tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-41122043669564543762024-03-18T15:28:47.560-04:00How a Poem HappensContemporary Poets Discuss the Making of PoemsBrian Brodeurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18306752905070477332noreply@blogger.comBlogger236125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4112204366956454376.post-52659929675155520672020-06-08T09:01:00.002-04:002020-06-08T09:02:31.104-04:00Jason Tandon<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Born in Hartford, CT in 1975, <a href="https://jasontandon.com/" target="_blank">Jason Tandon</a> is the author of four books of poetry, including <a href="https://blacklawrencepress.com/books/the-actual-world/" target="_blank"><i>The Actual World</i>,</a> <i><a href="https://blacklawrencepress.com/books/quality-of-life/" target="_blank">Quality of Life</a></i>, and <i><a href="https://blacklawrencepress.com/books/give-over-the-heckler-and-everyone-gets-hurt/" target="_blank">Give Over the Heckler and Everyone Gets Hurt</a></i>,<i> </i>winner of the 2006 St. Lawrence Book Award for a first collection from Black Lawrence Press. His poems have been featured on NPR, and have appeared in such journals and magazines as <i><a href="https://www.pshares.org/" target="_blank">Ploughshares</a></i>, <i><a href="https://prairieschooner.unl.edu/" target="_blank">Prairie Schooner</a></i>, <a href="https://www.bpj.org/" target="_blank"><i>Beloit Poetry Journal</i>,</a> <i><a href="https://northamericanreview.org/" target="_blank">North American Review</a></i>, and <i><a href="https://www.esquire.com/" target="_blank">Esquire</a></i>. He earned his B.A. and M.A. from Middlebury College, and his M.F.A. from the University of New Hampshire. Since 2008, he has taught in the Arts & Sciences Writing Program at Boston University.</div>
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SUDDEN DEATH IN MIDDLE AGE</div>
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When I heard that he’d had a heart attack</div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">on a flight from Boston to Detroit</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">I went out to water the pots of sage</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">that flourish with little attention</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">on our west-facing stoop.</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Straining to hear the water</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">seep through the soil, I saw an ant colony</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">migrating in multiple files</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">across the sidewalk.</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">On my hands and knees</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">what had looked like an organized march</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">was a frenzied mob of thousands</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">trampling one another</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">as if trapped inside a stadium riot—</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">the way that painting by Seurat</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">looks like a sunny day in the park,</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">crowds of people lounging</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">on the banks of a blue river,</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">but stand too close</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">and the images divide</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">into distinct dots of color</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">that dizzy the head and nauseate.</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><i><b>When was this poem composed? How did it start? </b></i></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">I began the poem in May 2013. While I don’t have the earliest notes, my first typed draft shows lines about the purple sage. A couple years prior, my wife and I had bought our first house and I did the landscaping. I bought purple salvia plants for the front flower beds—I don’t know why these popped into my head when I began the poem, but I didn’t think salvia had the right sound. The first complete stanza was the description of the ant colony, which I had seen at some point in front of our house, and I did in fact get down on my hands and knees.</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b><i>How many revisions did this poem undergo? How much time elapsed between the first and final drafts? </i></b></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">This poem underwent few revisions, which was rare for me at that time. It came together in about a week, but there were a couple of associations and connections my brain made without my conscious involvement. </span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b><i>Do you believe in inspiration? How much of this poem was “received” and how much was the result of sweat and tears?</i></b> </span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Almost all of my poems are the result of sitting down and writing, often forcing myself to do so at an appointed time. I’ve now written nearly three hundred poems (for better or worse), and only a handful have come to me spontaneously, nearly fully formed, almost always when reading the poems of others.</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">The opening stanza about an acquaintance who has had a heart attack and the connection to <a href="https://www.georgesseurat.org/" target="_blank">Seurat</a> were “received.” The connection to Seurat, for example, came to me while lying on the couch reading Robert L. Herbert’s <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Impressionism-Art-Leisure-Parisian-Society/dp/0300050836" target="_blank">Impressionism: Art, Leisure, and Parisian Society</a></i>, though oddly Seurat had not yet been mentioned in the book. Now that I consider it, Seurat must have popped into my mind because “<a href="https://www.artic.edu/artworks/27992/a-sunday-on-la-grande-jatte-1884" target="_blank">A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte</a>” is probably the first painting I remember having a strong affinity for in my life since I was introduced to it (and to pointillism) in my seventh-grade French class.</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><i><b>How did this poem arrive at its final form? Did you consciously employ any principles of technique?</b></i></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">When I was writing this poem, I was still very much under the influence of <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/jane-kenyon" target="_blank">Jane Kenyon</a>’s work, so I was consciously trying to imitate her. In terms of technique, I was writing lyrical narratives with fairly consistent stanza lengths (in this poem it ended up 5-4-5-4-4), focusing closely on concrete, realistic details. Unlike Kenyon, who liked to remain faithful to a specific narrative or event throughout the whole poem, and close with a particular detail or image that would then resonate in the silence that followed, I wanted the poem to have a couple of turns—in this case, beginning with the news of a heart attack, moving to the ant colony, and ending with an examination of a Neo-Impressionist painting.</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><i><b>Was there anything unusual about the way in which you wrote this poem?</b></i></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Nothing unusual. Even the “received” portions are common occurrences when I write poems, or at least I wait until they occur. No surprises or discoveries—no poetry.</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><i><b>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? How long after you finished this poem did it first appear in print? </b></i></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">I begin circulating “Sudden Death in Middle Age” for publication two months after it was finished—I don’t have any rules about this practice, though I have learned a bit better when not to send a poem out. When I began writing seriously, I wasted a lot of editors’ time sending out far too many poems that just weren’t ready.