Terry Ofner

I hold degrees in English and English Education from the University of Iowa, where I participated in the Undergraduate Writers’ Workshop in poetry with James Galvin, Marcia Southwick, and Bill Knott. I have published poetry in San Pedro River Review, One (Jacar Press), 8 Poems, Sea to Sky Review, I-70 Review, and other online and print publications.

I enjoy playing my guitar, working with wood, sitting with the cat, staring into the hedgerow behind our house, talking with Susan and anyone else who wants to join in about philosophy / psychology / literature / religion / movies / the current TV series we are binging / etc.

In case you are wondering, it’s not a real hedgerow like you might see in England—though wouldn’t that be cool. It’s just the opening chapter of a climax forest along a little creek or ditch that drains our neighborhood. As such, it is mostly a thicket choked with invasive Asian bush honeysuckle and Callary pear. The occasional native redbud has managed to survive the poisoned soil as have several groves of gray dogwood. Cottonwood and tulip trees provide the shade; the remains of ash trees that died of the emerald ash borer (another invasive species) provide perches for red-winged blackbirds and, I assume, habitat for other creatures. I have been tempted to purchase or fashion a bush grubber to clear the pirate species. If and when I do I will try to remember to update this note.

My morning walk. That’s my hedgerow on the left.

I have washed cars in the dead of winter, pumped gas and changed tires—back when gas stations had workers who did such things—worked in cut-rose greenhouses, washed windows in the dead of winter (happiness is a warm bucket of water), designed and planted landscapes for a nursery, coordinated food at a Quaker boarding school, taught English, and edited textbooks.

If I had my druthers, we would live somewhere a short walk from a spot overlooking a body of moving water so I could watch a snag in the water grow into a sandbar, then a small island with trees overhanging the water. In other words, in Burlington, Iowa, where I fell in love with the Mississippi River—not the idea, but the real thing.