The Latest
from Ex Machina
A South Dakota Success Story
Gonzie and Shorty and the Big Cheese
When Swiss immigrant Alfred Gonzenbach meandered into Milbank, S.D., one day in October of 1928, on his way to Montana, neither he nor anyone else could have predicted what a stop for gasoline and overnight lodging would eventually bring. What transpired in the next couple days changed things forever for Gonzenbach and his partner and compatriot Alfred Nef and for the community of Milbank.
Valley Queen: The Birth and Growth of an American Dream tells the absorbing story of what that chance encounter led to. It is the story of hard work, skill, and adaptation, eventuating in one of South Dakota's most successful businesses. But most of all it is a family story, recounting how the Gozenbachs and the Nefs knitted into a seamless whole and together united with employees, customers, business associates, and the community of Milbank in an enterprise beneficial to all.
The volume has all the earmarks of a handsome coffee-table book, with color illustrations by popular South Dakota artists Mary Groth and Marian Henjum, color photographs by Bill Goerhing, and scads of historic photographs, sidebars, and documents that chronicle the rocket-like rise of Valley Queen. But it's the story that rules.
Expanding upon his article in the September-October 2006 issue of South Dakota Magazine, Ron Robinson relishes the ironies and conflicts of how two guys named Alfred, who became known affectionately as "Gonzie" and "Shorty," stumbled onto a good thing in Milbank, fought against the economic ebb-tide of the depression, and handed the factory to a second and then a third generation, with each generation contributing to growing success. But the book is not just about a business venture, fascinating as that is. It includes the humor of immigrants running up against American customs, a love story about a man and a woman kept apart by distance and bureaucracy during the Nazi era, the allure of small-town America, the comically casual passing of the baton to later generations, and enduring ties to European roots.
From the two Alfreds through the deft leadership of sons Max Gonzenbach and Rudy Nef, to the third generation advancement of Dave Gonzenbach and Mark Leddy, Valley Queen has led the way in the technology and art of cheesemaking, and winning it awards and international recognition. Within these pages lies the inspiring record of that journey, the challenges met along the way, and the ultimate rewards garnered.
Valley Queen Cheese: The Birth and Growth of an American Dream, non fiction, hard cover, wide format, $29.95,
ISBN 978-0-944287-28-6.
* Dealers: ask about modified discounts.
Poetry by Michael Larson
A Quest for Lasting Truths
in an Ephemeral World
Michael Larson's premiere collection of poetry explores the life lessons resonating in halls of memory, in private quarters of joy and grief, and in soaring cathedrals of faith. In the fleeting, flickering age of communication, What We Wish We Knew reaffirms the artist's reliance on communion, the shared experience of lucid moments that serve both to question and to comfort.
Readers will recognize their own mortality, their own doubts and fears, their own unsteady steps toward enlightenment, and their own moments of revelation and reassurance. While Larson is haunted by his particular wraiths and informed by his Catholicism, by his north country upbringing, and by his probing intellect, his poetic offerings are easily acknowledged as unique and courageous takes on humankind's shared experience.
"A powerful book of poems--"
"The poems in What We Wish We Knew spring from different
sources--Michael Larson's observations of the natural world, his
meditations on the lives of saints, the memory of his sister's losing
bout with cancer--but a deep bass-line of grief makes the several
parts cohere. While the melody of the book, then, moves its readers
from joy to wonder to sorrow to places in-between, it's a music
grounded in the impossible human yearning to know the world
completely and to understand suffering, to accept this impossibility
even as Larson attempts to see beyond 'a secret in the world /
where I keep watch.' The sequence of poems devoted to his sister
typifies the entire effort: They don't ask why, but rather honor
what is and was. They don't indulge sentimentality, but rather look
for mystery and the road it continually opens to the spirit. Poem-
to-poem, Larson is courageous enough to take the difficult position,
and the payoff for us is a powerful book of poems."
--Richard Robbins
author of Famous Persons We Have Known
"These poems are enlightened by a holy sorrow seldom expressed
in contemporary poetry. Larson is a gifted confessionalist who
transforms scars into signs of hope."
--David Athey
author of Hunting and Gathering Heaven
"There's a haunting, compelling voice in Michael Larson's poems.
These poems are certain yet uncertain at the same time, searching
for light in a sometimes dark world."
--Bill Meissner
author of American Compass (poetry)
and Hitting into the Wind (fiction)
"'Poetry is as good as it is dramatic,' Robert Frost used to say.
Michael Larson understands Frost's valuable dictum. . . . This is a
fine first book of poems."
--David Allan Evans
Poet Laureate of South Dakota
author of The Bull Rider's Advice
A native of Minnesota, Larson earned the MFA in poetry from the University of Arkansas and the MA in literature from St. Cloud State University. He currently teaches English at Minnesota State College - Southeast Technical, in Winona. He is married and has three children.
Larson's poetry has been widely published by such notable journals as North American Review and Yankee. Other journals in which items from this collection have appeared include Great River Review, Loonfeather, Mankato Poetry Review, Minnesota Ink, Minnesota Monthly, National Forum, New North Artscape, Passages North, Seeds in the Black Earth, Texas Review, The Christian Century, The Comstock Review, and Wisconsin Review. A chapbook, The Light Remaining, published by New Spirit Press, is also to Larson's credit.
Recognition and awards for Larson's work include a fellowship in poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts, First Prize for the 1993 Borders/Loft/Minnesota Monthly Poetry Contest, Second Prize for the 1994 Milton Center Poetry Contest, Finalist in the 2001 Comstock Review Contest, and Honorary Mention in the 2002 James Hearst Poetry Prize.
What We Wish We Knew is the first of what promises to be a long list of collections from a poet of extraordinary insight and eloquent artistry.
What We Wish We New, poetry, trade paper, 80 pages, $15.95,
ISBN 0-944287-26-3.
* May be ordered in quantity at discount
by qualified dealers.
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