It seems that at the very root of Hannah Fleming, there is a great deal of compassion and love, and it shows in her poetry. If you read some of her best poems, such as “My Morning,” which is about an early morning walk through the neighborhood where she learns to search for beauty in everything, or “Searching Through the Rag Box,” about her father’s robe being turned into scrap fabric, you’ll feel this compassion and her deep faith in family. In fact, she says that family and her childhood memories are her biggest inspiration in writing poetry.
But when Hannah and her family visited the American Gothic House as part of a family vacation, none of them had any idea that one of her best poems would be written about the time they spent there. When they arrived home, Hannah wrote “A Stop At The American Gothic House.” Her father sent it to the Gothic House’s Center, intending to show them that the Fleming family had fun while visiting, and everyone was awed when the staff wrote back saying that they’d like to publish her poem on the website. It’s a site that has never published poetry before, and her whole family was really proud of her. “My dad even posted the link on facebook,” she says, smiling.
It’s not the first poem of Hannah’s to be published, however. She’s been published in the youth literary magazine The Mad Hatter and Young Poets Speak Out, and most recently her poem, "On Top of the Dune," was a winner in the annual Kent District Library contest. In addition, She’s been published on the throughthe3rdeye.com website, and she’s read in several poetry readings. When I asked her what she’d like to accomplish as a writer, she said she wants to use the gifts that God has given her to write the best that she can. This is just another example of the great faith behind Hannah’s poetry, she writes to make the world a better place, and she doesn’t want to waste the talent that she has with words.
“Writing is a way that I can portray to others how I see and feel about different things. Sometimes I also write to show how grateful I am for a memory,” Hannah answered when I asked why she writes. I think that her love of God, family, and the world around her will provide enough inspiration to last a lifetime. And when I asked her if she’ll ever visit the American Gothic House again, she replied, “I would love to go back. If we ever travel through that part of Iowa again, we’ll be sure to stop by.”