2013 Kansas Notable Books: Part Two

the holiday shopping season upon us how about a good book or two for the readers on your christmas list i'm kate mcintyre and today and katie are present that best new books by kansans or about kansas each year at the state library of kansas selects fifteen books as kansas notable books in the second of a two part series we'll hear from the authors of that aid of the fifteen on today's tv offers them including fiction nonfiction poetry young adult literature and more if you missed part one of my two thousand and thirteen kansas notable books program earlier this month you can listen to it any time on our website k pr that hey you that edu while you're there you can enter a chance to win a kansas notable book again the loop a pr that kay you that edu and click on ticket giveaway my first other is larry welch who served as director of the kansas bureau of investigation from nineteen ninety four to two

thousand seven his book is beyond cold blood by kb i wrote ma barker to be tk like many of the others will hear from today i met up with larry welch at the kansas book festival held september seventh two thousand thirteen in topeka let's go back to those early days of the kb i come back to the nineteen thirties what exactly was a kansas bureau investigation but necessary well it took ten years as a matter of fact i'll play of intensive lobbying by three different associations before that caveat was actually created the kansas state peace officers association the bankers association kansas bankers association and the kansas livestock commission those three associations labor day and lobby for ten years literally from nineteen twenty nine

to nineteen thirty nine to convince the legislature to create a caveat it was a very reluctant legislature that finally caved in after pressure from the governor and the attorney general to create the caveat and thirty nine and you know there were a lot of bank robberies and the thirties and the depression years and a lot of cattle rustling going on and the cliches insurers were demanding help you know they were under manned and there are other officers under trained and they wanted an investigative outfit they could come in and help them with those rampaging homicides and robberies across the state and the bankers of course problems reasons because of the number of bank robberies go and we're not cattle rustling was a terrible problem during the depression years and thirty years so while a legislature caved in

and in nineteen thirty nine fi only the legislation creating the caveat was passed and even then the first bill that was passed and no funding that's how excited they were about creating a caveat that was renovated couple weeks later and the first a first lady i find it was it provided for the director nine agents and one sector and that was it at first and basically there wasn't a large increasing problem until after world war two so what happened in world war two that finally the legislature got behind the idea that k v i well actually there was a case or two cases and i think insurers

the welfare of the caveats of course the case of the rhinos about that for katy i want to be tied to the famous clarity has quadruple murders holcomb kansas new karnes city or a caucus who have killed the clutter family and the ones that were into immortalized in that truman capote and you know we are indeed we owe a lot to truman capote because that his famous bestseller and colt was really gave the caveat the notoriety that we enjoy today you hit a movie with oscar nominated movie based on his book came out of the book and the book was a best seller the book is still there today doing well so we will we are we will always be tied to do that and that case another case that the that really

all parties as i said he was an iranian nationally and internationally it was a case and max wilk is that county register september of nineteen forty one to three months before pearl harbor in world war two five continents escape from lansing and three and these were exceptionally bad people they were nearly all of them were serving either life sentences are long sentences very long sentences they were killers and rapists they're people and when they escaped the attorney general insisted that time i asked luther king jr he says is this is the first big case night at a printer's can actually use fire for god's sakes and put him back in lansing where they belong and three were caught on right away and to

embark on a wall was immediately netherlands got kansas immediately but two and then great work by one k the iranians divulge information about their were asking in colorado well for information that they intended to rob a bank an actual kansas my wife's hometown staffer jack in a fatal friday afternoon with loans ever richer and his entourage are what's why's and forty the iranians and the rigor that caveat or resell but those seventy officers in waiting the two came in town in a stolen car stolen satanic dances and got out

and watched iraq and toward the end the bank and these seven officers dead and seven get your hands out and one of them one of the best world again far one shot and all the rest of the shot for the guys in the video that one and the two lanes for even and the kansas legislature may delay made announcements next day this is that they're saying are done what what a wonderful idea we had creating this wonderful bureau investigation kansas media immediately lot the organization stories and pictures of the two dead one of the debt problems spread the next week and a night in my opinion that is the existence of the acadia and those cases i know no brainer she was trying to decide what cases to put in

