A post about a marvelous writing workshop at the Keokuk Art Center Round Room Galleries.

with Kelsey Bigelow

Tuesday, March 5, 2024, by Barb Edler

Some of the writing participants are pictured here. I forgot to take a photo while we were workshopping! Ugh!

Photo by Barb Edler, March 4, 2024

I have a series of events scheduled for Mondays in March. Yesterday was the first day of the series that featured Kelsey Bigelow, a spoken word and page poet. She opened the workshop by reciting one of her poems. She’s a published and remarkable writer. Her poetry shares the loss of her mother at a young age, heartbreaks, and basically navigating life when you’ve been seriously wounded.

To begin the workshop, she offered several ways for the participants to find a poem. I chose the option to free write, and I focused on a time in my life where I learned what it was like to live on a farm. Sure, I’d been on farms, and I love nature, but living on a farm is far different than visiting a farm. I captured so many memories in that short period of time and created the following free verse poem draft that I hope you will appreciate:)

City Girl’s Baptism

I remember 

being 
baptized into farm life
its fertile water trough
silos, barns, and chicken coop
rabbits penned inside
chickens attacked outside
spooky cat in the rafters
dead lambs
mice and rats

learning
heat and poverty
navigating tractors
bailing hay
docking lambs
walking beans
driving a stick shift
breakfast, lunch, dinner, lunch, supper
making gravy

hearing
wandering cows mooing
outside the late night window
smelling fresh cut hay and manure
Joker’s warning bark alerting
me to rise from my warm bed 
to witness a UFO hovering
at the end of the long lane
its bright lights suddenly ascending

By Barb Edler

I’m sure I’ll continue messing with this poem, but I might also leave it as is. One thing that I wonder about is whether I should add something after the last line such as adding a space and rewriting “I remember” so that the poem is framed. Feel free to share your thoughts. Happy Tuesday, Slicers!