Ten Things About A Poet: Jace Rowe
Read about this month's featured poet Jace Rowe and their multifaceted experiences, from saving lives in search and rescue missions to breaking horses for a livelihood.
With a past colored by a stutter overcome through a transformative youth military program, Jace's life resonates with resilience.
Now a bartender and wordsmith, she weaves vulnerability into her verses, inviting readers into a world where every poem reveals a piece of her unfiltered truth.
Jace Rowe, a poet whose narrative threads through the complexities of identity and overcoming odds, offers more than just words on a page.
Her poetry serves as a window into an existence shaped by challenges and triumphs, a journey that intricately intertwines with her artistry and unwavering resilience.
Embark on a journey with us to uncover the essence of this remarkable poet in this month’s Ten Things About A Poet.
1. I was raised Buddhist by a gay single mom in a conservative, rural town just outside Salinas, CA.
I definitely didn’t fit in.
Kids were cruel about my faith, but that didn’t stop me from being a good redneck.
I watched NASCAR, built fences, and rode my horse through the Burger King drive thru, just like their Christian God intended kids from my town to do.
2. I wrote three of my high school plays with the supervision and patient aid of Luis Valdez of “Zoot Suit” fame.
They were performed at his historic playhouse, El Teatro Campesino in San Juan Bautista, CA.
That experience was the impetus for my moving to Chicago with the dream of being a playwright when I was 19.
I had one play put up before I decided to stop writing for what I thought was forever.
I didn’t write for the next 8 years— until February of last year— when I returned home to Steinbeck country and started to write poetry.
It’s still strange describing myself as a poet, but that’s the self-critic talking. I hope.
3. I was a partial mute with a severe stutter as a child.
I remember desperately wanting to learn how to read and write so I could communicate with the outside world without using my voice.
Writing became my solace, it created a world where the words flowed effortlessly from me.
My shyness and stutter were a huge obstacle in my life until I joined a youth military program at 12 and went to a month long boot camp at a military base, where the instructors basically did a hard reset on my little brain.
Somehow, a month of marching, making my bed in an overly specific way, wearing a uniform, and spending pretty much an entire month at the position of attention cured my shyness and my stutter.
4. I stayed in that youth military program from 12-19 where I served on a volunteer search and rescue and disaster relief team once I finished my certifications at 14.
I am personally credited with saving 11 lives which feels very small in comparison with all the people we didn’t save or never found at all.
While the program gave me a sense of purpose and discipline, and arguably gave me a livable life by breaking me out of my shell, it left me with a lot of trauma and heartbreak.
I’m very grateful for my time in it, but I wouldn’t let my own kid do it.
5. I paid for my first car by breaking horses.
In 2008 the recession made it too expensive for people in my area to own horses that weren’t making money.
So I would pick up foals, or unbroken adults, I’d ride them until they stopped trying to kill me, and then I’d sell them cheap.
For my efforts, I rewarded myself with a 1996 Honda Civic I named “Putt Putt”.
6. I find it difficult to write in a flowery way.
Maybe it’s my training as a playwright, where a script has to be grounded in reality in order for the audience’s suspension of disbelief to work, or maybe it’s just not my strong suit, but I’m working on it.
And although my writing isn’t very flowery, I do love books that go on and on with description.
Frankenstein, Les Miserables, East or Eden, and Moby Dick are some of my favorites.
7. Growing up, my family took road-trips back to North Dakota to help on the family sunflower farm every summer, camping all the way.
So even though I’ve seen every state in the country other than the Carolinas, I’ve been to very few of our major cities, but most of our National Parks.
I chose to move to Chicago because it was the only large city I’d spent any time in that was outside of my home state.
I failed to consider, however that I visited in June and the city has a solid 5 months of winter.
My 19 year old hubris got a job as a bike courier, meaning I spent the worst winter on Chicago record outside for 50 hours a week.
I told myself I’d make it a full year, and two blizzards, months of sub-zero days, 6 hit and runs, and one broken hand later, I finished my year and happily retired into bartending.
8. I’ve been bartending for 10 years, which can tough as an introvert.
But I do really enjoy talking to strangers, sometimes playing therapist.
It’s a vocation that allows you to meet people you’d never normally bother talking to.
And people do really strange things when they’re drunk, which almost makes up for the amount of times I’ve been puked on.
9. Other than poetry, I almost exclusively read history and science books, and 95% of the time I opt for podcasts over music.
There’s something about learning that I just can’t get enough of.
I don’t really care what the subject matter is, as long as I’m nourishing that part of me that yearns to know more, I’m happy.
I do have a soft spot for disaster stories, though, which is probably the traumatized search and rescue kid in me.
10. I don’t go into writing knowing what I’m about to produce.
There is very seldom a plan.
Usually I hear someone say something or a line just comes to me and I put it in my notes app and let it sit.
Later, when the mood strikes, I scroll through my notes and see if anything comes to me.
I wait until I’m in a good place to write because I want to be able to be vulnerable.
Vulnerability is the single most important factor in whether I feel proud of my work.
Was I vulnerable in an authentic way in this piece? Does the idea of sharing this scare me a little, not because sharing is scary, but because it might be a little too true? Shine a little too much light on my dark spots?
If I can answer those in the affirmative, I know I’m onto something.
The following poem by Jace Rowe navigates the boundary between the clinical act of applying tourniquets and the emotional turmoil of facing life and death, culminating in a raw, unsettling reflection on the weight of responsibility and the harsh reality of mortality.
Viewer discretion advised.
The CPR Dummies Don’t Bleed
By Jace Rowe
I learned how to apply tourniquets
on dry, rigid arms,
As if rigor mortis already took hold.
On break, against the instructors wishes,
we took turns tightening them
on each other,
just to see the blood pool violet in our fingers.
Until we couldn’t take the bees buzzing
around with our bones anymore.
Then we’d release them,
and watch the purple turn to pink,
like the dawn in our veins.
And we laughed without the truth.
The truth is the you will not be wearing gloves.
And only later, as you get your blood tested,
you will think back to your godfather
gaunt-faced in a bed dying from AIDS.
But at the time your bloody fingers will slip
and you’ll rip the plastic off with your teeth.
And the guy will be asking you
if he’s gonna make it.
And you’ll take a second to lie to him.
And then he’ll start asking for his momma
as the red falls out of him.
You’ll ask him to hold still
so you can tie his leg off.
And he does forever.
And you say to yourself, not like that.
Not like that.
And later, you laugh with the boys
not because it’s funny
but because that’s what you do.
And you’ll go home
and practice tourniqueting your own legs
until both go blue.
This is an incredible story, wow. Jace is an inspiration. 🥹
Reading the raw but true hidden feelings is a gift by the poet to us. It gives us pictures that are hidden by us all, and can fester if not set free. Jace, keep going. You’ve stories to share.