GRANDE PRAIRIE, Alta. – Rose and Garth Bibby are like rural rock stars.
After their two hour performance of singing and poetry about rural life
at the Peace Region Farm Women’s Conference, the pair was surrounded by
women wanting to buy their books and cassettes and share their own
stories.
It’s a regular situation with rural audiences, said Rose, who travels
across the Prairies giving poetry readings about life on the farm.
“They’ve all experienced the stuff we’re talking about,” said Garth,
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who said it’s not uncommon to see a wife giving her husband an elbow
during a reading or men wiping away a tear.
The audience can relate to the humour and the sadness in poems like
Nature Calls, about going to the bathroom in the field, or My Wife the
Bull Buyer, about auction fever, or Spring Thaw, about doing
middle-of-the- night calving checks, or Independence, about the spirit
of farm women.
“There is a connection,” said Ruth.
She had written poems for wedding showers and Christmas concerts for
years, but started performing more seriously in 1991. In 1994, Garth
joined her on stage as the Hayshakers.
Setting rural life stories to poetry seems to give families a boost,
especially in hard times, said Rose of Westlock, Alta.
This fall the couple was hired to give four performances in
northeastern Alberta, hard hit by several years of poor crops.
Organizers hoped the couple’s humour would give farmers a lift.
Bringing the farmers together to listen to the poetry got them out of
the house and made them realize they’re not alone, Rose said.
“It helps you get out of yourself. It just lightens the situation.”
“It’s really important to laugh,” added Garth, who said they told their
humorous farm stories for years to friends and neighbours before Rose
set them to rhyme.
“We want to send people home feeling good about what they do.”
