Mark Gustafson, Minneapolis-based biographer of poet, translator and men’s movement founder Robert Bly, launches “Sowing Seeds: The Minnesota Literary Renaissance & Robert Bly, 1958-1980” this week. Gustafson, who first attended a Bly reading in 1972 as a student at St Olaf College in Northfield, offers a wide-ranging examination of Bly’s influence on poetry and how he prepared the soil for what is now our vibrant literary community. Here was a man who kicked out the old, stuffy poetry and called attention to new poets from other countries. And he did it while working out of a farm in Madison, Minn., considered at the time to be frigid flyover country. (Courtesy of Calumet Editions) Gustafson sets Bly in the context of his times, tracing the growth of the counterculture in Dinkytown and the West Bank, from Bob Dylan and folk music to McCosh’s and Savaran’s bookstores, as well as the anti-Vietnam War “mimeograph revolution.” He writes of the founding of the Loft literary center, literary magazines inspired by Bly’s influential The Fifties/Sixties, and the arrival of literary presses such as Graywolf and Coffee House. “Bly continued to be present, viable and crucial during these two decades,” Gustafson writes. “And he was anything but static — he was continually evolving as a poet on his own, innovating, moving more deeply wherever his curiosity and his uncanny sense of salience took him. As his reputation and sway across the nation grew over the years, that personal gain was a public asset for the good of poets in Minnesota, literary culture-makers themselves. He continued to devote huge amounts of time, energy and imagination to learning, sowing, encouraging, generating and advocating. He was looking far into tomorrow, generations ahead, to posterity, to us and beyond.” Cultural critic Lewis Hyde writes that in Gustafson’s book “Robert Bly appears … as if he were an early settler in a newly discovered continent. He didn’t just build himself a house here, he invited scores of others to join him until a new and thriving nation arose on fields no one previously thought to cultivate.” Poets will be interested in Gustafson’s discussions of Bly’s deep-image poetry and how he influenced young poets such as Patricia Hampl and Bill Holm. Readers most interested in today’s literary community will enjoy this look at what has happened since Bly sowed the seeds that produced a flowering culture. Gustafson has written 10 essays about Bly, who died in 2021, as well as a biography, “The Odin House Harvest,” and the narrative book “Born Under the Sign of Odin.” He will read from “Sowing Seeds” (Wisdom/Calumet Editions) at 7 p.m. Tuesday at Eat My Words bookstore, 214 13th Ave. N.E., Mpls. Related Articles Books | Willie Nelson on his new album, cannabis cookbook, Kris Kristofferson and what makes a good song Books | Literary pick for week of Nov. 3: ‘Muus. vs. Muus’ Books | Literary calendar for week of Nov. 3: ‘I cheerfully refuse’ Books | Readers and writers: Minnesota books for kids, starting with a tough one Books | An ‘Impossible’ book that US readers can now read