The Free Press, Mankato, MN - Poets battle for Bard's Chair

Sun, Nov 22 2009

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This giant oak tree provides a picturesque venue for the chairing of the bard ceremony at the “Cambria Eisteddfod: A Celebration of the Celtic Heritage of Poetry, Song and Story.”
Matt Johnston / The Free Press

Norita Dittberner-Jax of St. Paul was this year’s winning bard.
Matt Johnston / The Free Press

To the winner go the spoils, which in this case is this wonderful oak chair.
Matt Johnston / The Free Press

Poets battle for Bard's Chair

By Robb Murray
The Free Press

She follows it up with the sublime “Serenity of Snow,” a remembrance of winter with the heavenly line “only children are invited to disturb its silence, to lie in it like angels.”

Donovan’s turn finishes the verbal melee. In a piece about boating, she writes “today the lake glows like a new quarter.” Later, “We were not cheap tricks. We poured ourselves into hip-hugger, stovepipe pants ... Dark-haired Barbies on the lookout for our faceless, groovy Kens.”

The judges took their time making a decision. In the interim, Rezmerski recited a Bill Holm poem, whom he called a “best friend.”

“If anyone should have been chaired as a bard, it was him,” Rezmerski said as he gave Holm a thumbs up and appeared to choke up a little.

The judges finally returned and revealed their choice: It was Dittberner-Jax.

“Please step forward and claim your chair,” Rezmerski said.

The other bards climbed to the stage to congratulate and hug Dittberner-Jax. And with that the sky ripped open, revealing the ghostly, smiling faces of Welsh poetry greats Dylan Thomas, Idris Davies, Vernon Watkins and R. S. Thomas.

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