This short section introduces you to Bill Kloefkorn, Nebraska's State Poet, who presently covers from a nasty illness.

I hope that some of you will have a chance to hear Bill read his verse and prose, for he is both funny and profound. You will find attending one of his readings a wonderful experience and a tremendous introduction to poetry readings if you have never attended one.

You might read the poems before you read what Kloefkorn has to say, for the two blend well together and reinforce where Kloefkorn takes his inspiration.

We have poetry from Bill, but in recent years he has begun writing fiction and non-fiction: Sink Her Pretty Little Ship offers excellent short stories, and This Death by Drowning and The Burnt Child are outstanding pieces of Creative Non-Fiction about what Bill addresses in this interview, the people who inspire him and the places he loves.

You might consider, too, the people who inspire you, though you might not yet have given the matter much thought. But writing about your experience will uncover your Alvin Turner and your Laura Buxton.

As Kloefkorn notes, to write you have to write, and from the very beginning, pretty much what you read in the previous section of Road Trip.

As you read, pay particular attention to what Kloefkorn has to say about language and how words have affected and continue to inspire him, beginning with Chautauqua!

And while he expresses no great love for organized religion--see what he has to say about the grandfather who affected him so profoundly--he loves the King James version of the Bible, its majestic language:

"Now you have to assume that if a touchstone works, it is rich, rich in metaphor. When Job laments his losses and thinks of his early days, he remembers, as he puts it, those days when my feet, he says, were washed in butter" (21).

You will find many people, many writers who praise the beautiful poetry of this version of the bible. This writer, however, does not praise only traditional classic literature, for he loves comic books as well the Sears catalog.

Read what Kloefkorn has to say and think about your own sources of pleasure and of loss, for as he notes with respect to his grandfather, the loss provides a rich source for his creativity.

All is neither all good nor all bad--but always a mixture and interesting: look up the word "Ambivalent."

Experiment with ambivalence in your own writing and with purpose.

What Kloefkorn has to say about why we write likewise ties into the class:

"it's one of the many ways to make some order out of chaos"; "Writing is a record."

But note, too, that if writing can offer a way to make order from chaos, good writing cannot, therefore, be chaotic. The writing journey your text discusses in many respects becomes an adventure, a quest to make some sense of connections that seem chaotic but that you can order--and always for a purpose.

This week, you will experiment with making some order of a chaotic opening draft.

And the details help make order, whether you write about a cardinal or a bankrupt farmer. As Bill writes, "When you get down to that distinctive element, then, then, you're beginning to describe" (26). Getting down to the distinctive element also requires focus--put into practice this idea when you move from your free writing to your more focused effort.

As I will say a great deal this semester, you want to make the prose emphatic.

When you read Bill's poetry, for example, note the specific and the figurative language. For instance, in the first poem, he mentions not simply flowers, but "lespedeza flowers." And he does not simply enjoy the smell: he breathes "its blooms," taking in the entire flower.

And regard, too, the comparisons: he roams "acreage like a sweet spy"; the calf has "legs like oaks."

The breathing in the flower is a metaphor of sorts; and that the "Thistles defend the driveway" describes personification. You want to begin right away to experiment with these rhetorical tools of the trade that also appear in good prose. And, of course, enjoy the challenging process.

But none of the devices stands as artificial or forced--all the words and devices flow well together; he has created a bit of order from chaos.

You will have a chance to discuss Kloefkorn's habits and work as well as those of Clark and Saiser and your own on one of the discussion threads.

In your prose for this week where you will make use of the five senses, experiment too with figural language, including personification and simile.

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