the book and that's the way i've decided to tell the history of it gave me i go through and pick out cases two to describe explain the history you can read about those cases and others in beyond cold blood the kb i from ma barker to be peak day by larry welsh sticking with nonfiction our next kansas notable book for the year is the dust bowl an illustrated history it's a companion book to the pbs documentary by ken burns and dayton duncan dayton duncan joins us by telephone from his home in new hampshire grew out of the entrance that i had and the dust ball based on a book that i wrote and more than twenty years ago called miles from nowhere back in nineteen ninety i traveled i was actually kansas at the time and i traveled to the counties that had fewer than two people per square mile which had once been the census bureau's definition of the frontier and my book were miles of nowhere was about what it's

like living in a place with under two people per square mile and one portion of that was seven plains of oklahoma and parts of east southeastern colorado in the panhandle of texas and people there were telling me these incredible stories of when they were kids of these dust dancing came and smothered their cattle on drifted into everything and drove people crazy and i could read a little bit about that in my book that that was what the book was about so about sort of my to do list if you will and twenty years later almost twenty years later i can into making a film about it their division of labor and that creative process that goes into making a film like the dust bowl and then a project like this well writing is not a collaborative process that is that theoretical can be but it's but it's not filmmaking use to make our film on the dust

bowl was perfectly quiet verdict except in the writing of the script which i wrote about well can i wrote very much wanted this to be informed by the first person accounts that people had over there was still love the memory of these people i had met you know fifteen twenty years earlier but i was afraid that we might simply be too late this is an event that occurred in the nineteen thirties and for someone to have been old enough to reform in all of the good impression and memory of what they would have had there been born in the early to mid nineteen twenties and so the sheer actuarial tables were we're grinding against us but we set a couple of or so should and co producers out to the area where was the fiercest and lasted the longest and had them putting ads in newspapers

appeals on public television and public radio are going old folks home state historical societies to try to meet people who would come in col their memories of that of the dust bowl bring photographs and other things and from that those pre interviews i selected about thirty people and came back with a camera crew and we interviewed those people and person and that there's these incredible stories now it all well i think that this felt that we made is that it will be the last pro billy documentary form made that is based so heavily on the personal memories of people who lived through its five i think five now the people who were the stories we've covered in our film have since passed away so a young person first interview would have been in their late eighties what's the strongest memory that those people that survived the dust bowl what's the strongest memory that they have in

common well the thing most common was you know just the sheer horror and agony and and straps that ten years of unrelenting grow old these you know fear storms and being a week we can now think well couple storms and that was pretty bad is worst storm after storm after storm after storm one one woman said i lived in a brown world why didn't know anything before we used to write letters and journals of oh wonderful old woman named caroline henderson wrote this magnificent letters back to the atlantic monthly which was she was more or less are a deal with this if you will of these other folks have these vivid memories that they were their child reasonable us anderson you have an answer from your book that has some of the words are calendars to accuse chavez with

us at the beginning of the fourth chapter called the speech that begins with a quote from her i can shut my eyes and feel yet the truth of an almost painful thankfulness when we look out over fields of the nineteen twenties and watched are ripening grain bending rising then began in golden waves swept incredibly by the russell swim it's aimed as that but lest our dreams were coming true now our daily physical torture infusion of mind gradual wearing down of courage seemed to make that long continued hope look like a vanishing during their days when for hours at a time we cannot see the window fifty feet from the kitchen door there are days when for brea for periods one cannot distinguish the windows from the solid wall because of the solid blackness of the raging storm only in some infernal like green could anyone visual was a terrifying word red

light when portions of texas are on the air that's dayton duncan his book the dust bowl an illustrated history is a companion book to the pbs documentary by duncan and filmmaker ken burns if you're just joining us today on kbr presents we're looking at the best books of the year by kansas or about kansas turning to fix and the yard is the debut novel by kansas writer alex creation it was nominated for strand magazine for best debut novel i'll excretion stop by the kansas public radio studios to talk about his book with k pr as laura lorson it's basically a csi sherlock holmes and it's so it's so victorian era london toward the end of that error and dates the beginning of scotland yard the beginning of their homicide department called the murder squad and one of their number is been murdered had they need to find

