Carol Bly- April 16, 1930 – December 21, 2007- In Remembrance
Remarkably self-assured, insightful, not afraid to “rock-the-boat,” Carol was remembered for stories revealing the moral substance of small town Minnesotans, characters literally born on a family farm in the 1950’s and 60’s. She raised four children in Madison, known nationally as the "Lutefisk Capital” of Lac Qui Parle County. With no running water and a library filled with over 5,000 books, Carol and her husband, Robert Bly, now Poet Laureate of Minnesota wrote instead of watch television, to become two of the most important stakeholders in Minnesota literary history.
Carol’s stories did not skim the surface of country life’s mundane farm routines, coffee klatches and church socials; no, they revealed her penitent for frankness and an unswerving logical bent, scripted in extraordinarily hopeful prose. She was truly a navigator of ethical/moral thinking, reaching out to describe societal inequities…. the jerks, bullies, losses and ironies of country life.
Bly’s column for Minnesota Public Radio,
A Letter from the Country, was eventually published as
Letters from the Country in 1981. From “Lost Swede Towns“ to “Turning Ploughshares back into Swords,” Bly’s craft is a mix of secular, sociology and story.
In the chapter “Thinking Over Things at Christmas,” Carol describes a country household and what might happen when the man of the house comes home,” If men could succeed in recognizing that, they would win for themselves the old joy of quietly thinking about things. What happens, however, is that man returns home, excited by the shadow material that has been seen and said—he drives home really excited. The sodium lighted Main Street and the crescent –shaped pile of plowed snow around a car that wasn’t moved off before the plow came by and the gritted railroad tracks at the level crossing—all this feels like his own country and he is intact, in a glittering, frantic way. It is what is called having had a pretty good drunk.”
Carol’s exploration of this country couple’s interaction reveals a concealed reality, the universally accepted societal value that is immune from questioning: secreted abuse in a hidden vow of faithfulness. She wrote, “Then he arrives home and his wife, whether she spent the evening with him or waited at home, is snapped into her civilization holding stance. A drunk, idol-smashing man is a threat to civilization: he will uncover the one-third sacred subject she tries to suppress under family cheer; he will force her into thought instead of reverence. In a word she is terrified. She snaps at him…… If we are producing this scene over and over in our countryside we have a very mean side to our society. “
Interested in human underpinnings she peeled away surface layers to find out what lie underneath— describing those qualities in metaphor, moments when we truly become the best of our social, psychological frame, or lack of— what ultimately determines the existence of an ethical backbone. How do we act when we don’t have to, and how do we when we have no choice? Carol wrote it is in a” firing range, that a shooter’s aim is tested.”
Carol was a proponent of social psychology and in the forward of
Changing the Bully Who Rules the World,”
Reading & Thinking about Ethics, she assailed bullies, “For centuries bullies in high places have felt entitled to push other people around. They have felt entitled to cheat little people of their life earnings. Now that there is some technology for changing their behavior, I suggest we pick it up and use it. Perhaps, soon, white-collar bullying, like slavery, will not longer be acceptable.”
The introduction to
Changing the Bully explains a new approach to a social science problem, by way of stories, essays and poems through ethical conversion. With atypical ironic humor Carol wrote, “Just when you realize you are having a moral feeling, and that it has filled your whole sail, it evaporates like small gusts of dusk.”
Her impassioned prose is instructional in that it never fails to point out the hard truths, leading us through memorable scenes which at their core reveal we are all part of a societal network fraught with what she termed “sacred-cowism” or “mere fluttering of feelings” rather than “actual thinking” upon which to take action. She wrote to morally engage us as readers. In a chapter of
Changing the Bully, “Genuine Jerks and Genuine Jerk Organizations” Carol wrote, “As soon as we wake up ethically, nothing again is clean cut.”
Carol was a frequent speaker at events held by Writers Rising Up.
Victoria Pellar Price
Photo Credit- Earthday 2006 Workshop with Bill Holm, Minnesota Landscape Arboretum
Photo: Victoria Pellar Price
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