</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">“Sudden Death in Middle Age” was rejected twelve times, and accepted almost one year to the day when it was finished, by<a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/richard-jones" target="_blank"> Richard Jones </a>at <i><a href="https://www.poetryeast.org/" target="_blank">Poetry East</a></i>. In fact, this poem started a wonderful writer-editor relationship that has continued for the last six years, and Richard graciously wrote a blurb for <i>The Actual World</i>.</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><i><b>Could you talk about fact and fiction and how this poem negotiates the two? Is this a narrative poem?</b></i></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">I want to be careful here with this response, so as not to dispel any “truthiness” about the poem that readers might take as part of the pleasure of reading it. There are elements of the poem that are fact, that happened—the migrating ant colony, for example—but none of what appears as a linear narrative happened in this sequence in my life. The poem is collage. And, I hate to say, I had no one, no specific event, in mind regarding the poem’s first stanza. The problem with revealing this of course is that it can come across as exploitative, or offensive to those who might have actually experienced something like this.</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">I wanted something, though, before introducing the sage and the ants, a framing human context. Now that I think of it, I’m sure I had in mind <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/robert-bly" target="_blank">Robert Bly’s </a>dictum (who I was also reading a great deal at the time), that a poem must have images, ideas, and “some sort of troubled speaker.” I very much enjoy reading and writing lyrical narratives, but my approach to writing lyrical narratives was and still is to sacrifice all truth for the sake of poetry, for the art.</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><i><b>Do you have any particular audience in mind when you write, an ideal reader? </b></i></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">I remember falling under the spell of <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/william-wordsworth" target="_blank">Wordsworth’s</a> ideas in his<a href="https://www.english.upenn.edu/~jenglish/Courses/Spring2001/040/preface1802.html" target="_blank"> <i>Preface to the Lyrical Ballads</i> </a>about writing in a common language for common people. I don’t take this idea as condescending, and I do recognize the complexities and nuances where Wordsworth elaborates. I understand also how his essay must be examined through our contemporary lenses. Essentially, though, I think of it as the difference between non-academic and academic poetry, the self-expressive Romantic lyric and, say, “<a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47311/the-waste-land" target="_blank">The Waste Land</a>.” Another way I think about this is in the contemporary sense: the aesthetic difference between the accessible poem and the experimental or <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elliptical_poetry#:~:text=Elliptical%20poetry%20or%20ellipticism%20is,essay%20in%20American%20Letters%20%26%20Commentary." target="_blank">elliptical</a>, which “tri[es] to manifest a person—who speaks the poem and reflects the poet—while using all the verbal gizmos developed over the last few decades to undermine the coherence of speaking selves,” to use <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/stephanie-burt" target="_blank">Stephanie Burt’s </a>coinage and definition.</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">I also feel a kinship with <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/charles-simic" target="_blank">Charles Simic’s</a> poetic approach: in a <i><a href="https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/5507/the-art-of-poetry-no-90-charles-simic" target="_blank">Paris Review</a></i> interview, he said he wanted to compose “something seemingly artless and pedestrian to surprise the reader by conveying so much more.” One of the best compliments I have received as a poet was years ago after a reading. A high school student came up to me to say that she really liked my poems—she didn’t know “what they were about,” but she got the sense when they ended that there was a “deeper meaning.” She said this enthusiastically, with no trace of frustration or annoyance. That is the line I wish to tow in my poems.</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">My ideal readers are those people who show up to a public library on a Sunday to hear the “featured reader,” especially the ones who listen with eyes closed, and then read a crumpled poem of their own during the open mic.</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><i><b>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?</b></i></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">I used to show drafts only to my wife, and I stopped that practice a few years ago. I don’t show them to anyone before I send them out. Unless an editor suggests a change with which I agree, I am the sole creator and primary reader of my poems (again, for better or worse).</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><i><b>How does this poem differ from other poems of yours? </b></i></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">It’s different from the poems I am writing now in terms of its narrative and stanzaic approach. You can read this difference emerging in <i>The Actual World</i> by the end of Part I in poems such as “In the Country” and “At a Loss.” They become shorter and more imagistic; I liken this approach to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ink_wash_painting" target="_blank">Japanese brush painting</a>, a minimalist, essentialist style.</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b><i>What is American about this poem? </i></b></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">On a surface level, heart disease is one of the leading causes of death for men and women in America, and I think the poem does deal with the idea of the typical American pace of life as stressful, chaotic. In terms of genre, I read it as an Americanized, self-expressivist Romantic lyric, the kind ushered in by <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/ralph-waldo-emerson" target="_blank">Emerson</a>, then <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/walt-whitman" target="_blank">Whitman</a>. An individual’s daily experiences or observations, an individual life, has some intrinsic artistic worth. When it comes to poetry, I think that’s an American idea.</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b><i>Was this poem finished or abandoned?</i></b> </span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">This poem was finished. Imaginatively and creatively, it was as much as I could muster at the time. When I wrote the last line, I heard an audible click.</span></div>
