The daughter of an international financier, Mona Martinsen was a tall, striking, visionary sculptor studying in Paris with the renowned Auguste Rodin. The son of an American pioneer family on the Great Plains, John G. Neihardt was a short, brilliant, but impoverished poet and writer. It seemed like a colossal mismatch, yet both were irresistibly drawn to the same things. In the beginning as in the end, it was a passion for beauty and a celebration of the marvelous that bound Mona and John.
While studying sculpture and exhibiting in Paris, Mona Martinsen was captivated by a little book of poems, A Bundle of Myrrh, a gift from her mother. Mona wrote to the young poet, he replied, and through a series of letters the poet in Bancroft, Nebraska, and the sculptor in Paris, France, discovered much in common. Drawing on correspondence, interviews, archival research, and her own memories, Hilda Martinsen Neihardt tells the story of how the sculptor and the poet met, fell in love, raised a family, and grew old together. Warm and revealing, this timeless love story will delight the admirers of John G. Neihardt and illuminate the life and work of the artist Mona Martinsen.
Hilda Martinsen Neihardt (1916-2004) was the daughter of John G. Neihardt and Mona Martinsen. She is the author of Black Elk and Flaming Rainbow: Personal Memories of the Lakota Holy Man and John Neihardt and the editor of Black Elk Lives: Conversations with the Black Elk Family, both available in Bison Books editions.