Rob Casper interviews Heidi Kruse in Sturgis, SD ROB: So just tell me your name and your relationship to the Sturgis Public Library. HEIDI: Sure, my name is Heidi Kruse and I’m actually the elementary librarian and media specialist for our school district, and so I work closely with Julie on a number of projects. ROB: Wow, and I’ve heard through Francie on the Arts Council all the things that are happening here culturally in the Sturgis community and through the public library. Can you talk a little bit about what’s going on here that you’re excited about? HEIDI: Absolutely. Starting about a year and a half ago with the Sturgis Big Read, that was kind of the beginning of a really amazing turn here in Sturgis. The art community has always been really vibrant here. We have amazing local artists, we’ve got incredible writers, and so the fact that they’re coalescing and coming together has been really, really powerful, I think. ROB: Can you tell me about poetry, about poets who’ve come through here and given readings? And how you’ve engaged with poetry as a teacher? HEIDI: Certainly. Well, as a teacher, you know, it’s something that I feel it’s my responsibility to make a part of my classroom. Once or twice a month we bring in poems and we read it along with the rest of the lesson or focus a lesson on it. I think it’s all about making poets and poetry accessible to students, so it isn’t some vague thing that people used to do, it’s a modern, current way for them to express themselves and to engage with their own lives and their community. ROB: Do poets come through Sturgis? Do you have poetry readings? HEIDI: They do, certainly. The public library has been fantastic with facilitating some of that and we have Tracy here today, which we are so honored to have her here in our space and to have her share her work with rural voices of America. So, certainly that’s been a huge, huge deal for our community. ROB: Do you read contemporary poets in class with your students? HEIDI: Certainly, we had a fun series last year with Dan O’Brien, which they found very exciting and really interesting. We’ve done some work with spoken word poetry and brought some of that in and incorporated it into our classroom as well. We’re trying to weave that into their experience as a student. ROB: Wow. Just one last question: What are you hoping for this morning in Tracy’s presentation? HEIDI: I think the fact that she’s here at all is really, really exciting for us, in that rural communities aren’t just places where nothing is happening. We are engaged with the arts, we are engaged with literature and poetry. Just because we’re here and we’re not on the coast doesn’t mean that we’re not vibrant centers for recognizing and appreciating beauty and creating art of our own. So we’re so excited that she’s here and we can connect with her on this personal level. ROB: Thank you! HEIDI: Thank you.