Tweetspeak Poetry

  • Home
  • FREE prompts
  • Earth Song
  • Every Day Poems—Subscribe! ✨
  • Teaching Tools
  • Books, Etc.
  • Patron Love

50 States of Generosity: Wisconsin

By Megan Willome 4 Comments

Twin Falls Park waterfall, Port Wing, Wisconsin

50 States of Generosity: Wisconsin

We’re continuing a series at Tweetspeak — 50 States of Generosity. We’re highlighting the 50 states of America and giving people beautiful ways to understand and be generous with one another by noticing the unique and poetic things each state brings to the country. A more generous people in the States can become a more generous people in the world. We continue with Wisconsin.

Wisconsin (capital Madison)

State fruit: cranberry. State bird: robin. State flower: wood violet.

I have never been to Wisconsin, America’s Dairyland, but I do have a good friend who lives there. In every season she writes poetry and takes photographs about the natural beauty around her. I got a smile-filled photo from her in February with this message: “Zero degrees. Windchill -16. Two mile walk for the win today.” She’s one of the toughest women I’ve ever known. I can only guess she celebrated her excursion with a bowl of ice cream.

And why not? Wisconsinites consume 21 million gallons of ice cream each year, and the first ice cream sundae was concocted in Two Rivers in 1881. But I wanted to focus on a different Wisconsin export, one that needs extreme cold to thrive: cranberries, my favorite fruit.

More than 60 percent of America’s cranberries come from Wisconsin, mostly from twenty counties in the state’s center region. The only month in which those fresh berries make it down to where I live is in November, and I buy multiple 5-pound bags and freeze them to use all year. But those bags represent only 5 percent of Wisconsin’s crop — the other 95 percent is made into juice, sauce (shloop!), and dried fruit.

The fruit was originally known as the “crane berry,” partly from the flower’s shape and partly because sandhill cranes eat them. Edward Sacket, of Berlin, Wisconsin, gets credit for first harvesting the berries, back in 1860, but, as cranberries are one of our nation’s three native fruits, they were harvested by various Native American peoples much earlier.

Cranberries do well in Wisconsin because it gets so cold. Like many fruits, they need chilly hours to lock in their tart sweetness. But how do the berries survive -16-degree temps? Ice! In December farmers spray dormant vines with water so they get a good layer of ice to protect them from bitter cold and wind. That cold blanket keeps what is deep inside until the time is ripe.

Cranberry Twirl A Is for Azure
In A is for Azure, an alphabet book like no other, written by L.L. Barkat and illustrated by Donna Z. Falcone, C is for cranberry, “a cranberry twirl.” Almost every day I find an excuse to twirl my cranberries into something. During the heat of summer I use them to refresh my soul with a splash of cold.

twirl cranberries
into steel-cut oats
add dairy, a splash
of orange, fall flavors —
baked joy

(Read about another fruit that needs chill hours to grow sweet in next week’s By Heart column, when we read a poem about peaches.)

Poetry Prompt: Wisconsin Generosities

Use any of the things you learned about Wisconsin (research more, if you want!), and put one or more of them into a poem. If you like, weave in a little generosity. Share in the comments.

Wisconsin colored in on US map

More About Wisconsin: Poets & Writers + More

Al Jarreau, singer, musician
Georgia O’Keeffe, painter (turns out, not from New Mexico)
William Ellery Leonard, poet, translator
Liberace, aka Mr. Showmanship, pianist and entertainer
Laura Ingalls Wilder (but you knew that if you read Little House in the Big Woods)
Thornton Wilder, playwright, novelist (turns out, not from New England)
Frank Lloyd Wright, architect (turns out, not from California)
Bob Uecker, aka Mr. Baseball, play-by-play announcer for the Milwaukee Brewers

Photo by GPA Photo Archive, Creative Commons, via Flickr. Post by Megan Willome.

Browse more 50 States of Generosity

MW-Joy of Poetry Front cover 367 x 265

5 star

I loved this book. As soon as I finished, I began reading it again.”

—David Lee Garrison, author of Playing Bach in the D. C. Metro

Buy The Joy of Poetry Now

  • Author
  • Recent Posts
Megan Willome
Megan Willome
Megan Willome is a writer, editor, and author of The Joy of Poetry: How to Keep, Save & Make Your Life With Poems and Rainbow Crow: poems in and out of form. Her day is incomplete without poetry, tea, and a walk in the dark.
Megan Willome
Latest posts by Megan Willome (see all)
  • Perspective: The Two, The Only: Calvin and Hobbes - December 16, 2022
  • Children’s Book Club: A Very Haunted Christmas - December 9, 2022
  • By Heart: ‘The night is darkening round me’ by Emily Brontë - December 2, 2022

Filed Under: 50 States, Blog

Try Every Day Poems...

