ...
Placid cows ...
Slaughter on the Highways
Fourth of July
Refuge
Ode to Johanna
Moonlight, the swan . . .
October Time of Night
The Life of a poet
A Poem to Storytellers Everywhere
* I seem to be waiting ...
i lie about my poetry ...
ever since the first word ...
One summer I was wedded to poetry ...
Writing Class: County Care Facility
A Skeleton of a Poem
To Mark
Crossing Spoon River in Illinois
* The Craft
* Oh, I have written enough sappy notes ...
Myths
We build our poems with lean speech ...
The Muse
No Place to Say
When One Can’t Speak
Visiting Mr. Emerson’s House at Concord
Four haiku
A Poem to Greg Brown
Ridicule
Tangled in the Sky
The Forming of a Poet
Contemplation
* A Moment
Make Straight the Way of the Lord
Prayer
Architects of the Universe ...
Shall I hit the fly ...
Old Poem
Being dreamers ...
I sense salvation in grey men ...
Second Week Alone, Tucson Desert
The monkey is reaching for the moon ...
Come with me . . .
Dark envelope of sleep
old woman
* Things move so fast ...
Jehovah Witness Visit
Source
Planning My Escape I
Planning My Escape II
Planning My Escape III
it is noon ...
The baby and Cosmo ...
Making Puppets
Chanting for My God
A Conversation
* Bizzy
* Why I Was Late
Mortality
Death in the Iowa Winter
Self-portrait
Jock
Jock II
A Small Poem for Ralph
* Nursing Home Visit
Father William
Auction
Miss Brooks - 1977
Working at the Cafe
Cradles to Death
Clothes
Restaurant
To My Grandmother, Dying During a Snowstorm
The Gift
Weaving
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Note on New Poems