“Small Engine Repair”
Thirty-Five Years of the Annual Conference on the Great Mother and the New Father, Organized by Robert Bly
“When asked what kind of conference she had attended, what the topic had been, she learned to say, ‘Small engine repair.' A conference on small engine repair.’ That, she said, always shut them up. And each time she would tell the story she would reach up with her right hand, tapping that small engine – the heart.”
Personal account by John Rosenwald, with help from Jeanne D’Amico, Fran Quinn, Andrew Dick, Ann Arbor, and others Commissioned by the University of Minnesota Libraries for their Celebration “Robert Bly In This World” — Minneapolis, April 2009
This collection of personal accounts, originally commissioned by the University of Minnesota Libraries in 2009, offers a deep historic reflection on, and personal window into, what the Conference has meant for its attendees over these (now fifty!) years. While by no means required reading, the contents of these pages may help lend some context to the current space that the Conference is, however mercurial a beast this gathering may be.
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