Northland College features local poet in next Hulings Lecture series presentation

January 14, 2013

Lee Merrill loves "the surface of things" without regard to the unknown mysteries that may underlie them. The Washburn poet who hails from the Deep South seeks to capture that essence in his writings. Merrill will share his collection of poems in the presentation "A New Home: The Poetry of Forty Two Years" for the next Hulings Lecture presentation at Northland College.

"I'm from a part of the world where the surface is very important. You may absolutely not like someone, but you're always nice to them," Merrill said, noting that it's better to just "let it be" with some things in life. "The very thing that keeps passion and intensity alive is the surface of the world and not knowing what's underneath."

He will reflect this theme during the presentation on Thursday, Jan. 17, at 7 p.m. in the Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute. The event, another offering in the Northland College Community Connection series, is free and open to the public. Merrill will read poems on a variety of topics, touching on irreverence, passion and life. For the former English professor at Northland College, poetry is something he's held dear since he was a boy.

"I want to encourage people to read poetry," Merrill said. "Poetry is just a really wonderful thing, and I hope that people will sense my love of it and that will be a little bit contagious."

Merrill's writings have appeared in College English, Poetry Now, the Wisconsin Academy Review and Gray's Sporting Journal. Parallel Press, an imprint of theUniversity of Wisconsin - Madison, plans to publish a book of poetry by Merrill entitled "Alibi for Two" in 2014.

Clayton Russell, A.D. & Mary Elizabeth Andersen Hulings Chair at Northland, said Merrill's love of poetry and natural beauty transformed the experience of students, faculty and staff at the college.

"My first interaction with Professor Merrill was from a distance. He was teaching fly fishing during the May term," Russell said. "But I knew that he was teaching so much more than fishing. Those students were embodying the lessons shared with young poets by former United States Poet Laureate Robert Hass. They were learning to observe. They were paying attention to the water, their surroundings, their thoughts and feelings. Both poetry and fishing cover this ground and Lee Merrill is an excellent guide!"

Lee Merrill currently resides in Washburn with his wife Melinda Rose Guerra Merrill and their dog Little Belle Merrill.

Northland College radio station WRNC-LPFM (97.7) will broadcast an interview with Merrill at 8:30 a.m. on Thursday, Jan. 17. Listeners may tune in online at www.wrnclp.org.

The A.D. & Mary Elizabeth Andersen Hulings Chair in the Humanities was established in September 1990 to support a senior scholar in the humanities. The endowment funds promotion and strengthening of the Humanities at Northland College.