this new breed of serial killer influenced by jack the ripper before he kills more police so what drew you to this time things i've always been drawn to this timeframe from life really since i can remember reading our sherlock holmes stories tarzan of the apes palm you have magic everything which took place late fifties but everything that i read as a kid i can remember took place in england in the past at some point and so i had the victorian era chorus kind of such a bad call the time because it was so fascinating and so alien and so familiar all at the same time those skin of a comforting top arms but also a really terrifying time so it's and it's an interesting dichotomy writing crossword of fascinated by how to draw and it strikes me that that was a timeframe when all of a sudden technology was just exploding like we were just learning new things and it seems to

me there would be a lot of fertile ground for a writer in writing about something that we just take for granted now of course why don't they just get his fingerprints of corn sometimes they just to blood analysis at this time frame all of that was brand new and it seems like there's a lot of them interesting concepts for for a writer to incorporate into a story at those cusp of times when you have one foot in the past and one foot in the future the conflict inherent getting people to this is how we'll always done it here's how we could do it that's the basis of the attention seems like a good one for detective all right right in the victorian era they were cutting edge i mean that was a huge time for invention and discover hurry and dead they didn't think of themselves as historical people of course they were modern people for the time just as we are and so there are a lot of correlations between

their de bloom an invention and discovery that we're in the middle of right now and their own bill where they were discovering things like fingerprints and an indoor bathrooms and electricity in your home all kinds of things that were exciting for them and to end and did make them cutting edge all lot of characters in this book for me just like from a shear number perspective i hope it's not confusing but i have a very short attention span on what the puppy when i'm writing and then i get bored after a while once i've said my piece in this chapter about this character what he or she is doing or thinking or you know what what they're about i don't want to just linger on that person i am i will move on and see what's going on somewhere else and so for me having a lot of characters all at the same time i get to skip around and see what everybody's doing and see how they all can act because

connections are really important to me mom and coincidences really important to me i love coincidence i am as long as it's plausible so you know i'd i wanna i wanna take all those different strands and sort of weave them together and see what i come up with what did you have to do the most research on another thing you have to do some background to figure out how you're going to set this and make it believable what component of that did you find absorb most of your time was at odds with the scientific leaps and bounds that we're going online in the late eighteen hundreds or was it social order or were you know because you had this research not only how the police did there orca and the things that are being developed to make sure that you didn't have something that was non synchronous showing up but also how women are related to each other how a household functions have because this book is very sweeping see people in their homes to see people at their work because we're talking about england there are class structure interaction issues

what exactly did you find the most challenging is clearly disappointing but i mean obviously forensics hey i want to make sure i got all that right and so i talked to a lot of nurses and doctors about you know how long orator marcus actually lasts a negative thing because we see on tv but you know last thirty seconds home but said it oh and day and said the customs of the households those were interesting to me for instance you know if you come calling on somebody and you take off your coat that's a signal that you expect unity in and takes whereas if you don't you're going to be their fifteen minutes so there must have been you know kind of horrifying if somebody didn't like showed up and took off his coat but the thing that was most difficult for me was the geography of it all london was pretty sprawling and there were lots of suburbs and making sure everything was where i was supposed to be

because another thing is these street commission changed the names of the streets talks between the time this book takes place and now and so any modern map it is completely wrong and even a map from two years after this book takes place is completely wrong so getting that all straight and making sure that you could actually walk from scotland yard up to university college hospital or how long that would take was was a challenge because i've i've actually gotten lost in my front yard before literal is that alex priest and author of the yard talking to keep ers laura lorson people to the yard has recently been released it's called the black country our next to kansas notable books are young adult novels that take us back to the early days of kansas caroline rose starr is the author of may be she joins us by phone from her home in colorado may twelve year old girl who lives here drinking heavily and he