Brian Brodeurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18306752905070477332noreply@blogger.com238tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4112204366956454376.post-79460180160906250092020-04-11T10:50:00.002-04:002020-04-11T10:51:27.784-04:00Ernest Hilbert <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">Ernest Hilbert </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">is the author of <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Sixty-Sonnets-Ernest-Hilbert/dp/1597093610" target="_blank">Sixty Sonnets</a></i>, <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1597092665/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i5" target="_blank">All of You on the Good Earth</a></i>, <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1939574137/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i8" target="_blank">Caligulan</a></i>, which was selected as winner of the 2017 Poets’ Prize, and <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1939574293/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i7" target="_blank">Last One Out</a></i>. He lives in Philadelphia where he works as a rare book dealer and book reviewer for <i><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/" target="_blank">The Washington Post</a> </i>and <i><a href="https://www.wsj.com/" target="_blank">The Wall Street Journal</a></i>. His poem “Mars Ultor” was included in <i>Best American Poetry 2018, </i>and his poems appear in <i><a href="https://yalereview.yale.edu/" target="_blank">Yale Review</a></i>, <i><a href="https://aprweb.org/" target="_blank">American Poetry Review</a></i>, <i><a href="https://www.harvardreview.org/" target="_blank">Harvard Review</a></i>, <i><a href="http://parnassusreview.com/" target="_blank">Parnassus</a></i>, <i><a href="https://thesewaneereview.com/" target="_blank">Sewanee Review</a></i>, <i><a href="https://hudsonreview.com/" target="_blank">Hudson Review</a></i>, <i><a href="http://bostonreview.net/" target="_blank">Boston Review</a></i>, <i><a href="https://newrepublic.com/" target="_blank">The New Republic</a></i>, <i><a href="https://theamericanscholar.org/" target="_blank">American Scholar</a></i>, and the <i><a href="https://www.lrb.co.uk/?referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F" target="_blank">London Review</a>. </i>Visit him <a href="http://www.ernesthilbert.com/" target="_blank">here</a>. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">GREAT BAY ESTUARY</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Chuckling gulls luft up to swipe and hang</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">In muggy air over the riverside’s <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">Deadfall—jagged white as a splintered ice-flow.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">A tern goes and returns like a boomerang<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">Across the scene. An Eastern Kingbird glides<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">Beside a dock cemented with guano.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">The dock’s slats tilt down, disappearing at the end <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">To rot in slow water. Nearer, a marsh wren <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">Sways on a thorny stem. From the northwest, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">Curving along the broad river’s bend,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">The startled dart of a fierce-winged merlin,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">Scouting out or returning to its nest. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">Four decades ago I plied these waters <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">With my father—he at the helm, running <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">In early haze between black-tar banks:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">“Jibe ho!”—the aluminum boom swings as my father’s<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">Hand draws the tiller, the wake’s V following—<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">A metal rattle as my father cranks<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">The winch—the thrill of holding on as we heel<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">And the sideways world is wind and bulrush,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">Ghosts of petrified white cedars standing<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">Apart out in the endless mud, our keel<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">Roiling the black bottom. In the murky hush<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">Of dusk, we arrive at the familiar landing . . . .<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">Beyond the sandy downstream knolls, behold <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">A summer flotilla of tundra swans. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">In strobing depths beneath the broken dock, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">Elegant Venetian galleys of gold-<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">Finned pickerel row through rays to bronze,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">White perch arrowing silver around a rock<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">To the sun-ruled surface where stratocumuli<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">Loom in to warn of an advancing storm. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">A sad and majestic eastern red cedar <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">Bushes over the brown current, berry<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">Clusters dusty-blue, a funerary form<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">Leaning to its mirror in the lessening light.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">Fires smolder, far off. The ancient rough-shield <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">Shell of a diamondback terrapin bobs <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">On a soaked log sideways in the slow stream. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">Scum from brackish water dims its battlefield<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">Polish. All that floats here—flaked bark, knobs<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">Of old limbs, cola cans—drawn as if in a dream<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">Toward the Great Bay and the sea beyond. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">I lie in bed under cresting waves of wool, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">Steering my ivory sloop with sails of ice <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">In the New Jersey sunset—a reed my wand;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">Its tufts a dirty, living gold—the pull<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">Of memory, time-consumed sinking of sights<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">Once solid. The stars are out already,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">And I go down where swamps sieve water shed <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">By the pine-stands and tangled low scrub, a sight<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">That gathers around the cloud-flood horizon—I see<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">Everything, all around, going red a while, led<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">To my bedside in the last of the light.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;"><i>When was this poem composed?</i> <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Good question to start with. I’m obliged to leaf through my hand-written journals for the months between May 16<sup>th</sup>, 2013 and October 19<sup>th</sup>, 2018. Up until the first date, and after the second, I kept my journal digitally. I used hand-written journals in order to find out how a mechanical pencil differs from a mechanical keyboard when setting down thoughts. I see that “Great Bay Estuary” was one of the last poems written before the publication of my fourth collection, <i>Last One Out</i>, which appeared in March 2019. It appears in a chapter devoted to memories of family and youth. I mention the poem in my entry for Monday, August 5th, 2018: “I have been working on a poem called ‘Great Bay Estuary.’ In some ways it is an enlargement of my poem ‘Mullica River,’ from <i>All of You on the Good Earth</i>, but it is much more, I believe.” I mention sending it to the editor and his accepting it, “so I put it into <i>Last One Out </i>as the last poem of the opening section.” More on that to come. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;"><i>How did it start?