SKIP Book Back Cover Poetry poor man's poll

We're doing a poll to guide us towards the best poetry for the back cover of the SKIP book.  Please feel free to reply with your own poetry suggestions!

Click the thumbs up on any of these that you like.

Click the thumb's up on this post if you think this is a great bit of poetry for the back cover of the SKIP book:

Each year in the US, millions of acres of farmland are abandoned. Meanwhile, thousands of people join the rat race with the hopes of someday affording a homestead.

Millions of elderly people are desperately trying to find somebody to inherit their homestead.  Somebody worthy.  Somebody that won’t just sell it for a quick buck.  Somebody that will love the land the way they love it now!  

SKIP is a collection of tasks that an industrious person can accomplish and publicly document.   Like growing a garden, building a shed, building a small pond or felling a tree. Things that when all added up prove that you would rather love a homestead than sell it.

Click the thumb's up on this post if you think this is a great bit of poetry for the back cover of the SKIP book:

Every year millions of acres of farmland are abandoned.  Countless hobby farms and homesteads are sold off and bulldozed.  

At the same time, millions of young people dream of returning to the land.  They want to help heal the earth by getting their hands dirty.  The only way they can see achieving their dream is a long trip through the rat race.

SKIP is a skills-based curriculum that people can complete in their spare time.  Public documentation of their growing abilities impresses those who are looking for a worthy heir.  Suddenly a more direct path to their little patch of heaven appears.

A path that Skips the debt.  Skips the rat race.  Skips the 8-5.

(edit: the 8-5 is a joke playing on the old fashioned idea of a 9-5 job.  We can change it to "9 to 5" if that's better)

Click the thumb's up on this post if you think this is a great bit of poetry for the back cover of the SKIP book:

Landowners: Perhaps you have a heritage property, decades of family history and pioneer effort, and don’t want it bulldozed for a strip mall. Family doesn’t want to live there. Who can you trust to carry on your legacy?

Young homesteaders: You have a flaming passion to build and grow, to feed people and protect the land. Yet it will take decades of 9-to-5 slavery to raise the money. This is madness. There has to be a way!

SKIP connects the dots. Skills To Inherit Property. Young homesteaders dedicate long hours to pioneer skills, proving they are worthy to take on the challenge. Landowners can see the fire in their eyes, and the dedication in their hearts – to build on this legacy, and build a better world.

Too good to be true? Look inside.

Click the thumb's up on this post if you think this is a great bit of poetry for the back cover of the SKIP book:

Every year millions of acres of farmland are abandoned or sold off and bulldozed. Meanwhile, millions of people dream of returning to the land but instead join the rat race with the hopes of someday affording a homestead of their own.

Millions of elderly people are desperately trying to find somebody to inherit their homestead.  Somebody worthy.  Somebody that won’t just sell it for a quick buck.  Somebody that will love the land the way they love it now!  

SKIP is a skills-based curriculum that an industrious person can accomplish and publicly document of their growing abilities impresses those who are looking for a worthy heir.  Suddenly a more direct path to their little patch of heaven appears.  A path that Skips the debt.  Skips the rat race.  Skips straight to the dream of returning to the land and creating the life they want to live.

Hello, Mike.

I liked bits of all of your posts, plus Opalyn's sample for the back cover of the SKIP book. I thought I'd give it a try, so here is my idea.



Year after year, millions of acres of fertile farmland are abandoned, orphaned, or unattended.

Countless hobby farms and family homesteads are sold off and bulldozed.

Thousands of elderly people are desperately trying to find somebody worthy to inherit their cherished homestead, their heritaged properties, with decades of family history and pioneer effort, and don’t want it bulldozed for a strip mall, family doesn’t want to live there. Somebody that won’t just sell it for a quick buck. Somebody that will love the land the way they love it now!

At the same time, thousands of young people dream of returning to the land, they want to help heal the earth by getting their hands dirty, learning the ways and means of natural living, aspiring to become guardians of Earth's precious countanence. Our beautiful birthplace. Humanity's planetary rocket ship. They dream of returning to the land, but, instead, join civilization's rat race, - spirits drooping, knowing of the near-impossibility of escaping the rodent's administration - the aim of, someday, affording a homestead of their own fading with time.

Suddenly a more direct path to their little patch of heaven appears.  A path that Skips the debt.  Skips the rat race. Skips straight to the dream of returning to the land and creating the life they have yearningly envisioned!

SKIP is a skills-based curriculum that industrious people can work to accomplish, and publicly document, their growing confidence and abilities, aiming to impress those who are looking for a worthy heir.  Young homesteaders dedicate many hours to pioneer skills, proving they are worthy to take on the challenge. Landowners can see the fire in their eyes, and the dedication in their hearts – to build on this legacy, and help cultivate a wiser world.

SKIP is Hope. Opportunity.  And Trust.



It's a bit effusive in spots and could be cut back, become more business-like or simply be disregarded. I haven't written for several years and am a little rusty but the e-mail link brought me here before I even got out of bed! I've just joined recently and am trying to read all the info and forums and watch the videos but am realizing it is going to take hundreds of hours! Everything is so interesting to me and I am looking forward to the knowledge I'll gain!

Bumpity bump bump

Will SkIP be a curriculum? Or a checklist?
I like a few options and one in particular but for this one word.  If SkIP will indeed be teaching things that makes sense, but if it's not much different than now it seems more of documentation system.

Good question Heidi, I'm not sure what the answer is so I'll ramble for a bit...

