The Local Beat
My Hometown Poem #114 (As read at the 2023 Iowa Writers' Collaborative Holiday Party by the incomparable Robert Leonard)
We write. We write. Looking left and right. We ask questions at the counter of the convenience store on the corner of Main Street, do a two finger wave as we pass a pickup on the dusty gravel road, convene at the high school football game in the small town surrounded by corn fields, lights shining on the stadium in the crisp darkness, sound of the crowd floating into the night sky. We chat with neighbors in the musty post office. Listen in the hair salon chair, scissors snipping, overhear exchanges at the the hardware store, all about rising prices: eggs, beef, land, pork bellies, beans. About clinics closing, the dearth of doctors, inflation, foreclosures, what’s Made in America and what’s not. We pay attention to details of the wedding in the park, babies and dogs, the new street lamps at the cemetery, the latest on the local kid who made it big in the city. We sit in the worn chair in the body shop on the edge of town, linger by the old stained coffee pot at the implement dealer, park in the gravel turnaround at the local coop, stand in the shadow of the grain elevator, banter about game scores, over-unders, the hip brew pub coming soon, the new nail salon, book banning and teacher wages, declining graduation rates. We take notes in sheriff’s offices, investigate the unexpected death down the street, the shocking murder – a shooting, right here in our town, a fall in the nursing home, the drowning of a child in the farm pond, asking, How can this be? We write. We write. Wondering what is right. The facts are here, in the windmills, in barns, in meadows, in feedlots, messages in the parking lots, potholes, airport terminals. Disagreements at the statehouse, late nights city council meetings, shifts and buzz in downtown office buildings. There is polite small talk in the picnic potluck line at the shelterhouse, tables laden with jello salads and ham balls, sandwiches on buns, paper plates filled with yellow cake and lunch lady brownies, cups of iced tea. In lines at the food trucks, festivals and fairs, now selling tacos and perogies, curries and rice, the neighbor taking it all in, saying: “Isn't that something? We write. We write. Seeking to understand what is right, beyond black and white: in the church, the synagogue, the temple and the mosque, the bridges, rivers, the backroads. Questioning the past, searching for a way forward. We look inside our communities, the people, the pain, the joy, opening the doors to our neighbor’s houses and hearts and lives, asking: Who are we? Who will we be tomorrow? We are patient, for everything is unfolding. The truth is all we have. So we watch. We wait. We write. We write. For the world needs a mirror, and the light tells the true story.
Dedicated to local journalism and the writers who capture our stories.
I am proud to be a member of the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative. Please consider reading and supporting our members.
Suzanna, this poem will be hailed as an absolute classic portrayal about community journalists and what we do. Thank you so much for writing it, and having the talented Bob Leonard read it, as a gift to all attending the first holiday reception of the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative and our paid subscribers, on Dec. 7 at historic Witmer House in Des Moines.
Very moving Suzanna. You take the reader there. Thank you. Chuck Offenburger has it right: a classic.