South Dakota’s poet laureate will be reading some of his works this week in Aberdeen.
Others, regardless of how much experience they have writing poetry, are welcome to join him.
Bruce Roseland brings the Poetry on the Road program to the Red Rooster Coffee House, 218 S. Main St., at 6:30p.m. Thursday, April 11.
“This has been a convenient route for me to be in contact with the people of South Dakota as your South Dakota poet laureate,” said Roseland, a fourth-generation farmer/rancher who lives near Seneca in Faulk County.
It’s on the prairie land where Roseland makes his living. That prairie and its people are the subject of many of Roseland’s poems.
“A Prairie Prayer”
Here, on this arc
of grass, sun and sky,
I will stay and see if I thrive.
Others leave. They say it’s too hard.
I say hammer my spirit thin,
spread it horizon to horizon,
see if I break.
Let the blizzards hit my face;
let my skin feel the winter’s freeze;
let the heat of summer’s extremeÂ
try to sear the flesh from my bones.
Do I have what it takes to survive,
or will I shatter and break?
Hammer me thin,
stretch me from horizon to horizon.
I need to know the character
that lies within.
I want to touch a little further
beyond my reach,
for the something that I seek.
Only then let my spirit be released
After graduating from college, Roseland returned to the family homestead just in time for the farm crisis of the early 1980s. Many folks left their land, but Roseland admires those tough enough to see it out. Those people remain by choice, he said.
Certainly, “A Prairie Prayer” reflects that.
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Roseland said he started recording the world around him more than two decades ago. He wonders what a day in his great-grandfather’s life was like. Before he had grandchildren, Roseland said he was writing so they — and other future generations — know what his life and times are like.
He would write three or four pages, then go back and strip everything that wasn’t critical to perhaps 12 or 15 lines.
Without particularly realizing it, Roseland was writing poetry. He’s since published seven books with an eighth on the way. Through the years, his work has garnered honors, most notably a Will Rogers Medallion Award, which recognizes excellence in Western literature and media.
Roseland has a broad definition of poetry
Roseland’s definition of poetry is both simple and broad.
“The best way I can define what a poem is … is a short story. Everything has been taken out of it but the story. It is a way of a person saying what they value in their life in a manner that (another) person can comprehend,” he said.
“It’s like a conversation between two good friends.”
Put another way, Roseland said, it’s like sitting down with your spouse at day’s end and recapping what happened in the simplest, most direct, most succinct way possible.
At least that’s this process.
“Everybody arrives at it a different way,” Roseland said.
In his eyes, rap, hip-hop and spoken word are also forms of poetry.
The vast majority of poetry nowadays is free verse, Roseland said. There are few rules. For years, even he thought back to his junior high days thinking the lines of a poem needed to rhyme. That’s simply not the case, he said.
A dash of humor and little human interest help keep poetry relatable, which is important, he said.
As poet laureate, he has been traveling the state with Poetry on the Road. There have already been about 15 such events, Roseland said.
Thursday, he and South Dakota State Poetry Society board members will share some of their works. Then, community members will be able read their poems.
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Those who share should limit their reading to 10 minutes or so to allow time for everybody who wants to participate, Roseland said. Usually, between 12 and 15 local residents read, he said.
So if for prose your ears await
Thursday’s the important date
Spoken words at coffee shop
Poetry authors on the hop
Roseland, 72, started a four-year term as South Dakota poet laureate in 2023. The state poetry society asks for applications from those interested in the volunteer position. After interviews, nominations are sent to the governor for approval.