Featured Poet Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 FEATURED POET

Audrey Kletscher Helbling  is a writer, poet, and blogger at http://mnprairieroots.com/

Audrey lives in Faribault, MN. She is a supporter of the arts in her area and neighboring communities. She appreciates the beauty of farmlands and prairies.  Words are carefully measured when writing keeping them sharp and to the point. Besides being passionate about blogging and writing she also enjoys photography. She uses the art of photography to tell the stories of people and places in small towns highlighting their everyday life on her blog.

Audrey's work has been published in poetry anthologies, devotionals, two books, magazines, newspapers, on billboards, and in greeting cards. She has had several poems recognized as part of a poet-artist collaboration sponsored by Crossing at  Carnegie in Zumbrota. And a huge recognition for Audrey's talents was having Rochester composer David Kassler craft music for seven selected poems written by her and six others. Her poem was part of a Minnesotan Rondos trio: “The Famous Anoka Potato,” “The Farmer’s Song” and “The Old Scandinavians.” They were sung in a church.  

Many of Audrey's poems have been published in The Talking Stick Anthology, Two of her poems were included in a permanent exhibit at the Lyon County Historical Society Museum in Marshall, and she had a poem chosen for publication in the award-winning book, "This Was 2020" If you type "poetry" into her blog search engine, you will find other inspiring poems.

In 2013 my sister and I were invited for a visit at Audrey's home. Have you ever had a recipe that defies logic? I must say Audrey's Chocolate Cream pie does just that. The pie filling is made with only 3 ingredients; dark chocolate chips, vanilla extract, and a mystery ingredient. You would never have guessed it by the rich yummy chocolate flavor.

Check out the pie recipe at the end of this blog. 

"Ode to My Farm Wife Mother" is one of her winning poems that honors her mother in a poetic snapshot timeline of life beginning shortly before she married Audrey's father a farmer and into their everyday life on the farm and all its challenges. The final verse shows Mom shoving her walker down the hallways of Parkview Care Center. In Audrey's words “ Whenever I write poetry, especially about life in rural Minnesota, I find myself deep within memory. Visualizing, tasting, smelling, hearing, even feeling. Although I took some creative license in penning “Ode to My Farm Wife Mother” (I don’t know that Mom ever drank whiskey or danced at the Blue Moon Ballroom in Marshall), it is primarily true. She met my dad at a dance in southwestern Minnesota. She washed laundry in a Maytag, baked bread every week, made the best peanut butter oatmeal bars.”

“Ode to My Farm Wife Mother”

Before my brother,
you were Saturday nights at the Blue Moon Ballroom—
a bottle of Jim Beam whiskey in a brown paper bag,
Old Spice scenting your dampened curls,
Perry Como crooning love in your ear.
Then motherhood quelled your dancing duet.
Interludes passed between births
until the sixth, and final, baby slipped into your world
in 1967. Thirteen years after you married.
Not at all unlucky.
Life shifted to the thrum of the Maytag,
sing-song nursery rhymes,
sway of Naugahyde rocker on red-and-white checked linoleum.
Your skin smelled of baby and yeasty homemade bread
and your kisses tasted of sweet apple jelly.
In the rhythm of your days, you still danced,
but to the beat of farm life—
laundry tangled on the clothesline,
charred burgers jazzed with ketch-up,
finances rocked by falling corn and soybean prices.
Yet, you showed gratitude in bowed head,
hard work in a sun-baked garden,
sweetness in peanut butter oatmeal bars,
endurance in endless summer days of canning,
goodness in the kindness of silence.
All of this I remember now
as you shove your walker down the halls of Parkview.
in the final set of your life, in a place far removed
from Blue Moon Ballroom memories
and the young woman you once were.

Poem copyright 2017 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

Chocolate Cream Pie

Cook's notes: The recipe is for a 9-inch pie. If using a 9 x 13 pan double the filling. It is important to use silken tofu. 

Side note: My sister was so inspired by this pie she made it the next day to take for a potluck supper. She totally stumped the group who were unable to guess the mystery ingredient.  

Ingredients:

• 10-12 oz. tofu (must be soft, silken)
• 10 oz.  dark chocolate chips or semi-sweet chips
• 1-2 teaspoon vanilla
• prepared graham cracker crust

Directions:

• Place tofu in a blender and blend until smooth
• Add vanilla and blend again
• Melt chips in the microwave and add to blender-blend till smooth
• Pour into a crust and refrigerate for 2 hours
• Options: adding in chopped walnuts, drizzle strawberry or raspberry sauce on top to serve