After a brief hiatus in Iowa, I’m back in my snug corner of the Midwest. For three weeks, I was the artist-in-residence at the Herbert Hoover Historic Site in West Branch Iowa, a growing artist-in-residence program directed by Adam Prato and one in which I was one of two artists for 2009.

(one of the beautiful trees in the park)

Prior to my three weeks in West Branch, I’d never done a residency, but I’m glad I did. I wrote oodles in the mornings when I worked in the Wright House. In the afternoons, I found an inspiring spot in the park and wrote there-the birth place, the prairie, the presidential museum, the friend’s meeting house, etc. The park itself is breathtakingly lovely, with enormous trees and abundant wildlife such as catbirds, groundhogs, goldfinches, and swallows. The people, from the park rangers to the visitors to the folk who dress up in living history garb to the multitudes who visited during their annual festival, Hooverfest, were friendly, nice, reminding me again how great Iowans are.

And if all that wasn’t enough, I did a poetry reading in their theater attended by locals and the requisite family members. I had a booth at their festival where many stopped by and asked about my work (How great is that?). My 3 and 1/2 year old nephew became a junior park ranger after doing various activities in the park. (The pledge alone is adorable. I watched several kids, after completing their activity book, take the pledge to take care of national parks while adults beamed with cameras). Finally, the local paper even interviewed me about my work as an artist-in-residence and took some photos of me writing in the one-room-schoolhouse. The writer posted the article, and a brand new poem I wrote while there, on their online newspaper. In the print version of West Branch Times, the story takes up an entire page (!).

With the gift of time to write and research, it was a lovely and productive way to spend three weeks of the summer.