I DON’T READ MUCH POETRY. I probably shouldn’t admit that given I’m a published poet. But I suspect most of you also are not big poetry readers. Yet, we all should be, especially me.
Poetry offers a creative way to view the world, to experience life, eliciting a whole range of emotional responses that connect us to each other, to the earth, to the past and present, and much more. I get excited when I discover a poet whose work truly resonates with me. And that would be the poetry of Northfielder Becky Boling.
A year ago, I met Boling when she dropped off a copy of the anthology, We Look West, a collaboration of the Poets of the Northfield Public Library. It includes her work and that of four other talented poets. I love the collection which takes the reader from the sunrise to the sunset of life. The poetry therein is so understandable and relatable.
In May 2024, Boling, I and several other poets participated in a community poetry reading for the “Poetry in a Bag” project coordinated by Mercado Local, a Northfield marketplace for immigrants. Our poems were printed, rolled and bagged before distribution within our communities.
I would see Boling again in September 2024, when she and the other Northfield poets read from We Look West at Books on Central, a Rice County Area United Way used bookshop in Faribault.
Somewhere along the line, I discovered that Boling’s “Pandemic Haiku” had published in This Was 2020—Minnesotans Write About Pandemics and Social Justice in a Historic Year. My poem, “Funeral During a Pandemic,” was chosen for publication in that same anthology during a competitive process. That book would go on to win the 2021 Minnesota Author Project Award in the Communities Create category.
Because of those shared experiences, shared publications and shared love of words, I feel a sisterhood with Boling. So when she asked if I wanted a copy of her first solo poetry collection, I responded with an enthusiastic, “Yes!” Within the pages of Here Beyond Small Wonders, I found what I’ve come to expect from Boling—detailed writing, often about the most ordinary subjects—a dead mouse, a fly, walnuts… Topics you may not even consider poetry-worthy. But Boling has this ability to observe and engage all of her senses to craft words into connective, meaningful poetry.
In her poem “Snow Pond,” she defines poetry: Poetry, like freezing temps, seizes the moment, recasts it—through the physics of sight, memory, language—resurrects it anew into patterns, sound and light, marks on a snowy page that glisten and melt on tongue, alight on the inner eye. That definition of poetry is among the best I’ve read, because it is poetry.
Anyone who writes poetry recognizes the challenges of finding just the right word, of stringing words together in a new, creative and succinct way, of connecting on an emotional level. But Boling makes the process look easy, taking the reader along with her, whether into her yard or onto the sandy shores of Lake Michigan. In her poem “Clothesline,” she writes of beach towels dancing in the wind. She takes the reader to the beach, to the sights, scents and sounds along the inland sea. I feel her fingertips unclipping the dried towels at end of day as she gathers them like weary babes into my open arms. I did not see that end coming. That element of surprise is, too, a mark of a gifted poet.
Her “Adirondack Chair in Snow” is another favorite of mine in Boling’s collection of 37 poems published by Finishing Line Press. She writes of the typically-lakefront chair wedged into a snowbank outside her mother’s apartment building. But this poem is about so much more than an out-of-place chair buried in snow. Boling uses personification to write about her mother. In those six verses, I found myself missing my own mom, who died during the pandemic in January 2022. Boling’s emotions, my emotions, weave together in her writing and in my reaction.
In one of her longest poems, Boling writes about the transition to autumn in “Persephone’s Bouquet.” Unfamiliar with this Greek goddess, I learned that Persephone’s descent into the underworld is associated with the start of winter. Autumn themes Boling’s poem as the author gathers hot-pepper reds, creamy yellows…brazen scarlet…leaves, something I also enjoy doing in fall. But this is a poem about life, too, not just about a change in seasons. Plus, the poem connects to the cover of Here Beyond Small Wonders, Boling’s own autumn leaf art.
Her first collection of poems is about nature and place and seasons and life. Moments experienced. Details noticed right down to a tar-dark county road…horse flies, green heads glistening in the sun…reedy breath trembling into song. Boling, in her words, opens herself to a pool of words. And I, for one, embrace her poetic writing.
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FYI: Becky Boling is a retired professor of Spanish and Latin American literature at Carleton College in Northfield. Her poetry and prose have been widely-published in literary journals and anthologies. She also served as a Co-Poet Laureate of Northfield. Click here to find Here Beyond Small Wonders on the Finishing Line Press website.
© Copyright 2025 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
Minnesota Prairie Roots 
Commentary: No longer free to speak, to… April 11, 2025
Tags: college campuses, commentary, detained students, Freeborn County, freedom of speech, international students, Mankato, Minnesota, Minnesota State University Mankato, opinion, protests, student newspaper, The Reporter, visa revoked
IN THE 1970s, students at my alma mater, Minnesota State University, Mankato, protested the Vietnam War. Today MSU students are protesting the detainment of an international student and the revocation of visas for five others who attend this southern Minnesota college where I studied journalism.
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has also detained a student from Riverland Community College in Austin, Minnesota, and from the University of Minnesota in the Twin Cities. Other international students from colleges across the state have also had their visas revoked. The same is happening at college campuses throughout the country. Students snatched off the street, from their apartments, by ICE. Pffff, gone, just like that with no explanation and no initial access to their friends, families and legal assistance. This does not sound like the United States of America I’ve called home my entire life.
I’m not privy to specifics on why particular international students were targeted. But I have read and heard enough reliable media reports to recognize that these are likely not individuals committing terrible crimes, if any crime. In most cases they have done nothing more than voice their opinions whether at a protest or via social media. College campuses have always been a place for students to speak up, to exercise freedom of speech, to be heard. To protest.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has labeled students with revoked visas as “lunatics.” Really? Name-calling doesn’t impress me. Nor do actions to intimidate, instill fear and silence voices.
I’m grateful that student journalists at The Reporter, the Mankato State student newspaper where I worked while in college, are aggressively covering this issue. In particular, I reference the article “SCARED TO LEAVE MY HOUSE’—Mavericks react to ICE-detained student, what’s being done by Emma Johnson. She interviews international students who, for their own protection, chose to remain anonymous. It’s chilling to read their words. Words of fear. Words of disbelief and disappointment in a country where they once felt safe and free. The place where they chose to pursue their education, jumping through all the necessary legal hoops to do so. And now they fear speaking up and are asking their American classmates and others to do so for them. So I am.
MSU students, staff and community members have rallied to support their international community and to voice their opposition to ICE’s action. In neighboring Albert Lea, where the MSU student is being held in the Freeborn County Jail, a crowd gathered on Thursday to protest ICE action against international students. Of course, not everyone agrees with the protesters and it is their choice to disagree. They can. They are not international students here on visas.
I should note that the sheriffs in Freeborn County and four other Minnesota counties—Cass, Crow Wing, Itasca and Jackson—this week signed agreements to cooperate with ICE.
These are troubling times. In my life-time, this has always been a nation where we’ve been able to freely express ourselves, where that freedom has been valued. We can agree to disagree. Respectfully. Without name-calling. Without the fear of suppression, retaliation and/or imprisonment. But I see that changing. Daily. And that, my friends, is cause for deep concern.
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NOTE: I welcome respectful conversation. That said, this is my personal blog and I moderate and screen all comments.
© Copyright 2025 Audrey Kletscher Helbling