Office of University Communications 

Professor chronicles ‘welcoming' attitudes with new poetry collection

Veteran writer publishes chapbook, addresses cultural history

SPRINGFIELD — For nearly three decades, Dr. Jane Hoogestraat, professor of English at Missouri State University, has put academia aside on Sunday afternoons and devoted those hours to her passion: writing poetry.

Hoogestraat, who has seen her compositions published in numerous journals in 25-plus years as a writer, recently published her first chapbook, a collection of 21 poems titled “Winnowing Out Our Souls,” available through FootHills Publishing (www.foothillspublishing.com).

“This book is for anyone interested in poetry,” Hoogestraat says, “but I also hope it’s accessible, so that people who may not read a lot of poetry would be able to pick it up and relate to the different poems.”

The overriding theme in the collection, the professor explains, is the idea of “welcoming the stranger.” Hoogestraat, a South Dakota native who moved to Springfield, Mo., after stints in Texas and Chicago, says she was inspired by Springfieldians’ ability to interact positively with outsiders – especially those who come from diverse cultures. She has lived in Springfield, the subject of many of the poems and where most were written, since the fall of 1989 when she moved here to teach at Missouri State.

Some of the poems in the book have been written and revised several times over the years; some – like “Driving North 1981” and “Mexico 1983” – have, as their titles note, been in the works for decades.

In addition to capturing the essence of the Missouri Ozarks and Springfield, Hoogestraat’s poems address national and international events, such as the happenings of Sept. 11, 2001 (“A Ghazal in Memory”) and the beginning of the War in Iraq (“For My Students”).

Those more recent poems, Hoogestraat says, adhere to more formal structures and include more references to cultural history. But, she explains, “Even when I’m not working in a particular form, I almost always use complete sentences and, at least, the ghost of meter.”

Hoogestraat says the poem that resonates with most who’ve read her new collection is “The Gifts That Strangers Bring,” which includes the following stanza:

but decided to leave for another day,

another reader. Every face I’ve ever mistaken

for another I would have been glad to see,

and was, for an impossible moment, glad to see.

Hoogestraat received her B.A. in English at Baylor University in 1980. She received her M.A. in English in 1982 at the University of Chicago, where she also received her Ph.D. in English in 1989. Hoogestraat specializes in 20th century poetry, literary theory (including gender studies, ethics and aesthetics), and creative writing–poetry. Her recent publications include poetry in Southern Review, Image, Ginko Tree Review, Mars Hill Review, Baylor Magazine and University of Chicago Magazine.