Rebecca Bauman

Poetry and hissing cockroaches may seem vastly different, but they do have one thing in common — Rebecca Bauman.
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Poetry and hissing cockroaches may seem vastly different, but they do have one thing in common , Rebecca Bauman.113007 PEOPLE 1 The Morning Sun Poetry and hissing cockroaches may seem vastly different, but they do have one thing in common , Rebecca Bauman.
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Rebecca Bauman poses Thursday with Charlie, a macaw, in the Nature Reach Program room at Pittsburg State University.Bauman is an undergraduate assistant for Nature Reach which provides educational and outreach programs on natural history as well as local and global environmental issues.
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Rebecca Bauman, a student in the PSU creative writing program, also works in the Nature Reach program
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Poetry and hissing cockroaches may seem vastly different, but they do have one thing in common , Rebecca Bauman.

A student in the Pittsburg State University creative writing program, she also works in the Nature Reach program at PSU.In the course of her duties there, Bauman gets to hang out with those hissing cockroaches, Vietnamese stick insects, rattlesnakes and a colorful macaw named Charlie.

"I could get lost in that room," she said.

Bauman will have to pull herself from 7 to 9 p.m. Saturday to take part in "Poetry on Paper," a reading and gallery display of original broadsides at The Little Room Gallery.108 W. Fifth.A broadside is a limited edition print with literary content, often coming in the form of posters displaying poems and images.

A reading is scheduled from 7:30 to 8:20 p.m. In addition to Bauman, other poetry writing class students reading their work will include Josh Davis, Eric Dutton, Angie Hine, Kathryn Kiwan, Bruce Shields and professor Laura Washburn of the PSU English faculty.
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Bauman was born in Texas, but grew up mainly in northern Florida and St. Louis.

"My life has been pretty nomadic," she said."I've lived in New York and it's wonderful, but so overwhelming that I could only take it in six-month increments."

After bouncing between New York and Florida for years , and studying at the University of Iowa and Truman State University , Bauman came to Pittsburg about 3 1/2 years ago.

"Every place was too big or too small, but Pittsburg was just the right size, had just the right people and just the right support," she said.
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But, Bauman said, she felt like a fish out of water."It's a men's magazine and the staff is predominately male," she said."If there was a woman in the magazine, she had most of her clothes off."

Bauman lived in Harlem during the summer and commuted to the Hearst Tower, where the magazine offices are located."I was straddling two worlds in a very short space," she said."There was a lot of violence in Harlem this summer, and then I would commute to this beautiful corporate tower.But Harlem is a wonderful, socially relevant place, even when it's scary, and I felt more at home there than in the Hearst Tower."

Still, Bauman was very glad to get back to Pittsburg."People ask me if I missed New York, the glitz and glamor," she said."But I can't say just how important it is to have a support system and people to care about you.I would gladly trade the limelight just to have a home."

At PSU, she has a home of sorts in the creative writing program and in Nature Reach.

"One of the most important parts of being in this creative writing program is that you have to write , if you don't, you've failed," Bauman said.

She said that she is very appreciative to her PSU professors, including Stephen Meats, PSU English department chairman, and poetry professor Laura Washburn.

"They've had no end of times they could have just given up on me," she said.

Bauman, who writes for the Collegio, takes writing very, very seriously, and fears writing badly."Poetry can be so awesome , good poetry is amazing stuff, so glorious," she said."God forbid that I would write bad poetry and hand it to somebody and make them read it."

The animals she meets through Nature Reach often find their way into her writing.

"I've written a lot of poems about the animals," Bauman said."Sometimes, instead of writing about Rebecca, I'll write about a dog or a bird."Working with the animals can be painful, especially in rehabilitation cases when she's trying to help an injured creature.

"Sometimes helping an animal is more about you, your self-concept, than about the animal," Bauman said."That makes it hard to know when to throw in the towel."

She routinely works with Charlie, the macaw, who's making great strides in getting socialized, with venomous snakes, tarantulas, scorpions and the hissing cockroaches.Sometimes Bauman shows people around the Nature Reach room, located on the third floor of Heckert-Wells Hall, introducing them to all these creatures.

Through this, and through her writing, Bauman hopes to guide people "to consider these other lives."

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Rebecca Bauman, sophomore, Pittsburg State University

Rebecca Bauman, sophomore, Pittsburg State University
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Receiving honorable mentions were Anna Earnest, University of Washington; Rebecca Bauman, Pittsburg (Kan.) State University; Yvette Lanier, Michigan State University; and Andrea Noble, Webster University.

Rebecca Bauman, Pittsburg State University
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Rebecca Bauman, Pittsburg State University
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Rebecca Bauman, Pittsburg State University
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Rebecca Bauman, Pittsburg State University
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Rebecca Bauman, Pittsburg State University
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Rebecca Bauman, Pittsburg State University
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Rebecca Bauman, Pittsburg State University

Receiving honorable mentions were Anna Earnest, University of Washington; Rebecca Bauman, Pittsburg (Kan.) State University; Yvette Lanier, Michigan State University; and Andrea Noble, Webster University.