Sandra Justice is an ex-cop, a single mom, a former member of the U.S. Air Force, a gardener, a cook, and when National Public Radio personality Garrison Keillor put out a call for spring poems and dangled an expensive mattress as a potential prize, she added poet to her résumé. Her sweet tribute to the end of winter and the beginning of the rhubarb pie season was one of a handful he picked from a pool of 2,000 to read aloud on “A Prairie Home Companion” on March 31. (Emily Rodgers-Ramos, a Loveland poet, had hers read aloud, too.) No, she didn’t get the fancy Sleep Number bed. But she says she lost fair and square to a guy from North Carolina who wrote about spring onions when a boy from the audience pulled the other poet’s name out of a hat. – Dana Coffield, Denver Post staff writer
Were you nervous about entering the Spring Poetry Contest? It just had to be at least 14 lines and had to mention spring. Who couldn’t do that?
Was “Untitled” your only try? I did another one that had a Dr. Seuss meter to it.
Did having your poem read on “A Prairie Home Companion” bring you fame? I have heard from every relative I ever had and from a few people at work I didn’t expect to hear from. There are some closet NPR listeners out there.
Do you make a lot of rhubarb pie? The pie is actually not my favorite thing. I have tons of rhubarb recipes. If I were making something from rhubarb, I would make crisp out of it.
That’s kind of a plains dessert. Actually, the state dessert of South Dakota is kuchen. It’s a weird kind of pie that is real flat and real custardy. You sprinkle fruit in the bottom, pour a custard layer over the top and bake it. Boy, is it good. And everyone’s grandma can make that.
You call yourself an “exiled South Dakota Lutheran.” Explain. I moved around between lots of different towns in South Dakota. Most recently, I lived in Freeman, which is in south-central South Dakota. It’s the conference headquarters for the Mennonite church. It was really Mayberry time, and really cool. But my son was raised mostly in Golden and I thought the culture shock was going to kill him.
But it worked for you? Absolutely. I come from a very farm background. I think the only thing my grandmother ever bought from the grocery was sugar and salt. Everything else came off the farm.
And now you work for a tech company? I’m working for an HP spinoff, Avago, in the security department. Our department’s mission statement is this: We’re a success if nothing happens. So that gives me plenty of time to write poetry.
What does your grandmother think about your skill in the kitchen? You know, my grandmother never really quite understood what I was going to do with my life. When we put her in assisted living, one thing she said she missed was sauce. That’s rhubarb boiled down with sugar. So I made up batch, threw it in the jars and took a few over to her. She asked what it was. I told her and she got this amazed look on her face and shouted “Pat! Look what Sandra did: She canned some rhubarb, just like a married woman!” What can you say to that?
That it’s funny? Now it’s funny.
HEAR THE POETRY FOR YOURSELF
You can listen to the Spring Poetry Contest winners at prairiehome.publicradio.org/programs/2007/03/31/. Emily Rodgers-Ramos’ poem is read in Segment 2. Sandra Justice’s poem is read in Segment 3.
