Bearlodge Header

Updates:

April 2010:
National Poetry Month!

Go to Calendar »

 

Jeanne Rogers Bio

I have worked at various jobs over the years—waitress, gas station attendant, flag-girl, floral designer, bookkeeper, cashier, volleyball official, bus driver, construction laborer, weed sprayer, haying operator, draftsman—but I like writing best. My poetry is included in three Houghton Mifflin collections of women’s writing, several juried literary chapbooks, and regional publications. My first nonfiction book, Standing Witness: Devils Tower National Monument, A History, was published by the National Park Service. I am working on a poetry manuscript, a children’s picture book series, and a couple of nonfiction books. Oh yeah, I also have one chapter each of two novels—guess I’m still working at various jobs.

NEWS!!

One of my poems, “Terminal in the Pediatric Cancer Ward,” placed 14th in the 2011 6th Annual Writer’s Digest Poetry Competition, an international contest with thousands of entries. The top 50 winning entries were printed in the 6th Annual Writer’s Digest Poetry Collection.

 

Excerpt of Writing

Driving Into Daylight

 

We are eastbound on I-80,

headlights splitting the black

below a moonless geography of stars.

 

Hundreds of semi-trucks, with drivers

on mandated rest, park along the shoulder,

a constellation of amber sleeping lights

guiding us through the early-morning dark.

 

Images ghosted from star-crossed bones of deer,

coyote, a too-slow jackrabbit haunt

the edge of my vision.

I blink

and the phantoms fade

to clumps of bunchgrass and earthly sage.

 

The Seven Sisters whisper,

Big Dipper scoops their ebony breath,

Orion winks,

and the night moves west.

 

(2nd place winner in Wyoming Writers annual contest)

****

(not) Howling at the Moon

 

I step onto the deck,

close the door behind me.

A frigid February night

and a moonless sky

take my breath away.

Every one of the innumerable stars

must be visible, a reverse silhouette.

It is too cold to be out here in my robe

but the pull of that space between the stars

seems a vortex drawing me forward.

Looking up, I slowly circle

a vortex of my own

pulling the stellar night in,

taking my fill, propelled by a primal instinct

to remember.

 

(previously published in The Sundance Times)

 

Standing Witness: Devils Tower National Monument, A History

Warm and golden, cold and gray, the Tower has many faces—the shadow and color depending on a sunset, a sunrise, or the slant of light angling through clouds. This history of America’s first national monument begins with an igneous intrusion and ends in a centennial celebration. The Tower continues to enchant visitors and attract climbers, continues to be a landmark physically and spiritually, continues to stand witness to the design of time.

Title: Standing Witness: Devils Tower National Monument, A History ISBN: 978-0-692-00042-7 Second printing, 2009 $12.95 paperback, 290 pages, photographs, bibliography, index

Publisher: National Park Service Devils Tower National Monument P. O. Box 10 Devils Tower, WY 82714

Distributor: Devils Tower Natural History Association P. O. Box 37 Devils Tower, WY 82714 307-467-5283 ext 631

 

 

Email Jeanne