"I really can't remember when I wrote my first poem ... I can't even remember the last one I wrote!" quipped Kay Karras, 89 years young, and the first soon-to-be Poet Laureate of the Village of Solon Springs, Wisconsin. Writing poetry has always been an essential part of her life.

Kay, sporting one of her trademark baseball caps, talked quietly and humbly about this award that will be presented to her on July 10, 2007, 1 p.m., at the Solon Springs Community Center by Pat Cosgrove, President of the Solon Springs Village Board.

She's not sure that she deserves this public recognition, citing other members of the St. Croix Writers Group she feels are excellent poets. Kay is more comfortable simply being a part of this group instead of being singled out for individual attention.

Members of the St. Croix Writers, however, are thrilled with Kay's upcoming, well-deserved honor. They, and many others who have read her remarkable poetry, have been deeply touched by the words that seem to magically flow from this charter member of the St. Croix Writers of Solon Springs.

According to Jo Stewart, St. Croix Writers Group Leader, "Like Shakespeare, Kay's writing mixes the beautiful with the bawdy-not in the same poem of course!"

Member Agnes Kennard notes that "Her poetry charms, flowing gently across the paper, carrying the reader along in its current, evoking deep personal emotions with the simplest of words and expression. She is blessed with an innate talent for poetry, an ear for rhyme and rhythm, and a soul full of appreciation for nature which she weaves skillfully into her writings."

And Cathy (C.J.) Swanson, one of Kay's long-time neighbors, reflects that "Kay has always been my friend, my mother, my sister, my grandma ... all the women I have ever loved in my life rolled into one Santa Claus 'winking back at me' gal! She is (all of) that for many ...."

For 18 years now, Kay has rarely missed a weekly meeting of this dynamic and close-knit group of writers, all of whom she considers to be her good friends. Here, she says, she draws inspiration for her own writing. It's always a treat when Kay reads from one of her four published chapbooks of poetry. The first, Along the Roads of Yesteryear, captures a deep sense of nostalgia and includes some of her childhood poems. This was followed by Misty Memories and Hidden Harvest. In 1995 the "other side" of Kay emerged. Her wickedly wonderful sense of humor surfaced within the pages of Loony Limericks by Kay Karras!

Kay's eloquent and thought-provoking poetry may at first seem to contrast with the simple lifestyle that she has chosen for herself in the "backwoods" of Northwest Wisconsin. Her family of origin was one of the pioneering families settling in this relatively untamed wilderness at the turn of the last century.

Kay (Kathryn Ramel) was born on a farm 3 1/2 miles west of Solon Springs, WI, the youngest of a family of 15 children. This did not include nieces and nephews who frequently resided with them over the years. She recalls speaking only German until she began school at age five, her first country schoolhouse, and walking 3 1/2 miles to attend high school. In the winter a team of horses was sometimes used to transport the children to school.

Home on the farm, she had chores to do, such as helping to milk the cows. At times, a frisky young Kay enjoyed squirting milk at the barn cats who thoroughly enjoyed the treat! In the summer her family "rolled up the carpet" and had dances in their big, old farmhouse. Many of her siblings played instruments, all by ear-piano, violin, saxophone, drums. It was a good life, life touched by and dependent upon nature.

As she grew up, and ever since then, Kay has written poetry-amazing poetry that touches the soul, tugs at the edges of our current realities, and encourages us to expand our thinking, to venture out beyond this world as we know it. This has always been an integral part of her life.

Her first published poems, "Burnin' Brush" and "America's Youth," appeared in 1942 in a poetry anthology titled Hear Us America.

I asked Kay where her gift came from. Perhaps, she replied, from her mother who frequently recited lines of poetry to her throughout her childhood. These poems were frequently characterized by a strange combination of English and German as families like hers adapted to their new culture. Kay also found inspiration in those early years through poets like Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

During her school days in Solon Springs, poetry was an important part of the curriculum. Each month, Kay and her fellow classmates had to learn about and to recite a poem by memory. At the end of the school year, pupils were selected to stand up and recite, by memory, all of the poems for the entire year. Kay was one of those students.

Almost 57 years ago, Kay met her future husband, James Karras of Bennett, WI, at a church social. Shortly after their marriage they set out to see the world beyond Northwest Wisconsin. They drove all the way to Alaska, then down the west coast to northern California where James briefly worked in a gold mine. In the fall, they found themselves in northern Idaho that year amongst spectacular leaves of many colors. Here, they became overwhelmed with homesickness for the changing seasons of Northwest Wisconsin and decided to head back home to their mutual roots. They bought an old farm in Bennett, just north of Solon Springs where they raised beef cattle and bought additional acreage until they held 520 acres. Here, they raised three children-a son and a daughter, both of whom continue to live and farm on land adjacent to the old farm, and their youngest daughter who resides in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Kay and husband James still live in the old farmhouse in Bennett which she figures was built around 1918. During one of their first remodeling projects, they discovered an old 1918 Sears Roebuck catalog hidden between the wall joists. Coincidentally, 1918 was also the year that Kay was born at her family's old farmhouse in nearby Solon Springs.

Kay and her family have lived a relatively simple life here in Northwest Wisconsin, compared with the rat race of much of today's urban world. Yet, the truths that Kay has discovered here and documented within her poetry reflect an age-old understanding and wisdom that could help us all to cope with today's troubled world.

Themes that surface frequently in her work include the beauty and the power of nature, spirituality, and wildlife. From "winds whispering in the white pines" to "dream travel," "ghost paths," "rivers laughing in the moonlight," and "phantoms of the farm," Kay has found a way through her verse to connect past, present, and future. She has found a way to bring us all back to a simpler time, to ideas and values that transcend life as we know it.

Why does she write? Perhaps one of her own poems, "All of God's Nature," (Misty Memories collection) best captures her obsession:

At age 89, Kay is still writing, and I suspect that she always will be. She says that she "writes from the heart," when she is inspired. Perhaps this is the reason her writing has such a profound impact upon her readers, raders who can identify with her words and still find space to adapt and apply them in better understanding their own unique situations in life.

While she admits to having "writer's block" over the past year (don't we all?), Kay has plans for the future. She'd like to publish one more book of her more recent poems and short stories. She hopes to expand one of her poems, "To Goodhue," into a children's illustrated story in collaboration with daughter Mary Ann, an artist who is also the subject of this poem.

In addition to her prolific, though relatively private, writing career, Kay keeps busy these days as an active member of the Garden Club, Birthday Club, St. Croix Writers, and Luna Chicks (a local group that meets each month to celebrate the full moon). She still drives her own car, 45 miles each way, to visit her last surviving sibling in Spooner, WI, now age 97. Kay, in fact, just passed her latest driver's license exam and had her license renewed for 8 more years!

Her "words of wisdom to the world"? While she does not see herself as an expert in any way, some of the lessons that she has learned in her 89 years upon this earth include the following:

"Think positive" and remember that...

Without the depths of sorrow, how can we measure the heights of joy?

The St. Croix Writers and the communities of Solon Springs and Northwest Wisconsin are pleased and honored to have Kay Karras represent us all as the very first Poet Lauerate of Solon Springs!

[See a selection of Kay Karras' poetry.]