NEBRASKAland Magazine is dedicated to outstanding photography and informative writing with an engaging mix of articles and photos highlighting Nebraska’s outdoor activities, parklands, wildlife, history and people.
Issue link: http://mag.outdoornebraska.gov/i/1040966
34 NEBRASKAland • NOVEMBER 2018 I t was miles to anywhere and the center of our universe." This is just one of many lines Nebraska State Poet Twyla Hansen has written as an ode to her childhood, growing up on her family's small farm in northeastern Nebraska. "I spent a lot of time outdoors," Hansen says. "We didn't have a television at that time. It was just a time to absorb the outdoors and the wildlife. I played in the fields and the barns and the pastures and made friends with all the animals." Today, she refers to a famous quote by Willa Cather to help explain why nature is such a presence in her work now: "Most of the basic material a writer works with is acquired before the age of 15." Hansen's first book, How to Live in the Heartland, published in 1992, centered around the outdoors. "Ever since then I've always had poems about the outdoors," she says. Poems with titles like "Camping Along the Platte, Late June," or "Watching the Perseids," one assumes, would be pretty straightforwardly about one thing. But while many of Hansen's poems begin with a description of an outdoor experience, they often lead into deeply personal musings on universal themes, such as the loss of friends or family members, the nature of change, religion, and the search for meaning. "It's not just about the outdoors," she says. "It's observations of nature that work their way into a creative narrative." With nature as a springboard, Hansen has found that she can tackle "all the big topics that have been written about," such as change, loss and love. Through her poetry, Hansen has also found an avenue to advocate for causes she's passionate about, such as conservation and protecting endangered species. "You hear, 'nature is dead,' but I don't believe that. You can't ignore nature; this is our home, this is where everything comes from. So that's my argument in my next book I'm working on," Hansen says. Hansen didn't always know she could write. Spurred by an interest in plants, she earned a bachelor's degree in horticulture and a master's in agroecology. While working as a grounds manager at Nebraska Wesleyan University, Hansen took advantage of the free classes available to her as an employee, and was bitten by the writing bug during a poetry class. She was also inspired by the down-to-earth writings of Nebraska poets Ted Kooser and William Kloefkorn. Unlike the poetry by "dead European guys" she'd been exposed to growing up, "I could relate to what they were writing about," she says. "I thought, 'Wo w, people can write about ordinary things. Maybe this could work.' Sometimes that's all it takes, is someone showing the way." Hansen is the first woman to serve as the Nebraska state poet. Her five-year term ends this year. Throughout her career, she has published seven books and nearly 250 individual poems in a wide variety of periodicals. Since 1993, Hansen has also traveled across the state many times giving poetry presentations through the Humanities Nebraska Speaker's Bureau. Aside from her busy professional life, Hansen enjoys spending time at home with her husband, Tom. "We have about an acre of land on the north edge of Lincoln, and it's a wildlife habitat. So to me, I'm living with nature," she says. "It's a major part of my life." Hansen's newest book, Rock • Tree • Bird, was published by The Backwaters Press in 2017. The following are a selection of her poems from that work. ■ The Intersection of Nature and Poetry By Renae Blum Twyla Hansen " LANE PHOTOGRAPHY