desperately wants to be a teacher but she had to train for holding her back the first thing about her parents have pulled her from school so that she might eventually become an aid to a young family that is comforting in the area and the second thing is that she struggled with her reading no i don't mean it in the book until the author's note that will be clear to many readers than they like whatever things that surprised me when i picked up your book is not a subject matter or not what happens to him a bit the form of the book it's written as a poem coming why you chose to rape her story in the sauna well this problem worse narco an idea we each poem can stand alone that doesn't always necessarily happen but instead of chapters begin you see individual cars in the book a bit of a hundred and fifty one poll it's the conventional wisdom and in germany full of new writing for matter

that you read at least a hundred books in your genres and i had read all of two first novels the league so i never ever planned for the book to be the most novel i am in fact anti after reports began my writing really frustrated with the different type of the plane the idea that i had in them i would actually put on the page until after attending a few faint in different parts of the book i thought the writing of five i went back to miami for its iphone ipad on india on firsthand accounts of women and what i found it's really struck me i found that whether they were speaking of something really thrilling like a wedding or something heartbreaking like a gap or something mundane like doing laundry the women all you've been very controlled contains language that one not now they leave a lot of exclamation points it was very much the opposite that everything was very controlled there were not a lot of adjectives

that were very careful lighting and i thought if i can hear that in the story that not only would reflect really you would really do three things it would really show that of the thirteen and in all there would be a way to act for a young girl a life of child who struggle with reading i could really show on the page and what the readers the house he encounters the written word are you set your story sal there are a number of things first of all i was completely enamored with fatah houses i knew that i wanted a name in a foggy and i know that parsley because of my love for more involvement partially because the reading katherine high school but i guess i really want her to live and for the home and for that really determine which part of the country before it could take place and i know that one of their part of the country that had a dream or whatever and you know

for the prom a row the fires were there to be part of the story but also probably the final question for me was discovering a book called pioneer women voices from the camp the front here and it's essentially a collection a firsthand account from different women who had low it throughout campus haven't really struck by the fortitude of these one on one of the storytellers never forget without a woman hill for years have not seen a tree and her husband came home from he must've been along like that or something like this in the past and that he had seemed to treat seniors we dropped everything she had been going and fifty three and when he arrived he did it and you make the undefeated hundred hundred and three because he hadn't been one for years i'm struck by how

resilient be women more in an entirely new thing for many of them who are able to make do with the money on meager things available to them and it just it's really been a reminder for me and my pretty straightforward an easy life that i have a lot to learn from what the experience dr read and excerpt you'd like to read from maybe for us i did in hong seventy four and i like that you call that my ode to the pioneer woman avery pritchard told me that when hip hop away at night from behind the pack award for brown body bubble and the different places they howl with rats but mostly they couldn't wait you know one thing with a fund for fear and find and richard tell the children stories of her forehead against the window pane and said get on you last spring an early tom pritchard took the shotgun and

read by the door was either the wolf pack during she ain't been fired the actual one a beat moderate and i walked to the door and left at the hearing mount a penchant for this funky old at that over it was she went on the perfect water she wouldn't let anyone out fine when mr pritchard arrived she didn't fail word and a shovel and shut the door a bit of buried the walkout back now we have been here from town he makes sure to hurry home come nightfall that's may be written and read by caroline rose star who joined us by telephone from her home in colorado their early days of kansas are the setting for another young adult novel that was named a kansas notable book this year a voice for kansas if by deborah macarthur of kansas city i spoke to her at the kansas book festival

in topeka a voice for kansas is the story of thirteen year old lucy thompkins who moves to lawrence in eighteen fifty five her father is a staunch abolitionist and he is convinced that he needs to go to kansas territory to vote in the elections and he's also a failed businessman of the past that he wants to try to open up work until a general store in lawrence and so he's very excited about it much very excited about it her little brother is very sad about it you'd use wants to come and hunt indians and she's actually horrify om all she's read about kansas is what she's read in the ad in the brochure information for kansas immigrants and when she arrived she finds out that that was not as accurate as she wishes it had been she's a little disappointed and an understatement it's like the chapters in your book which tell lucy's stories are