</i> <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Strangely, it probably started with the poem mentioned in the journal, the sonnet “Sailing the Mullica River (Great Bay Estuary) 1978,” which served as a kind of sketch or draft. This was entirely unplanned. I only noticed the similarities after I completed the later poem. The sonnet appeared in <i>66: The Journal of Sonnet Studies</i>, a magazine run by Zachary Bos out of his Melville Avenue address in Boston, in the summer of 2009, ten years before “Great Bay Estuary” appeared in print. The poem appeared again in 2013 in my second book, <i>All of You on the Good Earth</i>. As you can see, it contains the very title of the later poem in its title, nestled between the primary title and the date. In part, the poem reads: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Terns dowse beaks in their echoed images.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Jet fighters soar and glint over arcades<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Of scorched black pines. The white sail snaps, billows.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Greenheads swarm in the shaping dusk and buzz.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Our prow stirs the black mud, splits sulking grass.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">The earlier poem employs my standard <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/learn/glossary-terms/sonnet" target="_blank">sonnet</a> form, which consists of two sestets rhyming ABCABCDEFDEF followed by a couplet, GG. The sestets are employed (without the final GG couplet of the sonnet) in “Great Bay Estuary.” The earlier poem turns on tangible images imagined in an elevated musical register, which is where it most strongly resembles the later poem aside from the rhyme scheme. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">My father died in 1992, so these poems look back over great distances to days spent sailing with him and his friend, a history teacher at the high school where they both taught. It was a modest boat they owned together and kept docked up the Mullica River in the New Jersey Pine Barrens. The boat was a Sailstar Corinthian 19, with a long keel hull. It was probably around twenty feet long, maybe a six foot beam, with a fractional sloop rigging, which is a shortened foresail. It was named <i>Strömming</i>, which means small fish in Swedish. I believe strömming are specifically herring fished in the brackish waters of the Baltic north of the Kalmar Strait, which is fitting for a boat that sailed the brackish waters of a tidal river and bay. I grew up hearing of the adventures they had on the boat. Once, a sudden squall hit them, and while trying to shelter in Forked River wound up dismasted by the bridge for Route 9. They were rescued by the Coast Guard. My dad grew beards in the summer when sailing, but he shaved before school started again, except one year when the principal saw him the day before class and told him to shave the beard. That year he kept it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">The figure of the sailboat making way in a tidal river occurred to me as an ideal figure of a life colored by memories: winds that fill the sails likened to the events in life that move us to feel more deeply; the keel roiling black mud, stirring up sediment and filling the water with debris and organic matter, which I correlate with the deep particles of memory that long ago settled but can be stirred again. The <i>Strömming </i>is not much as ships in literature go—the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Argo-legendary-ship" target="_blank">Argo</a>, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pequod_(Moby-Dick)" target="_blank">Pequod</a>, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captains_Courageous" target="_blank">We’re Here</a>, <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Fools_(satire)" target="_blank">Stultifera Navis</a></i>—but it serves a function in the poem. It is a vessel in both senses of the word—a craft, moving across water and time, and a container, holding memories. The <i>Strömming </i>appears in the poem twice, first as its historical self and then as its mythical or dream proxy in the “</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">ivory sloop with sails of ice,” an object in life recalled in memory or dream, and as art. The poem is also elegiac. For some reason, I’ve always been alert to elegiac qualities in literature. Even <i><a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/16328/16328-h/16328-h.htm" target="_blank">Beowulf</a> </i>can be read as a lament for a departed age of heroes and high adventure. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">I learned from reading the <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/collections/152982/an-introduction-to-british-romanticism" target="_blank">Romantics</a> that any image in a poem must carry its own weight and that it changes tone in relation to any others. It is there to carry some symbolic weight or create emotional texture. <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/william-wordsworth" target="_blank">Wordsworth</a> acknowledges the importance to the poet of being able to “supply endless combinations of forms and imagery.” This is the vivid sensation he urges poets to obtain. Wordsworth is also the great poet of memory and reflections on youth and mortality that accompany age. His early work, his best, has become more important to me as I grow older, but I find the work of the other major English Romantics have as well, even <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/percy-bysshe-shelley" target="_blank">Shelley</a>, if only for the staggering beauty of his lines and his reach for the sublime. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;"><i>How many revisions did this poem undergo?</i> <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">I didn’t keep careful notes regarding revision of the poem. I revise a great deal and very quickly. I like to get the raw material up on the slab and then work it, either subtracting as if chiseling a block of marble or piling it up like clay. That’s an imprecise analogy, but my point is that the actual <i>work </i>of it, rather than the pure revelation of the creative experience, comes with the long work of revision. It takes some time, and I’ll either feel it’s done and ready to show to editors or decide that it falls short. If I don’t think it works, I place it in what I jokingly call the “vast archive,” where I keep everything from whole poems to jettisoned stanzas and even single lines clipped out of poems. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;"><i>How much time elapsed between the first and final drafts?</i> <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">When I see that a painter like <a href="https://www.dekooning.org/the-artist/biography" target="_blank">Willem de Kooning</a> painted “<a href="http://www.theartwolf.com/masterworks/kooning.htm" target="_blank">Woman I</a>” from 1950 to 1952, I can only assume it doesn’t mean he worked on nothing else for two years. I imagine it going behind some other canvases, being pulled out, worked on, put back again in some combination until he felt done with it. I am usually working a number of poems at once, dozens. Sometimes I change something, and then make a note in the next revision to put it back the way it was, and then make another note during the next round to make the change again, which fits <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Faulkner" target="_blank">Faulkner’s</a> assertion that literature is the human heart in conflict with itself. It’s comical, but it shows the struggle between moods or artistic instincts that remain in opposition. I can’t answer your question with any precision, though I’d think this one underwent changes for a few months before finding its final form. </span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;"><i>Do you believe in inspiration? How much of this poem was “received” and how much was the result of sweat and tears? </i><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">For me a poem is part mystery and part practice. I use many techniques and approaches. The truth is I don’t even plan a poem in any particular way most of the time. I start with what feels right in the act of writing itself. Once a spark strikes I’m ready to burn whatever is at hand to keep the fire going. A single feeling, intensely experienced, can carry a long way. I try to be completely open to new ways of doing things every time, while still learning from what I’ve done in the past, whether that means building on experience or learning what to avoid. To answer the question directly, both parts always matter. The poem was halfway “received” and the rest of the way fashioned from “sweat and tears.