Thomas D. Isern's Blog: Willow Creek: A Writing Journal, page 4

Italian Skies

The past few days I have been working pretty hard on a paper entitled, "Italian Skies: Cattle Kings and Climate Change on the Northern Plains." It is about the Montana cattle king John Lepley and the ballad he wrote, "The Cattle King's Prayer," in 1886. This is for presentation at the annual meeting of the World Social Science Association come Friday. The paper presentation will be embedded into Willow Creek Folk School No. 136, streaming live from Tempe AZ at 8pm CDT on the Facebook timeline of Plains Folk. I just now finished a complete draft and printed it. I'll look it over and revise in the morning, then move on to other things. Resuming campus duties (following snow days and Easter break) tomorrow, then flying to Arizona dark-thirty Wednesday morning.

The Great Plains

Last Friday's Willow Creek Folk School, No. 134, is uploaded to YouTube. - https://youtu.be/CtwyCocOMiU

The Baggage Coach Ahead

Last week on Prairie Public -= https://news.prairiepublic.org/podcas...

Forgotten Balladeers

Last Friday's Willow Creek Folk School, No. 133, is uploaded to YouTube. - https://youtu.be/sjmkZhDwykQ

Willow Creek Folk School Tonight!

Willow Creek Folk School No. 133
Livestream 24 March 2023 from the Salon on Willow Creek to the Facebook timeline of Tom Isern
Theme: Forgotten Balladeers

Only recently, with the advent of searchable digital collections, have we begun to comprehend the depth of poetic expression on the prairies in the heyday of regional balladry. Tonight we celebrate three forgotten bards and their ballads.

Header - “Hotdish Highway”

Opener - “Song of the Kanzas Emigrants” - not by John Greenleaf Whittier, but by the mysterious T.B.H.
Reading by Dr. Kelley

NDSU Press

#2 - “In the Bastille at Fargo” - a bootlegger ballad goes into the songbag

Check in on the chatline

#3 - “To Those Who Plowed with a Walking Plow,” by Ole A. Olson, homesteader and poet

Calendar Ballad - “Daylight Savings,” a lament

Tailer - Easy Peaceful Home on the Range

WCFS No. 132

Last night's WCFS No. 132 is now uploaded to YouTube--processing, will be ready for viewing in a few minutes
https://youtu.be/FqzJNE2Dvjk

The Fatal Wedding

This week on Prairie Pubic - https://news.prairiepublic.org/podcas...

Transported by Ballads

Remember, no Willow Creek Folk School this Friday night, 10 March, as Drs. Kelley & Isern are traveling to joyous family events. We'll be back in the Salon on Willow Creek next week, resuming programming on Friday 17 March. Take heart, friends, March cannot last forever.

I'm not sure I will be able to sleep tonight, as I am transported by the heartfelt folk poetry of Ole A. Olson, an immigrant raised on a Dakota Territory homestead, into whose papers I stumbled by accident this afternoon. How has this balladic voice lain forgotten all these years?

You, whose hand has never held a plow
Have missed the ecstasy of knowing how
Much frangrance is released from upturned earth
To which all plants that clothe and feed us owe their birth

https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Flibrary.ndsu.edu%2Fir%2Fbitstream%2Fhandle%2F10365%2F283%2FMss0079.pdf%3Fsequence%3D6%26isAllowed%3Dy%26fbclid%3DIwAR0IH9oj7iSlr_TnFJKnQCAq1cc9lN5rqx1gvtdYbUIdIdtp-KYMTmCiO0w&h=AT1-iRHOOO8vcupW2LT44AidVlf0-qlyQpUkW3-LY-uce0qbGSmJpXbYNpykMjYLjOIOf-LAFCLaKtKIXj4EpQxSB-hyLvbv884TQX-Bmxl3siSBH-qqWsxYKoWkn67I&__tn__=H-R&c[0]=AT2cF3JK5S2NyP0FqxgIZ4tDTs2QcKL3C1qMuwoqzdZVl1Moq64iWxSjLUa1PBYtBFG9OIjUwRIgpl1W7bfLC7ziGkciZsLqCpRr5I9gDinS9jCb4wR4B-vUnxGshC4onHCr5Mpdr4r9GA

WCFS No. 131

Last Friday's Willow Creek Folk School, No. 131, is uploaded to YouTube - https://youtu.be/znPhOtyAHxY

Who Feeds Them All

Last week on Prairie Public - https://news.prairiepublic.org/podcast/plains-folk/2023-03-04/who-feeds-them-all