punctuated with excerpts from that template information for kansas or newspaper articles as a great way of grounding her story in sort of actual facts tell me about how you how you went about your book ending its interceptors are racially i hadn't planned to do that until i actually found that about you and information for kansas immigrants cans of those with busy and it was it was such an amazing document and i just i began leaving through a going now like a travel brochure and so it by original idea was that you know i would use the little excerpt said that of course as i got into the story there was so much more happening and i had already done a lot of newspaper research through the apparent freetown and some of the other territorial newspapers and so i really like the idea of getting those little snippets of actual history asked to provide grounding for the story without having to

explain a lot now listen listen lawrence and she's described as an insider but her best friend is described as an outsider what that means well politically and socially at the time the insiders were those who came with the internet society because they were part of the in crowd and so they had set aside a certain number of slots in town for the immigrant aid society settlers but before the immigrant aid society actually set up shop there were others who had also claimed plots of land but they were kind of driven out so they were not part of the the in crowd of those new englanders and many of them had already come across from illinois or from other states or that most of them were free staters not all some of them were not some of them were pressed laborers but because they weren't a part of that crowd the

connections with the easterners that some of the others have so when those rifles arrived well it was the easterners who got first crack at the sharps rifles when they arrived in town so the outsiders were resentful and you know there were times when there were some conflicts among the people and lawrence between the insiders and outsiders your book is called a voice for kansas and on its meant literally the lucy is she's not just becoming a kansan but she's becoming a poet she's finding her own voice talking about the journey that she has on becoming a poet and becoming a kansan well in the context of the time of course women's voices were not necessarily honored or recognized very often and that as a child and certainly she would be taught that silence was golden and to speak when you're spoken to those kinds of things she has a very forward

thinking teacher in her pennsylvania town and she goes to a girls' school where they do you know they want to the girls to be educated and so lizzy as a poet she received praise from her teacher for her poetry but her teacher also says you know you're you're using the styles of other poets you eat and your youre writing about them you need to find your own voice and so it's lucy search for that what is her own voice she doesn't really know what she stands for at the beginning of the book and actually gets to kansas and she begins to really get a fuller understanding of the issues of slavery and fr he down on shiite she wants to be that voice for freedom but she also wants to be that voice for kansas with a z because as it was described in information for cancer for kansas immigrants because it was described as a place of freedom a place

where it right headlight and not the sword or the mascot you know and so she wants to be the voice for that place and so that's why she then later kind of adopts that night as her as her moniker when she writes letters to the newspaper because she wants to be a voice for that kansas what images they were cursed her out your book is that lucy and different fabrics in her life the story opens with her trying to learn how to do in puerto rico and then there's a beautiful blue silk dress that she that she gets right before she moves to kansas and then there's a blue calico dress which becomes her first quote kansas dress and then there's a scrap of black fabric that she comes across and she keeps what'd you have in mind in terms of having something very real and tangible that we could picture with lucy

lucy's blue dress at the beginning of this story is kind of a symbol of her privileged life it's it's a ball gown they also it is a symbol of her own personality and the fact that she's she's rather stubborn and when they tell her all that's really not appropriate for traveling she says oh i wonder where anyway and so she does and then oliver other clothes or lost on the journey in so that's all she has in that is very out of place and she feels very out of place it was really a reflection of how she feels at that time and he quickly become so old and ruined and then she's embarrassed by it but she is she at that point she really feels like she is not of that place and when she gets her new dress her cancer stress then at that point she considers herself a citizens and part of that community are she hates the memory is you know that stuff he did thing that her grandmother