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">The poems in my earlier books followed <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/ralph-waldo-emerson" target="_blank">Emerson’s</a> notion of a poem as “not metres, but a metre-making argument.” They tended to have a rhetorical thrust. I wrote in an <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/w-h-auden" target="_blank">Audenesque</a>, <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/horace" target="_blank">Horatian</a> mode, discursive, philosophical, sometimes humorous, argumentative, though I realize that I was doing that in sonnet form primarily. Something about the sonnet form must lend itself to the rhetorical gesture, not least the presence of a <i><a href="https://www.britannica.com/art/volta-poetry" target="_blank">volta</a> </i>and the overall concision of the form. Of course there is more to what Emerson said than is usually quoted. He went on to say that a poem is “a thought so passionate and alive that like the spirit of a plant or an animal it has an architecture of its own, and adorns nature with a new thing.” That is more relevant to a poem like “Great Bay Estuary.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">I am usually moved to make notes toward a new poem only when the poem comes to me as an image combined with memorable sound to capture it. I don’t know why or how it happens. It tends to happen when I’m taken out of my daily rounds by illness, travel, exhaustion, extreme situations, emotional distress, emergencies and crises, a hangover. As Shelley put it so memorably in his <i><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/69388/a-defence-of-poetry" target="_blank">Defence of Poetry</a></i>, it is an art that “purges from our inward sight the film of familiarity which obscures from us the wonder of our being.” When I was young I attempted all sorts of methods to prod myself into writing, though the result was only hundreds of pages of poetry I’d file away and forget. I tried automatic writing of various kinds, chance operations, cut-ups, variations on passages written by others. I goaded myself into authorship because I felt I couldn’t very well call myself a poet if I hadn’t managed to put any poetry down. I put the cart in front of the horse, but those were early days.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">At some point I realized with sadness and embarrassment that I didn’t know how to describe the world around me very well. I was writing gaseous, abstract poems in my 20s. I didn’t know the names of trees, types of stone, geographical features, weather patterns. I wasn’t versed in architectural or biological terminology. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Appel" target="_blank">Alfred Appel</a>, a student of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Vladimir-Nabokov" target="_blank">Nabokov’s</a>, relates an anecdote that really shook me when I first encountered it. He tells of an occasion at Cornell when a student entered Nabokov’s office and appealed for help becoming a writer. Nabokov is said to have pointed out the window and asked “what is the name of that tree?” When the student came up empty, he supposedly remarked “then you’ll never be a writer.” Harsh words from a professor by today’s standards, these nonetheless were a powerful corrective for me. I began to gather books about trees, sea life, minerals, birds, weather patterns, parts of man-made objects to learn about everything to which I was already seeing and reacting but couldn’t name. This provided me the resources I needed to make poems more concrete, gain more control over them symbolically. I finally got the gist of “no ideas but in things,” the directive by <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/william-carlos-williams" target="_blank">William Carlos Williams</a>. I understood what <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/wallace-stevens" target="_blank">Wallace Stevens</a> meant when he wrote in <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Necessary-Angel-Essays-Reality-Imagination/dp/0394702786" target="_blank">The Necessary Angel</a></i>, “the imagination loses vitality as it ceases to adhere to what is real.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">In “Great Bay Estuary,” the images are drawn from deep memory deeply considered, what artists refer to as <i>le dessin de mémoire</i>, learning a scene or pattern so well that it may be spiritually interpreted with imaginative dynamism at a later time. After all, this poem is twice removed from the scene. It is a description of myself remembering it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;"><i>How did this poem arrive at its final form? Did you consciously employ any principles of technique?</i><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">I mentioned the sestets of iambic pentameter with an ABCABC rhyme scheme lifted from the double sestets of my own sonnet form. This came naturally. It is likely that the stanzas of <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/john-keats" target="_blank">Keats’</a> great odes were adapted sonnets. He wrote to his brother not long after writing “<a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44480/ode-to-psyche" target="_blank">Ode to Psyche</a>,” “I have been endeavouring to discover a better Sonnet stanza than we have. The legitimate does not suit the language well, from the pouncing rhymes; the other appears too elegiac, and the couplet at the end of it has seldom a pleasing effect. I do not pretend to have succeeded. It will explain itself.” Like Keats, I jettisoned the couplets, though rather than fashion an attenuated sonnet I pulled out a component and proceeded to use it as a basic block. I embed internal rhymes as well, to give a sense of lift to certain passages. I also situate some rhymes to create a certain fluency with each other. For instance, in this stanza, A and B are close enough to sound off each other: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">The dock’s slats tilt down, disappearing at the end <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">To rot in slow water. Nearer, a marsh wren <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Sways on a thorny stem. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">“End” rhymes later with “bend” (coronal stops) and “wren” slackly with “merlin” (coronal nasals) but we get “stem” (labial nasal) in the middle to lift the sound up and keep it going. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">I invented the word “luft” for the poem. It provided precisely what I needed in terms of <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/learn/glossary-terms/onomatopoeia" target="_blank">onomatopoetic</a> presence. “Luft” is German for “air.” It doesn’t exist in English, at least until now. It’s an example of sound trumping sense. I had to use that word. “Lift” didn’t work. I wanted “luft.” It was the sound I wanted, so I used it. No one seems to be confused by it or wonder about the word. From context, and from the music, the reader understands what is meant. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Also, I wanted to include the four classical elements of water, earth, air, and fire. The water draws all that has died or is dying toward the bay and the sea beyond. The earth is home to the grasses and trees and the shores that create, with water, the shape of the river. The air conveys clouds reflected in the surface to which the fish rise as if touching them. The wind moves the grass and nourishes the distant fire, which is the burning of deep emotion, its smoke smudging and altering the colors of the sunset as we look back in time. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;"><i><b>Was there anything unusual about the way in which you wrote this poem?