A Prairie Home Companion from American Public Media: First Person

How Do You Write Poetry?
by Jen Broders
December 20, 2006

How do you write poetry?

You listen to the grass
and the cows.

You watch Ed with the shovel
digging weeds from the pasture.
You see the sweat bead on his upper lip
and watch as he turns

to get one last sourdock or thistle.

You feel the sun on your face,
feel your feet
in the bottom of your too-big boots.

You sit on a clump of gamma grass
that the cows dined on yesterday
and you watch
as they come near the fence,
near where you sit,
listening,
to birdsong,
to Ed walking through the grass,
to the wind washing over and around you.

About the author:
I teach junior high social studies, though I taught English for several years also. My husband and I have an organic farm in east-central Iowa. I began writing poetry again, after a hiatus of too many years, in the summer of 2005 after our hay shed burned. Somehow, after that event, it seemed important to me to write about where we lived and our farm, to preserve what is important to me: living on a small family farm, maintaining my connections to the land, being a part of something important. Everyone always says "write what you know." For too many years I tried to ignore what I knew, thinking it wasn't important. But now I realize that being here, on this farm and writing about what I see, is one of the most important things I could do. Thank you for the opportunity to share my poetry.