Robert Bly, Madison’ native son and Minnesota’s first Poet Laureate, donated the building he used as a study when he lived on his farm south of Madison.  Heritage Day 2022 was used as a fundraiser to advance funds to preserve the Robert Bly Study. The Heritage Day program premiered the video documentary entitled Robert and Carol Bly, Literary Legends of the Prairie. The Study includes collections of Bly books, artifacts, and pictures about the state’s first poet laureate. The windows and siding have been replaced. We want to thank those who contributed to the fund, especially Robert and Carol’s children Bridget, Mary, Noah, and Micah, and Ruth Bly, Roberts second wife. New visual & auditory art objects have been installed in the exhibit, also.

“The studio was hauled over to the Lac qui Parle County Museum [in 1999] with Bly’s books and furniture intact. It is where Bly wrote ‘Silence in the Snowy Fields’ and where his four children played on the wooden floor, separated from their father by a curtain so that Bly could think.” Laurie Hertzel, The Poet Comes Home, Star Tribune, September 30, 2009.

Additional information is available at robertbly.com