On this episode of Backyard Oasis, host Gloria Ratcliffe speaks with author and (retired) Greenfield Community College professor Joanne McNeil Hayes about her newest poetry collection, I am the Prairie. Joanne treats us to several excerpts from the text, as well as providing insight into her inspiration for the work. What was it like to grow up in Illinois "in the shadow of the prairie," as Joanne describes it - in the great "Prairie State" with no prairie to be found? What was it like to return later in life once efforts had been made to restore some of what had been lost? And is Taylor Swift a poet?? All that and more on this week's episode!

Purchase I am the Prairie here: I a ...