SKIP is a framework to connect people.  PEP is a major part of SKIP that includes a long list/curriculum/selection of skills that would make someone a "good" permie homesteader.  The items on that list aren't taught in the book but there are lots of other places to learn that stuff.  The items do have minimum requirements and documentation criteria listed for each item.  So while you learn on your own, the list tells you how good a job you need to do to "pass the test".  

The book's goal is to spread the word about this program and share a snapshot in time of what it looks like today.  It will keep evolving and living in perpetuity on permies.com

Does that help?

"Tired of the rat race?

Are you eager to discover and sharpen new skills – skills which are proven to make the world a better, more beautiful, and more resilient place, starting right in your very own backyard, apartment, town, or city?  

Maybe you dream of developing a flourishing ecological homestead some day.  You want to build a haven to call your own: not just for you, but for your future family - the community of life around you in all its natural forms.  But how will you ever get there?

SKIP is a framework to help you get there.

Discover and develop critical permaculture and homesteading skills.

Connect with an industrious, creative, and like-minded community as you share your progress, keeping on track to achieve your goals.

Prove yourself!  Earn bits and badges as you tackle unique tasks and permaculture challenges.

And get this:

Stick with SKIP and you can EARN the chance of a lifetime: free land from generous individuals, all eager to make this world a better place.  What are you waiting for?  It’s time to open this book and SKIP away to your permaculture dreams!"

My general recommendations for SKIP book poetry:

Focusing on SKIP-ing to somewhere positive, as opposed to away from somewhere negative.

Using second-person "you", rather than third person "they"/ "anyone" to really reach out to all us readers directly.

Keen, tactful focus on words honoring the generosity of the Otises, while respecting their unique land-transfer circumstances.

Broad audience: not just folks wanting to inherit land, but folks wanting skills, folks wanting community, folks wanting to heal the earth, folks wanting a challenge, etc.

Just my two cents; forgive me I can't remember the name assigned to the young buck trying to prove their worth to Otis, so imma just call them Ted. This is actually a direct reflection from the area where my Husband's familial 300 acre homestead used to be, all but seven acres of it. Obviously this may require some tweaking, but I love a story-based hook rather than statistic type draws

Otis looks on as his neighbor's once thriving farm has a McMansion built atop it. The crop fields turn to sprawling lawn, the far paddocks sold to build more estate homes. The barn and lush greenhouses are flattened to make way for tennis courts. Otis looks at his forest, his cow fields green with fresh spring grass. The robins in the berry bushes and the frogs croaking at the trout in his pond. Who would take care of it when he was gone? Who would love it, raise a family on it, start a new tradition? Who could he trust not to sell it to developers when the going got tough?

Ted looks at Otis's farm and wonders how he'll ever afford it. Ted has an itch in his soul to return to the land, to heal it and help it grow, but he could never imagine buying it from Otis. Land is expensive. So Ted considers his options. His most obvious one is to go to college, amass heaps of debt, join the 8-5 rat race, and hope he can pay off his student loans in time to find a nice piece of earth to call his own before it's all subdivided and gone. Or Ted can SKIP straight to land ownership, no debt required.

SKIP allows the Teds of the world to prove how much they care. SKIP allows Ted to show Otis he has the skill to work with his land, to keep a good thing going, and to stick with it when times are hard. In this book is a reference of every skill, big and small, that could ever be important to Otis, and provides a way to publicly catalog and verify the progress Ted makes as he learns. So that one day, a day much sooner than the rat race would allow, Ted can walk up to Otis and say "look at all I've accomplished, look at how much I truly care. Will you trust me to carry your land when you no longer can?" And maybe, just maybe, Otis will let him.

Yes, Otis is the gatekeeper. He needs to be convinced that Ernest (Ted) is in earnest. I think if follows that the blurb would speak to that dynamic.

hmmmm I like bits & pieces of all these suggestions. I think it needs a bit more fine tuning though. Not sure what.  Just doesn't seem quite right for such a worthy project & important book.

We're open to other proposals (add them in here).  I think they need to be around the length of the first two.

Mike Barkley wrote:hmmmm I like bits & pieces of all these suggestions. I think it needs a bit more fine tuning though. Not sure what.  Just doesn't seem quite right for such a worthy project & important book.

Haasl wrote:We're open to other proposals (add them in here).  I think they need to be around the length of the first two.

To write better poetry, it may help to understand the primary audience*:

A) Folks who have already purchased the book for themselves (or someone else)?
B) Folks who have not yet bought the book, but might buy one for themselves (or someone else)?
C) People (and perhaps robot algorithms) who know nothing about SKIP, and are just scanning?
D) People who already know a little about SKIP, but are now perusing to get a deeper understanding?
E) Potential Otises.
F) ???

Along with audience, the primary purpose and desired tone of the back-cover poetry*:

1) Descriptive? SKIP is a framework...
2) Persuasive?  Buy this book. or Join this program. Continue in this program.
3) Encouraging? You can do this!
4) Empathetic?  SKIP can help you.
5) More serious vs more playful
6) More impactful vs more gentle "What are you waiting for? SKIP to it!"  vs "There is a better way with SKIP."
7) More personal vs impersonal

Edit to add:
If there are a myriad of speakers, audiences, purposes, and desired tones, consider having more than one section of poetry.  For instance, the back cover could have an impactful title at the top or bottom; the authors or a potential Otis even could have a gentle, persuasive text-block; elsewhere on the back cover there could be an illuminating, serious bulleted list.  Different poetry for different audiences and purposes.