Hi, this is Janice Northerns, coming to you from Wichita, Kansas, for Poets on the Plains. Today, I’d like to share a poem by Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, who served as the Kansas Poet Laureate from 2009-13. Caryn is the author of 24 books, as well asa writing workshop facilitator and writing coach. The poem I’m reading today is Magnolia Tree in Kansas which is from her 2020 book, How Time Moves: New & Selected Poems.

This was my first time reading Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath and I can instantly see why it’s a classic: the themes of migration and class struggle are just as relevant today, and it reveals a cyclical history. The Joads come from Sallisaw, OK, what would have been Indian Territory just 30 years prior, where the Cherokee Nation (along with four others) were forcefully displaced from the Southeastern US to make way for rapid settler and agricultural expansion, including for cotton.

Perhaps no single plant was more useful to the early day inhabitants on the High Plains than the spiky yucca, or soap weed, as it was commonly called. Pioneers learned from the Native American tribes that the roots could be used as soap, especially good for hair shampoo. The process of making the soap was a long one, involving digging the sticky green roots, then pounding them on a wooden board until they were softened. The resulting pulpy mass was put into water to soak. The juice and water mixture that was drained off became soap in a community where store bought goods were rare and costly.

Hi, I’m Shaun Dunn from Lincoln, Nebraska here for HPPR’s Radio Readers Book Club. John Steinbeck is one of my favorite authors, so I was excited to re-read what is arguably his most celebrated book: The Grapes of Wrath.