Visitors of Boxelder Bug Days this year will get a glimpse into the workings of the man that inspired Minneota to change the name of their town celebration, Bill Holm.

Bug Days brings ‘glimpse’ of Bill Holm

“It’s an honor to work on Bill’s papers."

Visitors of Boxelder Bug Days this year will get a glimpse into the workings of the man that inspired Minneota to change the name of their town celebration.

A vast majority of the works of Minneota native and renowned poet Bill Holm, who died on Feb. 25, 2009, are in the hands of the University of Minnesota Libraries. Carissa Hansen, Archivist with the Upper Midwest Library Archives (UMLA) of the University of Minnesota, along with her colleague Kate Hujda, will be showcasing some of Holm's material from 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 9 in the Minneota Public Library building.

Hansen will also give a presentation at 1 p.m.

“We're so excited about Boxelder Bug Days in the UMLA,” said Hansen. “Kate and I will both be participating. We look forward to meeting everyone.”

Following Holm's death, the University of Minnesota Library Archives obtained a large portion of Holm's writing and other items through his widow, Marcy Brekken, in 2012.

The archivists are organizing all the material in order for it to be used for any future referencing. One of the interesting findings from among over 100 boxes of material Hansen has been methodically sifting through was a poem Holm wrote when he was an 11-year-old student in 1954 in which he wrote about his hometown of Minneota.

“Minneota is a little place I know, Where busy people come and go, It holds a dear place in my heart, Even though we have to part, I know most everyone in this town, In my heart, it wears a crown, Minneota.”

Holm wasn't just known for his poetry work, although he did have eight books published with Milkweed Editions. He also was a songwriter, essayist, speaker, and memoirist. He and Garrison Keillor, famous for his Prairie Home Companion radio show, were close friends and Holm was a frequent guest on his show. Hansen will be showcasing some of the manuscripts, essays, photos, periodicals, posters, newspaper articles, and much more during Boxelder Bug Days.

“I’ve learned a lot about his life already,” said Hansen. “There are a literally 100 boxes of things we got from Marcy.”

“It’s an honor to work on Bill’s papers. And so much Minnesota and Minneota culture is present in the collection. It’s fantastic.”

Hansen’s works are being included in a year-long grant project called “Prairie Poets and Press Literary Lives of the Upper Midwest”, dedicated to exploring the archives of Minnesota poets.

One of Holm’s most noteworthy published work was Boxelder Bug Variations in 1985, which was the inspiration behind the current Boxelder Bug Days celebration. But Holm also had started but never finished many other works.

“I think one of the more interesting things I’ve found of his is a book he had begun working on called ‘Low Down and Coming on: A Feast of Delicious and Dangerous Poems About Pigs’,” said Hansen.

“It was something that he had started and put a call out to anyone that wanted to submit a poem about pigs.”

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