About
Athena Kildegaard lives in prairie pothole country — that is, Morris, Minnesota — where she’s a lecturer at the University of Minnesota.
Here are a few things she’s done:
- cleaned creamed corn machines
- nursed two beautiful children
- eaten fresh pineapple
- listened to her husband play banjo
- worked as a resident artist in Minnesota, Mississippi, and Texas
- taught 6th grade, high school English, and at the college level freshman composition, creative writing, environmental ethics
- read War and Peace three times
- received grants from the Lake Region Arts Council and the Minnesota State Arts Board
- received the 2011 LRAC/McKnight Fellowship
Portrait by Laura Peterson
Athena Kildegaard 
I was lucky enough to be your student in 6th grade!!! I am excited to read your blog and catch up!
Hi! How fun to hear from you! What are you doing with your one precious life?
Dear Ms. Kildegaard:
I was much taken with the poem Garrison Keillor read on The Writer’s Almanac. Without possibly intending to, it paralleled the observation process that is so crucial to landscape painting. As with poetry, I would think, a painter must “sit” with a place’s tics and tantrums and see them in terms of opportunities and/or revelations. Your poem was a kind of blessing to those of us who are dedicated to the moment – which, in a poem or painting, may last a goodly while.
Dear Brett —
Thank you for these kind words.
I really like your idea of a place having it own “tics and tantrums”!
All the best,
Athena
Is there a recording of YOU reading your poem that starts “We drove across high prairie…”? I heard Garrison Keillor read it, and found his phrasing awkward, so I looked up the text, and noticed the breaks in the stanzas — which I very much like! (Providing gaps and openings.) But I really want to know how you read this poem. How do you phrase and breath through these lines?
— Ruth
Hi Ruth —
No (or, not yet?). Thanks for asking — and thanks for listening to the poem!
–Athena
And now I’ve seen your whole post . . . So I can answer more fully! I tend to read through the stanza breaks, though I think I do put a slight emphasis on the first words of the stanzas (away, space, flowed). The last bit, from “and in that” is tricky, actually, because the idea is to feel a little breathless by the end, but I don’t want to be choking then! Does that answer your question?
Best, Athena
Hi Athena – Nancy Hanson Nash, GAC class of ’70 here, back in Alaska, and tonight I heard Garrison K. reading your poem, but I, too, wished I could hear you read it. You’re a wonderful reader, as well as writer, I found out in July. I had never read a poem of mine out loud before, so I felt very nervous and shy (totally unlike what I feel on the music end of things). I had a great few days with John Rez and Lorna after the St. Peter gathering, including John and me driving to try to find my mother’s birthplace of Welcome, Minnesota. Never found it, but we had a great day together! My local women’s choir starts back up soon, and I’ll tell them about the brave and willing women who sang “Hope Is the Thing With Feathers” after only one very brief run-thru. Best wishes for your fall teaching.
Nancy
Dear Nancy — How cool is that?! Thanks for writing!
Oh, now I’ve seen your whole comment . . . I can imagine you and Rez having a nifty time together.
Singing “Hope” was a highlight of the weekend for me — how it’s possible to just make music without a lot of fuss, to stand up and be brave.
I hope we’ll get to meet again, sooner rather than later.
–Athena
Ripe Cherries was so beautiful to read on this snowy Spring morning. Thank you.
Thank you, Jim.
A lovely person, a sweet soul and a damn fine poet/writer.
You are a darling!
Enjoyed your company at Island Days. Hoping for a road trip to Morris and a poetry reading soon.
Hi Rick — That’s mutual! I had such a wonderful time and felt like I was at home with old friends. Just let me know when you come north!
Read your ‘Brothers at the Reunion’ and thought there is more to this, things unsaid, at least your work evoked that thought.
What is it with so many writer’s from Minnesota-Garrison Keillor’s TWA has led me to many of you: Joyce Sutphen, Connie Wanek, Louis Jenkins, Barton Sutter, John Berryman, Cherry Strayed, etc.) is there some gravitational pull there of which I’m unaware?
john zakrzewski
21795 liberal ave
corning, ca 96021
530-518-1252
jzcorning@gmail.com
cc: Joyce Sutphen
Hi John,
Maybe it’s the water? Land of 10,000 lakes . . .
Thanks for your note. Minnesota is a good place to live if you’re a writer — great funding and resources here. And we poets gotta stick together.
Best, Athena
Story Show in New London
https://www.facebook.com/events/1886283451696332??ti=ia