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By Lindy Obach | 01/22/2018 | 6 Comments

Poetry of Place

I am a place poet. I write about pink interstates and shorn ditches and abandoned homesteads and big rivers and cracked driveways. I write about the way the first golden light breaks over the early prairie as I drive west on I-90 in October. I write about the garbageman who predictably ushers away my recycling every other Thursday. I write about impossibly big pelicans dropping onto a seagull-dense Wall Lake.

If I could, if mortgages and student loans and pawing through JC Penney clearance racks for work clothes and grocery lists weren’t things in my life, I would spend all my time outside, walking the land with my dog, Banjo. In every season, a place poet can find something to write about, but I think I like winter best. I feel more confident about my explorations when everything is snow-covered. Are there sticky cockleburs, badgers waiting in a hole, or startled garter snakes? Doesn’t matter. The snow is a barrier that allows me to step more freely, unthinkingly. Other seasons, I have to walk around water. In the winter, I get to walk on water. I get to stand where blue-winged teals dabble and canvasbacks dive. In the winter, I feel taller. In the winter, I am able to have a wider, unblocked view of the land around me. I can see prairie grass bent and weighted down by white for miles, and I can write with an openness I cannot find in the other half of the South Dakotan year. The sky is bigger, the air is more still, and noise, save for long, ragged strings of snow geese heading south, is muffled. All of this widens my view.

What about you? Where do you find your openness? What places do you write about? How do you get to those places? For me, I get there by putting one tall, insulated boot in front of the other.

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Filed Under: Blog, News, Uncategorized

About Lindy Obach

Lindy Obach grew up on a farm on the edge of the North Dakota badlands and has been living, teaching, and writing in South Dakota for a dozen years. Her chapbook, "North of Zenith," was a semifinalist in The 2015 New Women's Voices competition by Finishing Line Press. Her poetry has been published in The South Dakota Review, Midwestern Gothic, and South Dakota Women: Action, Influence, and Voice. She is a member of the Women Poets Collective and loves calling the prairie her home.

Comments

  1. Kristi says

    01/22/2018 at 1:36 pm

    Love this! Love her! I hope to attend a reading of hers again soon. Lindy is so real and genuine and talented and humble. Thank you for showcasing her talent so more people can discover this young, local talent.

    Reply
  2. Robbie says

    01/22/2018 at 4:37 pm

    Oh Lindy, What a gift you have to be able to put your feelings into words. Just loved reading this and love you. Mom

    Reply
  3. Pam O says

    01/22/2018 at 9:24 pm

    It’s a lovely visual, Lindy! It caused me to pause briefly to rethink my loathing the winter! Thanks!

    Reply
  4. Mary Angela says

    01/23/2018 at 4:22 pm

    Love it, Lindy! I, like you, draw much of my inspiration from this great place you describe so well. This is a perfect (and needed!) reminder of winter’s beauty.

    Reply
  5. Mary Ball says

    01/23/2018 at 5:54 pm

    You rock the written word friend. I always enjoy your poetry. Thanks for sharing you with us!

    Reply
  6. Betsy Nameniuk says

    01/23/2018 at 7:04 pm

    Great read….love you❤️

    Reply

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