Luther Elementary dedicates Niedecker mural

By Chris Spangler

A Blackhawk Island poet whose prominence has grown steadily since her death in 1970 is now featured in artwork at all of Fort Atkinson’s six public schools. 

On Friday morning, Luther Elementary School dedicated an indoor mural based on a poem by the late Lorine Niedecker.

It shares the first stanza from her poem “Thanksgiving, Glen Ellyn,” which reads:

“Education, kindness

live here

whose dog does not impose

her long nose

and barks quietly.”

The mural was a joint project between the School District of Fort Atkinson and Friends of Lorine Niedecker. Working with art teacher Jessica Zuniga and her students was Fort Atkinson artist Jeremy Pinc, known for creating the three Niedecker “poetry walls” in downtown Fort Atkinson.

“First, I want to say, I didn’t do it; we did it!” Pinc told his enthusiastic young audience Friday.

“I was super nervous when I got this project because, I said, ‘that’s a lot of people who I want to like this. A lot of people are going to see this,’” he told the pupils.

“When you make art, sometimes you get nervous and you aren’t sure if people are going to like it. I’m so happy that it turned out and I think it was because you guys had so much energy and you guys were such good artists, that you helped make it so good, and we all did it altogether,” he continued. 

He had the students who worked on the various parts of the mural — the texture, dots, red background, dogs, flowers and pencil — stand up.

“One of the things people asked me about while I was working on that was ‘why did people want to choose this particular person’s poem to write on there? Why did they want to choose Lorine Niedecker?” Pinc asked.

He answered: “I know why I like Lorine Niedecker. She’s kind of like a superhero who’s from our town. She’s a hero because she was a fighter — not a fighter with her fists, but she fought with her creativity and her words and she was from this town, just like you and me …

“She did things that were so important that people all over the world study her, and they really look up to her. So that’s why I particularly like her, because she’s a hero.”

Pinc said that in making this mural, the students partook in a little of heroism themselves.

“We did a great job doing this,” Pinc concluded. …”We did it!”

Mural delayed

Zinego told Fort Atkinson Online that the project actually began earlier than this school year.

“We really started working on this since before the pandemic started, but things got put on hold since this was meant to be a collaboration. We have been using the whole year to prepare for this,” she said. 

Students in the older grades and Luther staff voted on the poem, said Zuniga, who has been teaching at Luther since 2014.

“Students are formally introduced to her work in fourth grade, but this year, all students were introduced to her and the chosen poem and then practiced writing out words from the poem in their own style. These practice sheets were shared with the artist and lots of the ideas came from the student work,” she said. 

Students created a few artworks focusing on lettering and then Pinc and his wife, Cynthia Holt, keynoted a winter assembly to explain the project and rev up excitement among the students.

Over the course of about six days this spring, Pinc worked with them during art class so that each and every pupil had a hand in painting the mural.

“The students were so excited to paint on the walls of their school, and Jeremy rocked. He had great rapport with the kids,” Zuniga said. 

She added that it is important to highlight Niedecker’s work in the schools this way.

“It is a way to feel connected to the community. We are fostering learners who have a common knowledge and understanding of someone who was from the same community,” she said. 

Who was Niedecker?

Sharing Niedecker’s background and poetry during the dedication were Merrilee Lee, director of the Hoard Historical Museum in Fort Atkinson, and Amy Lutzke, assistant director of the Dwight Foster Public Library and a member of the Friends of Lorine Niedecker.

Lee noted that Niedecker, born May 12, 1903, was an only child who resided with her parents, Hank and Daisy, on Blackhawk Island along the Rock River, west of Fort Atkinson. They moved into town on Riverside Drive when she went to school.

Attending Caswell Elementary School, she dabbled in art, played piano and sang, and in fourth grade, she portrayed the fairy godmother in an operetta of “Cinderella.”

“In high school, her favorite class was English. Her teacher, Miss Daisy Lieberman, encouraged her writing. Unfortunately, Miss Lieberman died before Lorine published her first poetry book so Lorine was unable to share this accomplishment with her,” Lee said. 

Niedecker went to Beloit College after graduating from high school in 1922. However, she returned home after two years to help care for her mother, who had lost her hearing entirely.

Lee noted that while living back in Fort Atkinson, Niedecker took a job working at the Dwight Foster Public Library. She also wrote a column for the Daily Jefferson County Union titled: “Library Notes.”

During the Great Depression, Niedecker worked for the Works Progress Administration, returning afterward to Blackhawk Island.

“Her father had a small cabin built for her. This cabin has no bathroom or running water. It was one room and heated in winter by a coal/wood stove. This cabin still stands on Blackhawk Island,” Lee said. 

She continued: “Lorine loved nature: birds, water, flowers, trees. She lived for many years writing her poetry out of her cabin while working jobs at Hoard’s Dairyman and the Fort Atkinson hospital.”

Niedecker wrote in the Objectivist style and corresponded with several important poets of her time, including Louis Zukofsky, Cid Corman, Jonathan Williams and others, talking about poetry and sharing each others’ work.”

In 1963, Niedecker met Al Millen. They married later that year and she moved to Milwaukee with her husband. 

They built a new cottage closer to the river on the same property as her cabin, and moved there when Al retired.

“While married to Al, Lorine had the chance to travel that she had not before. She enjoyed trips to Door County, South Dakota and the north shore of Lake Superior.

“All this time, she continued writing her poetry. Several books of her poems were published before her death, but her fame did not come until after that time. Today she is recognized as an important 20^th century poet,” Lee said. 

Niedecker’s poetry

Lutzke told the students that Niedecker was a poet who “used words to paint pictures, to tell stories and to get people to think about things.

“She didn’t actually use a lot of words. She left out words that most of us would think about putting in, so that her poems were short and sometimes made you think, ‘what is she talking about?’ But sometimes she described things perfectly.”

She shared poems titled: “My Friend, Tree” and “Easter,” as well as the stanza on the first poetry wall downtown, which reads “Fish, fowl, flood. Waterlily mud. My life.”

Said Lutzke: “I think that you kind of get the feeling now that Fort Atkinson thinks that Lorine is pretty special. We have Lorine poetry in all of our schools; you guys are the final one. We are so excited that you did this. And we have Lorine poetry on walls downtown off of Main Street because the city of Fort Atkinson and people who live here think this is amazing. 

“Lorine is known around the world … in Japan, in Australia, in Great Britain. There are people who know who this person is and she’s from our town, Fort Atkinson. So that’s pretty special.”

Referring back to the first poetry wall and its stanza from “Paean to Place,” Lutzke noted that Niedecker said a lot in only seven words.

“We like to ask people to think about themselves and if you were describing your life in seven words, what would your seven words be? So think about that,” she said.

Six fourth-grade students who studied Niedecker in their poetry unit already had written about their own lives, and they shared their poems Friday.

They included Andrew Snethen, Elodie Thiess, Lucio Salazar, Finn Kidd, Tonkhao Daosuk and Ameleigha Burkhalter.