makes her do the expected and that is she's not good at it but she wants to write poetry and she swears when she leaves pennsylvania shall never pick up an evil again and yet there's a point at which she recognizes the importance of who she is in and where she came from as a symbol of how much he has grown and so when she finally picks up an evil again to men that dress even though she knows she's not going to wear it anymore she has a feeling it's going to be important to her and of course it is you can find out why it's important to lucy into the story by reading a voice for kansas that's kansas what is the written by deborah macarthur of kansas city kansas public radio have a copy of a voice for kansas to give away along with several other cancers notable books if you'd like a chance to win a copy go to our website to a pr that paid you that edu and click on ticket giveaway i'm kate mcintyre you're listening to kbr presence on kansas public radio from

the founding of lawrence to the family of manhattan frontier manhattan yankees settlement to kansas town is a history of manhattan from eighteen fifty four to eighty nine before it was written by kevin ohlson who joins us by telephone from his office in new york city even though i'm sitting in the big apple i was born and raised in the little outboard manhattan kansas and i was there from birth through carmichael and then went to the university of kansas and studied history before heading off to new york city i'm for law school where every may never sent okay so you have an interest in history but what led you to write a book about the history of manhattan yes i'm sure not everybody who's from manhattan is interested in its history show a question in fact i wasn't even know a history buff and

so i had a really great teacher in high school so i really appreciated ms scott at manhattan i actually manhattan's fifth symphony or was in two thousand five and it was just a history major someone who was very interested in history it just came to wonder how it was the manhattan came to be and i'd go to school you in warmth and i knew lawrence's history most kansans know some history of warrant for mr to peak of the ministry which talkie but now much about manhattan and so yeah that's where i'm from i enjoyed being from there and so i just started to wonder what my home town's history was end didn't find a whole lot out there about it ends thing like a fun project for me to start to look into a manhattan before it was manhattan kansas it started

out actually as the blue worth village talked a little bit about pre manhattan yes and that's something the iaea i'm very happy to have included a macbook air and omits something that i hope that i have brought a bit more forthright in manhattan with that bit of our history from about seventeen eighteen eighteen thirty it was the home of the car drive to the campo tribe which give the state its name of course there and they moved there from the kansas city area and they were there for about fifty years every day there was about a quarter of that to get to this the herds of buffalo their work just a little further west on a great plains without running into the other tribes which would which didn't necessarily get along better with the big battle and eighteen twelve and

manhattan well in the village rather between the camper america's enemies so how did it come to be manhattan which i understand actually wrestling with us to be boston kansas yes in fact originally was bought and then something that i have mentioned i got out of my way to mention to her and to have that or read our bass became manhattan did the founders were originally from new england just as with warrants and they named it after him after on the town and they've had up front for that even though even before they changed that they had decided that they didn't really like that name and around the time they were trying to come up with a new name a paddle boats for settlers from cincinnati got stuck there and they got a canvas to found a town that they wanted to call manhattan so the new englander said if you come in third with

us we will rename our town from boston to manhattan and ps he can often have half of the site where the town's going to be so sad it is probably the leading figure in history difficult to call from one in the town's founder but if there was someone there from manhattan he would be at he led the very first expedition they came there from new england he raised the funds for the first churches that were there and also for the private school or private college that was there which eventually turned into kim university when they took over the word is always he was traveling constantly back east raising funds for the city advertising for the city always on the

go and the original town booster julia lovejoy we use perhaps the best writer of letters that i have ever come across arid and as a man and historian i was incredibly blessed that she was a manhattan federal or the curtain with her letters are a joy to read their incredibly evocative arm she does a great job of painting machine area that existed at the time and i don't know that much about her bakker i don't know whether she was educated i know that she was from new england she was the wife of laughter but he was an incredible writer and is really somebody that i think kansas historian could spend a little bit more time looking into kevin thank you so much for visiting with me about your book frontier town manhattan and

congratulations on being named at cannes is notable other that's kevin also an author of frontier manhattan yankees settlement to kansas town he joined us by telephone from his office in new york city my next guest is a familiar voice to regular k pierre presents listeners carry miriam goldberg is the former poet laureate of kansas whatever projects as poet laureate was to spearhead the writing about bring down a collective palin to the stars through difficulties of kansas ran back in one hundred fifty voices is our next canvas notable book this interview with karen miriam colbert is from a k pr present archives i started the kansas renda project without knowing how much we would need it and this is one poem written in one hundred and fifty voices and each poet would only have a day or two to you read everything before him or her an ad they're tan lines and we worked with a google

