TRIBUTE TO WILLA CATHER

(Senate - May 21, 1998)

Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, writer Willa Cather fashioned from her experiences uncommon stories of the character of Nebraska's people and landscapes. It is my pleasure to pay tribute to Cather because, like many Nebraskans, her writing continues to inspire me.

This year, we celebrate three major anniversaries in Cather's life. Seventy-five years ago, Cather won the Pulitzer Prize for `One of Ours.' One of her best known novels, `My Antonia,' will have its 80th anniversary on September 21st. Finally, December 7th marks the 125th anniversary of her birth.

Cather's writings illustrate a Nebraska of stark landscapes, epic frontiers, and mysterious grandeur. Her characters are often placed in a Nebraska panorama to which Cather gave breathtaking expression. Shortly after moving from the east to Nebraska at the age of nine, Cather realized that that shaggy grass country had gripped me with a passion I have never been able to shake. It has been the happiness and the curse of my life.'

For Cather in `My Antonia,' Nebraska is raw and vast, the material out of which countries are made. . . naked as the back of your hand.' Out of the passion she felt for Nebraska's materials, Cather wrote with unparalleled sensitivity about the soil, trees, and wildflowers of the landscape. In The `Song of the Lark,' the cottonwoods are the light-reflecting, wind-loving trees of the desert, whose roots are always seeking water and whose leaves are always talking about it, making the sound of rain.'

The inhabitants of the land are connected to and determined by this landscape. Thus, in many of Cather's novels, the character is a pioneer, whether literally or as artist, one breaking new ground, finding his or her own path, creating his or her own landscape. In the hands of Cather's sparse and evocative prose, questions of the pioneering self shaped by experience and tested by difficulty indicate Cather's commitment through her characters to integrity.

Readers continue to feel the special relationship between the wonder of Nebraska and the dignity of its people through Cather's well known novels `O Pioneers, My Antonia, One Of Ours,' and `Death Comes for the Archbishop,' as well as her poetry and other stories. I invite you to join me in honoring Willa Cather on the 75th anniversary of her Pulitzer Prize, the 80th anniversary of `My Antonia,' and in memory of her 125th birthday.