</b></i><b><o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Not particularly. It came to me without any effort. I simply began writing. It had been simmering for decades, probably. That’s the only way I write poetry. As I’ve explained, it’s a variation, albeit in longer form, of an earlier poem prompted by the same memory. Once I began, it came easily because I felt physically placed in the scene. I was seeing, and it was all around me. I was there. I felt it. Years ago I reviewed Helen Vendler’s <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Poets-Thinking-Whitman-Dickinson-Yeats/dp/067402110X" target="_blank">Poets Thinking: Pope, Whitman, Dickinson, Yeats</a> </i>for a New York newspaper. I wrote at the time about her “useful observations on Whitman’s tendency to restate an idea by adding a more subtle second description of a particular scene.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">At the time I wondered why he wouldn’t go back to remove the earlier, presumably prototypical passage in order to leave only the improved, or at least reimagined passage. She argues that both parts belong in the poem. In this case I have two entirely different poems, and the second does not eclipse the first, though I believe it improves on its theme. I suspect many poets revisit themes, images, sounds, events, or emotions throughout their careers. One can draw profitably from the same well a whole lifetime. I have a very real fear of not only drying up as a writer but becoming a bore, repeating myself. However, sometimes it takes repetition to find completion. You hope the water you draw remains fresh. “Expect poison from the standing water,” <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/william-blake" target="_blank">Blake</a> warned.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">It is a painterly poem, a landscape. <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Henri-Matisse" target="_blank">Matisse</a> (writing about still-life, a form at which he excelled) instructed his students that what is most important is the “emotion of the ensemble, the interrelation of the objects, the specific character of every object—modified by its relation to the others—all interlaced like a cord or a serpent.” It flows through description. To a reader of prose, description can seem like an impediment to narrative progress and engaging dialog. I’ve met people who tell me they only read the dialog in novels and skip everything else. In a poem like “Great Bay Estuary,” the description is the very essence of the poem, the point from which all else proceeds. I’ve always hoped a poem could work as a spell. Poetry works as we expect magic to. A good poem transforms the reader, inspires fear or hope, brings sadness or instills courage. It transports the reader to other places, other times, into another person’s life and experience. It lodges in the mind and survives on the tongue, changing the way the reader speaks. If that’s not magic, I don’t know what is. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;"><i>How long after you finished this poem did it first appear in print? </i><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Not terribly long, as these things go. It was less than a year before it appeared in <i><a href="https://www.press.jhu.edu/journals/hopkins-review" target="_blank">The Hopkins Review </a></i>Volume 12, Number 2, Spring 2019, and in <i>Last One Out</i>, which came out in March 2019. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;"><i>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?</i> <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">I am subject to the same weaknesses I observe among fellow poets. I do get excited when I manage a serviceable first draft of a poem. It’s new. That’s exhilarating. But it’s still molten, really, and it needs to be shaped as it sets. My urge to share it right away is more or less satisfied when I show it to a handful of friends who read my work first and whose work I read in return. Even in that case, I try to let it sit for a while before showing them. I know that when I’m working on it, I’m going to keep making small changes for a while, and the next day I might reorder or even remove a stanza, make bigger changes along those lines. It’s a waste of everyone’s time if I start putting the poem out in the world too soon. They wind up commenting on something that’s no longer in the poem or has already been changed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;"><i>Could you talk about fact and fiction and how this poem negotiates the two? </i><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Well, the honest memory would be one of sheer boredom. New Jersey summers are sweltering, humid, buggy. To navigate a river like the Mullica a sailor is compelled to tack a great deal as the waterway wends its way through the barrens. It’s a slow progress to the bay, and you’re constantly rocked by powerboats making their way out. It’s hard as a boy to stay focused if you’re not actually involved in what’s going on. I wasn’t old enough to do much to help the older men handling the sails and tiller. I couldn’t wait till it was time to eat lunch or do anything to break up the monotony. Yet I have very distinct memories of the sights. That’s the fact. The fiction is that my memories move me greatly, not least because I miss my father so much. I miss my childhood, and even those times spent in boredom or agony take on a new light in memory when the world was till before me. They stand out and become memorable. The poem is both wistful and, I hope, majestic in its way. That’s the fiction, if you will. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;"><i>Is this a narrative poem?</i><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">No. It is a poem about memory, and it engages in world-building of a type. It’s not a still life, because you’ll notice everything, even the trees and sky, are in motion or suggest motion. The two greater motions in the poem are the sun sinking in the west, leaving a dazzling array over the forest fires so common in the barrens, and the slow pull of the river toward the bay and the ocean beyond, carrying wreckage with it. The river moving east is the endless, sometimes almost imperceptible pull of time toward the vast mystery of death. The sunset in the west is the looking back, engrossing oneself in deep recollection, the magnificent colors changing everything. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">The poem moves back in time even within itself. It begins in the afternoon and goes into dusk, when “i</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">n the murky hush / Of dusk, we arrive at the familiar landing . . . .” which I hoped might remind the reader of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Charon-Greek-mythology" target="_blank">Charon</a> poling across<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Styx" target="_blank"> Styx</a> to deliver the newly dead to the underworld. The reason I use an ellipsis to end that stanza is that the reader is moved back as the clock is reset to afternoon and the lambent glow of sun on and below the water:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">Beyond the sandy downstream knolls, behold <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">A summer flotilla of tundra swans. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">In strobing depths beneath the broken dock, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">Elegant Venetian galleys of gold-<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">Finned pickerel row through rays to bronze,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">White perch arrowing silver around a rock<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">To the sun-ruled surface where stratocumuli<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">Loom in to warn of an advancing storm. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">A sad and majestic eastern red cedar <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">Bushes over the brown current, berry<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">Clusters dusty-blue, a funerary form<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">Leaning to its mirror in the lessening light.