Mrs. Snow

by Donald Justice

This is Michael Carey for Voices from the Prairie a weekly sampling from the rich soil of Iowa’s literary tradition. How strong an influence the mentors of our youth are cannot be overestimated. Such was the influence of one Mrs. Snow on the young Donald Justice who grew up to be a composer and a famous poet and teacher at the University of Iowa. Listen how his old teachers music still enters his words.

Mrs. Snow

Busts of the great composers glimmered in niches,
Pale stars. Poor Mrs. Snow, who could forget her,
Calling the time out in that hushed falsetto?
(How early we begin to grasp what kitsch is!)
But when she loomed above us like an alp,
We little towns below would feel her shadow.
Somehow her nods of approval seemed to matter
More than the stray flakes drifting from her scalp.
Her etchings of ruins, her mass-production Mings
Were our first culture: she put us in awe of things.
And once, with her help, I composed a waltz,
Too innocent to be completely false
Perhaps, but full of marvelous clichés.
She beamed and softened then.
                                                       Ah, those were the days.

"Mrs. Snow" by Donald Justice from The Sunset Maker published in 1987 by Atheneum.

For Voices from the Prairie and Humanities Iowa, this is Michael Carey hoping you continue to hear the music blooming all around you.

 

 Biography

Donald Justice was born in Miami, Florida and has taught at a number of universities including Syracuse, the University of Florida and for many years at the University of Iowa, in Iowa City where he now lives in retirement with his wife Jean Ross. His first book The Summer Anniversaries, was the Lamont Poetry selection for 1959. It was followed by Night Light (1967), Departures (1973), and Selected Poems (1979) which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, and The Sunset Maker (1987). In 1992 University Press of New England published A Donald Justice Reader and in 1995 Knopf brought out his New and Selected Poems. In 1998 Story Line Press published his book of essays Oblivion: On Writers and Writing. He was co-winner of the Bollingen prize in 1991. A distinguished member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, Mr. Justice has received numerous grants in poetry from the Rockefeller Foundation, The Guggenheim Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

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