In her 30s, with a small child in tow, she continued to write but started to “run out of topics”, so turned to others for inspiration.

Jennie soon found she had the knack of being able to write poetry on the spot for other people on any topic from “My Family” to “World Federation Wrestling” to “Indecision”.

Being asked by many primary schools to inspire students, Jennie also trained herself to makeher poetry rhyme – much appreciated by the younger crowd, and “just had so much fun”.

Since then, she has been on a 25-year journey,  which included a trip along the length of the Murray River in 1991. At the end of that, Jennie worked with her brother, a cartographer, to create a Murray River map with selected poems - written on that trip - on the map.

A second map is now planned for Moorabool Shire in rural Victoria after Jennie showed her Murray River map to the local librarian who said she should put it on display.

“I said ‘why would I put a map up here of the Murray River. I’ll do a Moorabool map’,” she said. (And if you’re near the Lerderderg Library it’ll be up by the end of April.)

Meanwhile, Jennie has had her work published in magazines, newspapers, anthologies, on radio, and her first published volume was runner-up in the Fellowship of Australian Writers’ Anne Elder Award.

She has also worked with thousands of young people in schools and libraries, as an artist-in-school and in many regional residencies, and with adults in regional communities and TAFE.

The wandering poet side of life is generally at festivals and started with her first “gig” at the Knox Art Festival in the late 90s.

“They sat me in the shade at a table and I waited for people to come up and ask for a poem,” she said. 

“I only wrote 40 poems in two days. The next year I decided wanted to write 120. I like making up little challenges like that. So I jumped up from the table with my clipboard, I was so nervous, and asked a bloke, in a suit, if he wanted a poem. He said ‘yes’. And I got my confidence up and wrote 120 poems in two days.”

Jennie said at first she found herself working hard to get poetry for others just right but “after a while I just let my hand do the writing and that freed me up enormously”.

“I ask people what matters to them, what they love, and they tell you and keep talking while I write. I have trained myself to really listen. When I read it back to them they usually say ‘how did you know that?’. I love it because you are doing something for the other person. (And) it’s instant communication, people know someone has understood them and it’s a gift. At a festival it also becomes a memento.”

Jennie said she had never had anyone “freak out” when she approached them and asked if they wanted a poem by a stranger. “I am a very easy person to be with.”

Jennie said she didn’t know of many other community poets although she had trained a few over the years. And she has even tried the younger set, taking children out of class to write poems for the community.

She is keen to encourage people to write their own poetry and share her passion.

“I talked to some students today and asked if anyone wrote poetry every day – no-one put up their hand. Then I asked who wrote every week and two hands went up. Then I asked who never wrote poetry and the rest of the class put their hands up. They think that everything they write has to be perfect, but I love poetry because it’s short and you can just delete it if you want. I said ‘if you write 10 poems, then you could have five that are great’. And one of the children said ‘and if you write 20, you could have 10 good ones’. They get it.”

Jennie’s work is at www.jaywig.blogspot.com.au