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">It is only then that, grammatically speaking, I introduce the imperative mood with “behold,” which chimes with “gold” and “swans” with “bronze” and “dock” with “rock.” There is so much to see! I was not ready for the night, so I pulled the clock arms back, as one can in a poem, though never in life, except through the twin magics of art and memory. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;"><i>Do you remember who you were reading when you wrote this poem? Any influences you’d care to disclose? </i><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Although it was not at the front of my mind while writing the poem, I realize a principal influence is <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/elizabeth-bishop" target="_blank">Elizabeth Bishop</a>, who could imbue a landscape or still-life with symbolic resonance. She said to <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/richard-wilbur" target="_blank">Richard Wilbur</a> “neither of us has any philosophy. It’s all description, no philosophy.” They were discussing religion, but it holds in terms of poetry. Her spirit hovered over my poem. One reader suggested I suppress the poem because he felt it was too <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/william-butler-yeats" target="_blank">Yeatsian</a>, something I don’t see at all, and I think it must have to do with the reed as a wand toward the end of the poem, in the eighth and penultimate stanza. Another told me he placed it in the realm of <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/hart-crane" target="_blank">Hart Crane</a>, as he saw an almost reckless reaching after beauty. I do like the notion, as Crane himself put it, of practicing “invention to the brink of intelligibility.” Neither Yeats nor Crane was in my thoughts at all when I was writing, though. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;"><i>Do you have any particular audience in mind when you write, an ideal reader? </i><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">When I was in graduate school a friend asked me that question, and I was baffled. It had never occurred to me to consider it. I still devote little energy to the question. Today, insofar as I imagine a reader, it would be one attuned to the sound of a poem, even when reading silently—something <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/jon-stallworthy" target="_blank">Jon Stallworthy</a> emphasized when I studied with him at Oxford. The musical or aural qualities of a poem are not strictly limited by its being heard out loud. A poem must consist of memorable language, as Auden put it, and there are many ways to achieve that. Another characteristic of my ideal reader would be an ability to recognize ambiguity, to understand how a word or phrase could be read in more than one way—not in a mutually exclusive ways—also the manner in which rhymes by themselves might undermine the apparent intention of a poem, little puzzles and clues like that, which are integral to my way of making poems. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">A friend recently remarked to me that he felt we are the third and final generation of poets who came of age under the influence of the <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/learn/glossary-terms/new-criticism" target="_blank">New Critical</a> method of not only reading but thoroughly rereading a poem in order to examine it along different lines and gain a deeper, more powerful understanding of it over time. If I can read a poem—or for that matter a story or novel—and notice nothing more in subsequent readings than the first I consider it of less interest than one that yields deeper meaning over time. This is a very old-fashioned way of reading, I believe. In that way, I am out of touch with the times. My ideal reader may hardly exist at all, when I pause to think about it. I sometimes find it best not to think too much about it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;"><i>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><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Yes, of course. Always. I even sent it to one to ask technical questions about sailing terminology. I like to get my facts straight as far as possible. There is a small circle of poets with whom I share my work with before sending it out to editors. Advice ranges from “toss it out” to “you might want to change this one word.” It’s just advice. I always tell people it makes no sense to be offended by criticism. You are free to accept the advice, ignore it, or take it in a new direction. Someone might offer a change that inspires you to recognize that you aren’t satisfied with an element of a poem. Rather than take their advice, you change it in an entirely different way, but your attention was directed to the problem. That’s the important thing. I love working through my poems with others. It’s usually through electronic mail, though I also have people over to the house to have some drinks and read out new material to each other. It gets hazy after a certain point, but it’s fun. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;"><i>How does this poem differ from other poems of yours?</i> <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">It fits easily into my current style, which is much more attentive to images and setting than my earlier poems. I’ll be turning fifty next year, so it shouldn’t be surprising that memory and history become more important. It is said that one becomes old when one thinks more about the past than the future. That hasn’t happened for me yet, but I can feel my mind tilting in that direction. After all, there is so much in my life that I’ve hardly slowed down to think about. It just goes by. The days are used up, or survived, and forgotten. People and places, events, recur in dreams or suddenly come to me as if from nowhere, from years ago. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">I have far more years in my wake than I can hope to have ahead of me, and that changes the way I think. It energizes, in a way. After all, as <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/James-Joyce" target="_blank">James Joyce</a> recommended, “better pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age.” As for this poem, I think it’s a culmination of a style I’ve been working toward for years. I don’t know if there is any path forward from here, at least in this style. I have other paths to choose from. I’ve never circumscribed myself creatively to a single type of poem. Even in the years when I wrote principally in the sonnet form I applied as many different approaches as possible to the form in order to keep it moving forward. This poem satisfies an impulse I felt a long time. It’s the only one of its kind I’ll write, but it fits neatly into the style of poems I’m writing today in a broad sense. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;"><i>What is American about this poem? </i><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">It shares more in common with nativist American modernist styles like those of William Carlos Williams and Wallace Stevens than European strains one finds in <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/t-s-eliot" target="_blank">Eliot</a>, for example. There is no literary allusion or philosophical angle to the poem. It is set in the region of America where I grew up. The landscape is very much with me still, though I’ve been a city dweller my whole adult life. Much as Auden’s childhood limestone stayed with him, the pines and the marshes are with me. I grew up on the rim of the Pine Barrens, one of the largest freshwater marshes in the world. The flora and fauna do not appear as decoration in the poem. They are the very substance of the poem, the living world alive in memory. There is a tradition that comes down to us from Whitman, who attempted to capture the variety and largeness of America with long catalog poems. That was in mind as I wrote, the fullness, the bigness, the variation, perhaps the impossibility of capturing it all.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;"><i>Was this poem finished or abandoned? </i><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">It was finished. I’m familiar with that <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/paul-valery" target="_blank">Paul Valéry</a> comment, but I don’t know if I accept it as pertinent in all cases. You can reach a point with perfectionism in which you are no longer improving a poem, only continuing to change it, perhaps losing the initial feeling that made it live. You might weigh it down or clip it too much. You have to be careful. I understand the larger philosophical sense that a poem is never “perfected” but simply stops changing. I feel satisfied that this poem is as good as I can make it. Perhaps the ghost of Valéry could spruce it up. I’ve done all I can. Thank you!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Brian Brodeurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18306752905070477332noreply@blogger.com194tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4112204366956454376.post-4932745760866238572019-02-01T16:31:00.003-05:002019-02-01T16:31:33.258-05:00Lana K. W. Austin
