Welcome to Rumbull Strip, Vermont. I'm Erica Heilman. In this hour I talk with poet and teacher Jeff Hewitt.

Jeff made his home in Vermont in the late 60s. He bought an old farm up in Enisburg, then built a

cabin there with his wife Janet Lind, and they raised two children. Work brought him down to Callis where he now lives and writes.

He also teaches writing workshops and poetry slam workshops and is the reigning poetry slam

champion. Jeff's writing is rich and funny and his poems get at the subtle

parts of life in Vermont, the parts you don't read about in Vermont Life magazine,

the parts that you feel only after years of seasons here.

In this interview, he talks about a lifetime of writing and what it means to him to be successful. He talks about his years as a Vermont homesteader from New Jersey

and slowly becoming a Vermonter. And of course we hear lots of poetry. Welcome.

When did you, when did you start writing?

I was writing When did you start writing?

I was writing since I was 17 years old.

I had noticed that my male friends,

the ones that were athletic were relatively more attractive to young women

than people like me who couldn't hold a basketball and dribble it at the same time.

So I thought, well, maybe if I was a little bit sensitive.

So I quit writing stories and started writing poems.

And I've been doing it ever since.

Do you remember doing it when you were seven?

I mean, do you remember writing when you were 17?

Yeah.

What that felt like?

...