Saturday’s Kansas Book Festival celebrated books, readers, and the art of making meaning of our lives.
My primary purpose for attending was to hear a tribute to Jonathan Holden, first poet laureate of Kansas (2005-2007) and Kansas State English professor from 1978-2013.
Following Jonathan’s death on December 20, 2024, Tom Averill began to contact some of Jonathan’s former students, so that they could gather for this tribute during the Kansas Book Festival.
Forming the panel were poets Ed Skoog (BA ’94), Amy Fleury (MA ’94), and Kevin Rabas (MA ’98) to share memories and read some of Jonathan’s poems.
To share some highlights from Jonathan’s biography, Ed Skoog began by putting on glasses in “a Jonathan sort of way” — that is, by drawing attention to the fact of putting on glasses. Ed credited Jonathan and other K-State English professors as “ruin[ing] my plans to be a wildlife biologist.”
Ed’s choice of poem to read was Jonathan’s “Some Basic Aesthetics,” which considers the question, “What does being ‘American’ feel like?”
Amy Fleury talked about Jonathan’s mentorship, stating that Jonathan’s continued mentorship “guided my own journey as a mentor, . . . helping [me know] when to push, when to pull, and when to get out of the way.”
With mentorship in mind, Amy read Jonathan’s poem “Shoptalk,” a poem that became the title of Jonathan’s project during his laureateship.
I like the low, comfortable kind
of conversation which the rain’s
been having with itself all day
as it goes about its business
Kevin Rabas commented on admiring Jonathan’s “playfulness” and his “dedication to Kansas,” both of which can be observed in “Western Meadowlark,” excerpts of which Kevin read (while apologizing for not being a singer):
Through the open car window
seven needles in a haystack
BoPEEP-doodle-our-PEOple!
snatched by ear out of the moving
prairie, like you
already fading, passed, gone.
BoPEEP-doodle-our-PEOple!
During open discussion, audience members shared admiration of Jonathan’s wit, his ability to recite hundreds of poems from memory, and his strong opinions about fellow poets. A few speakers did impressive imitations of Jonathan. Poet Eric McHenry, poet laureate of Kansas from 2015-2017, asked the poet panelists what they were working on that they would have liked to share with Jonathan.
Ed, currently working on a collection of elegies, currently titled, “Everything Burns in Candletown,” said he keeps Jonathan as a reader in mind, for a sense of what’s acceptable, both “emotionally and prosodically.”
Amy, currently working on a collection of poems about her son who died, said that she keeps in mind Jonathan’s advice for how to avoid sentimentality while writing about emotional subjects. Amy quoted Jonathan’s definition of “sentimentality” — “praise without conflict” (The Old Formalism: Character in Contemporary American Poetry, U of Arkansas Press, 2000).
Kevin, who has written 1500 pages of jazzy meditations, said he would like Jonathan’s advice on what to leave in and what to take out.
Earlier in the day, another panel of poets, Melissa Fite Johnson, Sarah Green, and Traci Brimhall, talked about “Finding Words for It,” essentially how to find words for the ineffable.
Traci Brimhall (center) with former students and K-State English alums Khloe Kuckelman (BA ’25) and Sarah Troub (BA ’24).
Traci, current Poet Laureate of Kansas, in response to a question about how her future self might write about this time, quoted Rainier Maria Rilke:
Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
My spouse, Jerome Dees (1936-2024), English professor at K-State (1976-2003), also died in 2024. My memories of Jerry’s time in the department overlapped with Jonathan’s time in the department, so I found solace in the memories shared by Ed, Amy, and Kevin.
Our work with students matters, and our impact lasts, even after our deaths. Thanks to these poets for helping us find meaning in our losses, including the loss of Poet Jonathan Holden (1941-2024).
— Deborah Murray, Senior Instructor / Ass’t Director for the Writing Center
K-State English 