doc behind the scenes and then what was created was revealed every two or three days one hundred and fifty kansas palms that were pressed outcome and that became the book to the stars through difficulties of kansas wrangler and what one reason that it's just so vital to me is that you're really explores what it means to live in kansas particularly during that time that's very challenging for the arts during a horrendous drought and yet during little bouts of the kind of wonder and surprising beauty that hold us together and helped us see the world more what are the challenges of bringing a hundred and fifty points together and i guess not in a literal sense bed that in a metaphorical sense of how do you get them to speak with one voice while each one was encouraged in their

anger truly speak in his or her own voice but to pick up the threads from other segments of the rancor beforehand and they think that there were such a hunger among the writers in the state who participated in the writers from other places with kansas connections here in their anger to make to make a stronger community together and to express something that we could bear say in the form of poetry about the importance of poetry so once i put out the word and i first put out the word to the poets and begin again the answer that's ninety six people and then i contacted people in different colleges and universities and encourage students to get involved and then i just kept looking and except in submissions and i'm having to make some hard choices about who was in and so on it started to find that it was quite easy to people the rancor and we even had some unusual things such as bill sheldon

wonderful poet from hutchinson kansas and then i met his son who's a college student in emporia tyler sheldon and then an a wonderful poet in his own right so he's entering get to some is a little father son combination there many many parts to the rancor that separate them and all kinds of other connections that happen mccole project it's been a wonderful project and i'm just i was blown away when i was putting the book together with denise lowe who owns mammoth publications and published it and a former poet laureate her our portal a poet laureate i was just blown away by looking out altogether what we've created and we've had over a dozen remains an egg each reading the rain get is kind of a movable musical mosaic whoever shows up and reads that the rancor that particular night could you share some of the kansas ran away birth absolutely and i will read the

last segment it began and ended the rancor to be honest there's a hundred and forty eight poets in it but i figure fifty voices you know do you need to send the sub forested anyway i'm sure basically the rank has been quite seasonal and it started in winter and ends in winter because people were riding in concert with the seasons and there's certain themes that kept emerging in search in images of course rivers and whether were crucial and also the sense of history and geography we also had quite a bit of of little strands of politics and what's happening in our culture at large and the rancor but it ended by going back to some themes mentioned in the beginning and then the rancor segments rate before mine the reverse things through rock and time as we said aired its bank our

truest wishes rise from underground tributaries composed of old ocean lost the love heads bravest bombs clear is seeing what we know when trees over into porous ground what we dont know lands on high branches only the deer see we turn our faces faithfully toward moonlight and motion waiting for what comes next a bluebird returns to the harmonics of cedar and big blue stem the night and temperature fall we remember that this world holds and holds us together in the widening river of stars above hezbollah oh no other way that's beautiful thank you i get some of the images from people before me that it's it's just a lot of fun to work on a communal palmer you're weaving and what rises up from other voices to find a common voice that's karen miriam goldberg reading from to the

stars through difficulties of kansas redneck in one hundred fifty voices kansas public radio has a copy of this book to give away along with several other cancers notable books if you'd like a chance to win one of these books go to our website to a pr that kay you that edu and click on ticket giveaway our final kansas notable book is a biography of the native american artist black barebones in black their bows and is probably best known for his sculpture keeper of the plains in wichita from the nineteen forties until his death in nineteen eighty he had exhibits throughout the country including the smithsonian museum of natural history and the national gallery in washington dc in nineteen seventy seven he receive the distinguished service award from the state of kansas and was named the governor's artist by governor robert bennett he also completed many mosaics and murals and the wichita area and design the insignia for the wolf creek nuclear power plant his stepson dr

