The Idea of the Local Other Essays

The essays in The Idea of the Local continue Montag's exploration of place and places, of people in place and the ghosts on the landscape, as Montag pays patient attention to where he is and where we are, believing that however much we might shape a place we are also shaped by it, indelibly. Here he examines some of the ways our places make us who we are. ~ An Iowa-born poet and essayist who has resided in Fairwater, Wisconsin, for more than thirty years, Montag wonders how, in the face of the farmer's silence he knew in his youth, any farm-boy ever comes to speech, much less to writing. His sensibility was marked early on by the directness of experience in his farm childhood and by the longing which comes of watching the far horizon. ~ The Idea of the Local is divided into three sections. The first, "Riding with the Local Used Cow Dealer," gathers profiles of seven people in relation to the places they inhabit (or inhabited, as some are historical profiles). The second part, "Being Here," brings together moments and mementos from Montag's home ground in Fairwater. And the final section, "The Idea of the Local," reveals other places Montag has visited and seen deeply into. Altogether the essays illustrate the idea of the local and may help readers to understand their own places in new ways.

Tom Montag is a middlewestern poet and essayist who has lived in Wisconsin since 1965. Curlew: Home (Midday Moon Books, 2001) is his memoir of growing up on an Iowa farm during the 1950s. Kissing Poetry's Sister (Joint Venture, 2002) is a collection of Montag's essays about writing and being a writer. The Sweet Bite of Morning (Juniper Press, 2003) showcases nineteen poems from the on-going series "Plain Poems: A Fairwater Daybook." The Big Book of Ben Zen (MWPH Books, 2004) brings together the 268 Ben Zen poems that Montag wishes to preserve. Montag recently co-authored with Peter Pizzino the memoir Peter's Story: Growing Up in Milwaukee's Third Ward during the 1920s & 1930s. His current prose project, a five-year examination of what makes us middlewestern, is called "Vagabond In the Middle."