Jeanne Lohmann

Jeanne Lohmann (1923-2016) was born in Arcanum, Ohio and attended Otterbein College and Ohio State University. She was awarded twice by the Washington Poets Association. Her admirers included Garrison Keillor, who read two of her poems on his website The Writer’s Almanac. When she turned 80, her San Francisco writers’ group instituted yearly Jeanne Lohmann Poetry Awards. There’s a ‘poetry trail’ in her name outside Providence St. Peter Hospital, and six of her poems are inscribed on the grounds and walls there.

All day I try to say nothing but thank you,

breathe the syllables in and out with every step I

take through the rooms of my house and outside into

a profusion of shaggy-headed dandelions in the garden

where the tulips’ black stamens shake in their crimson cups.

I am saying thank you, yes, to this burgeoning spring

and to the cold wind of its changes. Gratitude comes easy

after a hot shower, when my loosened muscles work,

when eyes and mind begin to clear and even unruly

hair combs into place.

— Jeanne Lohmann from 'To Say Nothing but Thank You'