ADDICTION
—In memory of my brother, Jay St. Germain, 1958-1981
The truth
is I loved it,
the whole
ritual of it,
the way
he would fist up his arm, then
hold it
out so trusting and bare,
the vein
pushed up all blue and throbbing
and
wanting to be pierced,
his
opposite hand gripped tight as death
around
the upper arm,
the way I
would try to enter the vein,
almost
parallel to the arm,
push
lightly but firmly, not
too deep,
you don't
want to go through
the vein,
just in,
then pull
back until you see
blood,
then
hold the
needle very still, slowly
shoot him
with it.
Like that
I would enter him,
slowly,
slowly, very still,
don't
move,
then he
would let the fist out,
loosen
his grip on the upper arm—
and oh,
the movement of his lips
when he
asked that I open my arms.
How
careful,
how good
he was, sliding
the
needle silver and slender
so easily
into me, as though
my skin
and veins were made for it,
and when
he had finished, pulled
it out, I
would be coming
in my
fingers, hands, my ear lobes
were
coming, heart, thighs,
tongue,
eyes and brain were coming,
thick and
brilliant as the last thin match
against a
homeless bitter cold.
I even
loved the pin-sized bruises,
I would
finger them alone in my room
like
marks of passion;
by the
time they turned yellow,
my dreams
were full of needles.
We both
took lovers who loved
this
entering and being entered,
but when
he brought over the
pale-faced
girl so full of needle holes
he had to
lay her on her back
like a
corpse and stick the needle
over and
over in her ankle veins
to find
one that wasn't weary
of all
that joy, I became sick
with it,
but
you know,
it still stalks my dreams,
and
deaths make no difference:
there is
only the body's huge wanting.
When I
think of my brother
all
spilled out on the floor
I say
nothing to anyone.
I know
what it's like to want joy
at any
cost.
When was this poem composed? How did it start?
When was this poem composed? How did it start?
The poem
was composed around 1987. I was in GalwayKinnell’s workshop at the Squaw Valley Community of Writers, and I had asked
him a needlessly complex question about craft, the kind of question a young
writer asks a famous writer to show how smart she is. He listened patiently to my question, then
said, “Just say what the truth is, Sheryl.” I began the poem that night with “The truth is I loved it.” I had been struggling to write about my
brother’s overdose and my own use of drugs at the time, and Galway’s comments
gave me a way into the poem.
How many
revisions did this poem undergo? How much time elapsed between the first and
final drafts?
I made a
few minor revisions to this poem in the first months after writing the first
draft, mostly tweaking line breaks and stanza breaks. I think I eliminated a few lines from the
beginning as well. It’s extremely
rare—in my writing practice—for a poem to come out almost fully formed. But this one did. I think that’s because I had been thinking
about the issues for so long.
Do you
believe in inspiration? How much of this poem was “received” and how much was
the result of sweat and tears?
I do
believe in inspiration, and in this case the poem felt like a gift. I did not labor over the actual writing of it
as I have with other poems, although the subject matter of the poem troubles
me, and still does.
How did
this poem arrive at its final form? Did you consciously employ any principles
of technique?
I wanted
the reader to move, almost without stopping, through the poem to its end, so I
crafted line breaks and stanza breaks that supported that movement.
Was there anything unusual about the way in which
you wrote this poem?
I wrote it, almost as if in a fever, during the
space of a few hours.
How long
after you finished this poem did it first appear in print?
The poem
first appeared in 1990 in The Taos Review.
How long
do you let a poem “sit” before you send it off into the world? Do you have any
rules about this or does your practice vary with every poem?
It does
vary, but if the poem comes out of some kind of personal crisis—as “Addiction”
did—I usually let it sit longer, as I don’t trust myself to judge whether the
poem is good or not. One almost always
feels a just-finished poem is better than it actually is, so I like to wait
until the initial glow has worn off before sending it out.
Could you
talk about fact and fiction and how this poem negotiates the two?
My
younger brother and I did shoot up drugs—cocaine—while in the same room. My lover at the time had actually sold him
the drugs. He did actually bring a young
woman with him who lay on my bed and
whose (workable) veins he had horrific trouble finding. So that part is true. We never shot each other up, though. Some
have interpreted the poem to mean that we did so because of the dedication. There was, however, a closeness I had with my
brother, a darkness that we shared, that I wanted the poem to suggest.
It’s not
true—in the sense of “fact”—that I “say nothing to anyone” about my brother’s
death—the poem itself clearly articulates much about the situation, and I am
never afraid to speak of it.
The poem is as true as I could make it in the sense of what I think Galway meant when he said “just say what the truth is.”
Is this a
narrative poem?
I would
call it a narrative lyric.
Do you
remember who you were reading when you wrote this poem? Any influences you’d
care to disclose?
I was
reading Galway, Sharon Olds, Robert Hass and Brenda Hillman. I was inspired by their bravery and
unflinching explorations of the human condition.
Do you
have any particular audience in mind when you write, an ideal reader?
At the
time I wrote this particular poem I was thinking of readers who had never
experienced the high that comes from shooting up drugs. I was thinking of readers
who might believe we can “just say no” to drugs. I didn’t want to glorify drug use, but I
wanted to empathize, to say “I understand.” Not to demonize addicts, who are our brothers and sisters, our sons and
daughters. I also wrote for readers in
recovery, who might find solace in a poem that traces that descent.
In a more
general sense, however, I think I write mostly for readers who are like me,
readers who like the kind of poetry I like, who don’t shy away from subjects
that might make some uncomfortable.
Did you
let anyone see drafts of this poem before you finished it? Is there an
individual or a group of individuals with whom you regularly share work?
I shared
a draft with the poets in my workshop at Squaw Valley. I do not, now, regularly share drafts with a
specific group of people, although I sometimes will share a draft with poet
friends.
How does
this poem differ from other poems of yours?
I have to
work very hard on most poems, revising over months and sometimes years. There are maybe four or five poems I’ve
written over the course of my life that came to me almost in a rush, as this
one did. Other than that, the craft and
the darker themes it explores are very much in tune with the rest of my work.
What is
American about this poem?
Its
frankness definitely tags it as American, as well as the subject matter, the
concrete details, the involvement of the “I” (as opposed to the kind of distanced
narrator, abstract or free-wheeling surrealism one might find in non-American
poems).
Was this
poem finished or abandoned?
Finished. Definitely.