About Megan Willome

Megan Willome is a writer, editor, and author of The Joy of Poetry: How to Keep, Save & Make Your Life With Poems and Rainbow Crow: poems in and out of form. Her day is incomplete without poetry, tea, and a walk in the dark.

Comments

  1. L.L. Barkat says

    June 18, 2021 at 10:17 am

    This project makes me so incredibly happy. I’m learning so much I never knew about the states. (Plus, my US map skills are improving! 😉 )

    I did not know all that about the cranberry. Nor the cranberry and Wisconsin. Fun to have learned. 🙂 (And you are so brilliant to remember ‘A Is for Azure”s cranberry! A pleasant surprise to see that included.)

    Thanks, Megan, for a great post.

    Reply
    • Megan Willome says

      June 18, 2021 at 12:05 pm

      Thanks!

      And I pull out that alphabet book more often than you’d think.

      Reply
  2. Cindee Snider Re says

    June 18, 2021 at 10:41 pm

    I love everything about this! I live in Wisconsin and didn’t know that much about cranberries. We were able to watch the cranberry harvest a few years ago and it was fascinating and quite beautiful.

    Reply
    • Megan Willome says

      June 20, 2021 at 4:16 pm

      Isn’t it funny how we can learn things about where we live?

      Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Take How to Read a Poem

Get the Introduction, the Billy Collins poem, and Chapter 1

get the sample now

Welcome to Tweetspeak

New to Tweetspeak Poetry? Start here, in The Mischief Café. You're a regular? Check out our May Menu

Patron Love

❤️

Welcome a little patron love, when you help keep the world poetic.

The Graphic Novel

"Stunning, heartbreaking, and relevant illustrations"

Callie Feyen, teacher

read a summary of The Yellow Wallpaper

meet The Yellow Wallpaper characters

How to Write Poetry

Your Comments

  • Glynn on World War II Had Its Poets, Too
  • Sandra Fox Murphy on World War II Had Its Poets, Too
  • Glynn on Poets and Poems: Kelly Belmonte and “The Mother of All Words”
  • Bethany R. on Poets and Poems: Kelly Belmonte and “The Mother of All Words”

Featured In

We're happy to have been featured in...

The Huffington Post

The Paris Review

The New York Observer

Tumblr Book News

Stay in Touch With Us

Categories

Learn to Write Form Poems

How to Write an Acrostic

How to Write a Ballad

How to Write a Catalog Poem

How to Write a Ghazal

How to Write a Haiku

How to Write an Ode

How to Write a Pantoum

How to Write a Rondeau

How to Write a Sestina

How to Write a Sonnet

How to Write a Villanelle

5 FREE POETRY PROMPTS

Get 5 FREE inbox poetry prompts from the popular book How to Write a Poem

Shakespeare Resources

Poetry Classroom: Sonnet 18

Common Core Picture Poems: Sonnet 73

Sonnet 104 Annotated

Sonnet 116 Annotated

Character Analysis: Romeo and Juliet

Character Analysis: Was Hamlet Sane or Insane?

Why Does Hamlet Wait to Kill the King?

10 Fun Shakespeare Resources

About Shakespeare: Poet and Playwright

Top 10 Shakespeare Sonnets

See all 154 Shakespeare sonnets in our Shakespeare Library!

Explore Work From Black Poets

About Us

  • • A Blessing for Writers
  • • Our Story
  • • Meet Our Team
  • • Literary Citizenship
  • • Poet Laura
  • • Poetry for Life: The 5 Vital Approaches
  • • T. S. Poetry Press – All Books
  • • Contact Us

Write With Us

  • • 5 FREE Poetry Prompts-Inbox Delivery
  • • 30 Days to Richer Writing Workshop
  • • Poetry Prompts
  • • Submissions
  • • The Write to Poetry

Read With Us

  • • All Our Books
  • • Book Club
  • • Every Day Poems—Subscribe! ✨
  • • Literacy Extras
  • • Poems to Listen By: Audio Series
  • • Poet-a-Day
  • • Poets and Poems
  • • 50 States Projects
  • • Charlotte Perkins Gilman Poems Library
  • • Edgar Allan Poe Poems Arts & Experience Library
  • • William Blake Poems Arts & Experience Library
  • • William Shakespeare Sonnet Library

Celebrate With Us

  • • Poem on Your Pillow Day
  • • Poetic Earth Month
  • • Poet in a Cupcake Day
  • • Poetry at Work Day
  • • Random Acts of Poetry Day
  • • Take Your Poet to School Week
  • • Take Your Poet to Work Day

Gift Ideas

  • • Every Day Poems
  • • Our Shop
  • • Everybody Loves a Book!

Connect

  • • Donate
  • • Blog Buttons
  • • By Heart
  • • Shop for Tweetspeak Fun Stuff

Copyright © 2025 Tweetspeak Poetry · FAQ, Disclosure & Privacy Policy