Following are remarks Friends of Lorine Niedecker President Ann Engleman made upon receiving the Christopher Latham Sholes Award at the Council for Wisconsin Writers Awards Banquet on May 12, which coincidentally was Lorine Niedecker’s birthday:
Council for Wisconsin Writers – May 12, 2018
Today is Lorine Niedecker’s 115th birthday. 
She wrote:
I was a Solitary Plover
a pencil
for a wing-bone
From the secret notes
I must tilt
upon the pressure
execute and adjust
In us sea air rhythm
‘We live by the urgent wave of the verse
of the verse.”
That is what writers do.
When I learned Lorine’s story from two dedicated yet, soon-to-be-retiring ladies, I became indignant about the oversight of Lorine’s legacy. Why did Wisconsin not recognize her or at least know about her?
Librarian Amy Lutzke and I joined forces and boldly, and sometimes blindly, went forward. Our goal was promote her work and her legacy. The last 13 years of projects and adventures have helped Lorine’s visibility.
We began the Lorine Niedecker Wisconsin Poetry Festival to celebrate Lorine but also to encourage and recognize poetry and poets in Wisconsin. The Festival is free and a supportive event for writers and poets of all experience levels. It is now in its ninth year.
And we started the Solitary Plover Newsletter. Several of you have been published there.
Over the years we carefully laid ground work and built relationships. We thank the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets for their support. We thank the Council for Wisconsin Writers for the “Lorine Niedecker Award for Poetry” and certainly, for this Christopher Latham Sholes Award.
A bit of recent news –
In January, after six years of work Lorine’s cabin on Blackhawk Island has been placed on the National Historic Registry.
Lorine wrote:
New-sawed
clean-smelling house
sweet cedar pink
flesh tint
I love you
Our annual reports are on our Web site. http://www.lorineniedecker.org/pastevents.cfm
I am always overwhelmed when I review them. . .which I did in preparation for this event.
HOW did we do all that?
The Council for Wisconsin Writers recognizing our steadfast work is an honor.
Thank you for recognizing our efforts for “outstanding encouragement of a Wisconsin writer.”
This poem from Lorine could also be about writers:
Poets work
Grandfather
advised me:
Learn a trade
I learned
to sit at desk
and condense
No layoff
from this
condensery
To close, Lorine wrote autobiographically:
Fish
fowl
flood
water lily mud
My life
As writers, what six words would describe your life?
Thank you for this honor.
