Poetic Obituaries: When his creative-writing students at

Southwest Minnesota State University complained one day of having nothing to write about, he pointed to one of the ubiquitous black-and-orange insects. "You could write a million poems about that box elder bug," he told them.

To prove his point, [Bill] Holm went home and wrote a "bunch of poems about that box elder bug," said John Calvin Rezmerski, a poet and longtime friend. "Then it occurred to him that a box elder bug could be a metaphor for everything in our culture." Holm's book, "Boxelder Bug Variations: A Meditation on an Idea in Language and Music," was published in 1985.

from Pioneer Press: Writer Bill Holm, 65: The quintessential Minnesotan, 'bigger than life'
also MinnPost: Minnesota mourns the loss of author Bill Holm

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