david simmons of emporia is the author of black bear bows and keeper of the indian spirit he joined me at the kansas book festival in topeka what they're all along away gained considerable fame nineteen fifty five one of his paintings prairie fire became the centerpiece of the national geographic piece about american indian art that painting that year and in the national gallery in washington dc and later hung in the smithsonian and eventually in nineteen sixty five hundred nice going to the white house went like there was the only native american invited to the white house first for the arts that's the cue for the planes came about when black there was in the hospital in diagnosed with stress in nineteen sixty eight and other fellow from like a genie kansas gas electric the electric company

back in those days came hand approach but they're asked him if he had any interest in doing a large sculpture that the confluence of the big and little or kansas river sandwich talk which was a place which was sacred to the american indian what they're never done any sculptures now but he was interested in the idea and soul over the next six years he worked on and it became a reality and not may of nineteen seventy four for people who haven't seen it keeper the plane's is a depiction of a plains indian warrior it's forty four feet tall it is now says the two thousand seven raised thirty feet up in the air mounted on a reproduction of kansas mushroom rock and there aren't fire parts that lighting up at night

beekeeper is that there is always go for it has become the iconic image of wichita and sent to a county it was made of a substance called cor ten steel which starts out looking like steel but it's a self weathering product and eventually rusts into a beautiful and reddish brown surface which seemed quite appropriate to the native american there are also several murals and mosaics of his in wichita today tell me about some of those i actually didn't get the two murals and the keeper the plains both preceded this book and coming to the atkins was notable book awards some folks in nineteen twenty seven i think it had a book called kansas murals was a kansas notable book and and his two large murals were

depicted in that and then last year morsi banners eight wonders if kansas showed the keeper the plane switch which was one of the he wonders of kansas are the young girls are both in wichita the oldest one done in nineteen fifty nine sixty one was all new mosaic it was sold and the nation last little tiles it occupies four sides have a large ballroom in the broadway hotel which is now the enduring in wichita right next to the river and it was called the advance of civilization in kansas and depicted in the early days of just indians and buffalos and then the coming of the railroad in hand but the advancement of civilization which i think he meant a little bit sarcastically i am it's the largest marilyn kansas it occupies fifteen hundred square

feet which is about the size of your average home the other didn't happen until there was in the hospital the second time having had a valve replaced it is hard while the doctors were telling him to slow down the board of directors of the formal credit bank of kansas in wichita came to him and said now the slowdown a bit nearer and then he did it's nine feet tall three at long and it's in the lab lower level of the current form for a bank and actually had to be moved once when the form of bank moved but it's known and former american to her blog and waco in which talkie culture wants all life and it is largely symbolic in its content and has a great deal to do with the iphone creation care

facility plains indians in writing this book what it's for you hope that people will learn about your stepfather but as an artist and if the man blackberry is known by most people these days as being the guy who had to do sculpture in wichita and that was a very small part of his career he was a painter first and foremost and a lot of folks didn't really have the opportunity to see his work and a lot of people don't know much about that work and down when i was convinced by a member of our church too to display a number of his pieces of art that hadn't been displayed for over thirty years since his death in nineteen eighty two week we put

together a show at a carriage factory art gallery in newton as part of that has to do talk about life there i didn't talk and then the question came from an audience member is there a book that we can buy and i said no and and several members of the audience with way too much enthusiasm similar needs to be wedded to write it right a man in but they were willing to put a lot of time and effort that we have a committee of sex folks who got together on a monthly basis and then we eventually hired an editor and then put together in about a year and a half put together this block and decided that all proceeds from the book would go to carriage factory art

gallery to promote martin kansas let their bows in a canvas ring a friend here manhattan a voice for kansas may be scotland yard and the kansas bureau of investigation there's something for every reader on the kansas notable list again we've got several of these books to give away for a chance to win a copy go to our website to a pr that k u dot edu and click on a ticket giveaway why your on kansas public radio's website you can listen to par one of the cans of notable books programs it's archived indicate pierre presents folder i'm kate mcintyre kbr present is a production of kansas public radio at the university of kansas next time on here is that we celebrate the season with a trip to decay in your archives join us next sunday evening for holiday stories music and as much more happy holidays from kansas public radio