Rob Casper interviews Laura Venjohn in Sturgis, SD ROB: So just tell me your name and where you live. LAURA: I’m Laura Venjohn from Wessington, but I am originally from Belle Fourche, South Dakota. I’m back to Rapid City now. ROB: And have you gone to poetry events before? LAURA: I have been the president of the South Dakota Poets Society in the early 2000s, and that’s why I was inquisitive about our Poet Laureate. ROB: What was this like for you? LAURA: I thought it was very exciting, enthralling, answered a lot of questions. I wanted to see what kind of poetry she represented and I thought she did a wonderful, wonderful job. ROB: And did you know any people in the audience? LAURA: I did not. They’d maybe heard of me in the past but we always had such a problem bringing the east part of South Dakota and the west part together and when I moved east, it was kind of like we had the river to separate us from our different poetry ideals and it was really hard to bring these two parts of the country together. It’s nice to have her to bring us all together. ROB: Yeah, that’s sort of the point of it. LAURA: It figures that it’s her to bring us all together because we’re all united for our love of poetry, love of writing. ROB: Hopefully an event like this helps people connect to each other and to what the poems are getting at. Were there any poems that particularly resonated for you? LAURA: She didn’t read the one. I lost my husband in March and there was one poem in there that just—I just picked it out of the blue, that was my first poem I just read in her book and it’s like, smelling the sheets, this is probably about someone going to Afghanistan and husband was deployed for a year and you’re still smelling the sheets. Well, I’m still going through the throes of separation and poetry brings the heart into the people and that’s what the poet has to do is get your thoughts across. ROB: Well, thanks so much for talking to me. I appreciate it. LAURA: You bet.