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<span style="background: white; color: #140e17; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="https://www.lanakwaustin.com/" target="_blank">Lana K. W. Austin</a>’s poems, short
stories, and reviews have recently been featured in <i><a href="https://casit.bgsu.edu/midamericanreview/" target="_blank">Mid-AmericanReview</a>, <a href="http://souwester.org/" target="_blank">Sou’wester,</a> <a href="http://columbiajournal.org/poetry-lana-austin/" target="_blank">Columbia Journal</a>, <a href="https://zone3press.com/" target="_blank">Zone 3</a>, <a href="http://appalachianheritage.net/2016/08/31/the-great-flood/" target="_blank">AppalachianHeritage</a>, <a href="https://coloradoreview.colostate.edu/colorado-review/" target="_blank">The Colorado Review,</a> <a href="http://www.pinchjournal.com/home" target="_blank">The Pinch</a>, </i>and
others. Winner of the 2018 Words & Music Poetry Award, Austin has been a
finalist and semi-finalist in multiple other competitions, including the James
Wright Poetry Award, the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Crab Orchard
Review</i> First Book Award, the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Zone 3</i>
Book Award, the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">American Short Fiction</i>
Award, the <a href="http://www.stilljournal.net/lana-austin-fictioncontest2018.php" target="_blank"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Still: The Journal</i></a> Fiction
Award, and the Machigonne Fiction Award. Born and raised in rural Kentucky,
Austin studied creative writing at both Hollins University and the University
of Mary Washington as an undergraduate and has an MFA from George Mason
University (2008). Her full-length poetry collection, <a href="https://irisbooks.com/product/blood-harmony/" target="_blank"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Blood Harmony</i></a>, is from Iris Press (2018) and her chapbook, <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Search-Wild-Dulcimer-Lana-Austin/dp/1944899103" target="_blank">InSearch of the Wild Dulcimer</a>,</i> is from Finishing Line Press (2016).
Austin has lived in England, Italy, and Washington, DC, but currently resides
in Alabama, where she is an adjunct instructor in the English department at the
University of Alabama in Huntsville.</span></div>
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PRESERVED
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Don’t worry if you bruise the fruit, </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">my mother said, when you’re cutting off </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">the tops and chopping the rest up--the brown </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">fleshy parts make the sweetest preserves. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Move your fingers quickly, like your father’s</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">combine, separating and harvesting </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">the crop—make your fingers the machine </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">and after a while they’ll do it on their own—</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">like the muscle memory the organist</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">at church says lets her fingers play</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">“How Great Thou Art” without thinking.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">And while I’d never been able to do two things </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">at once before, I’d waited long enough </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">into jeweled jars of sugar-thickened jam, </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">a process that left a smell in the house so
rich </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">you felt the air around you might drop</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">to the ground, heavy. I’d also waited to learn </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">what the special ingredient was—the secret</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">all my grandmothers, aunts and older sisters </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">had kept like monogrammed handkerchiefs </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">saved a whole generation for a new bride. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Now everything was joining, an arc </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">of constant movement between my two hands,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">the knife, the fruit, the bowl— the rhythm</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">I’d anticipated for so long, a song whose
cadence</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">meant I was a woman now, old enough </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">to preserve things using knives and hot
paraffin</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">to seal it all in. It took half an hour to
notice</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">I’d cut myself, but when I told my mother,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">as I started to throw out the ruined fruit, </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">she laid one juice-slickened hand on mine</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">to stop me, holding my finger up. That’s deep </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">enough, she said, without going down </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">to the bone, to make this year’s batch the best
yet. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">She told me to keep on working </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">as the bubbling water, ready to melt the wax, </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">was the only sound.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">When
was this poem composed? How did it start? </span></i></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">This
poem is years old, but I’m so glad that you picked it, because it brings me
deep joy to remember beloved <a href="http://howapoemhappens.blogspot.com/2010/06/claudia-emerson.html" target="_blank">Claudia Emerson</a>, who helped bring it, like so much
of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Blood Harmony</i>, to life. It was
composed as one of the last pieces for my Honors Thesis, which Claudia directed.
It most definitely started with her because she was the catalyst for my turning
back to Kentucky, my home, as the central focus of much of my writing. Before
that I’d been, sorry to be blunt, chickenshit when it came to writing about my life
in Kentucky. I could politely say I had “immense trepidations.” No. I’d been
chickenshit.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">She,
ever so forthrightly, made me believe that I didn’t have to be afraid anymore
to be as agrarian as I wanted, which, to be perfectly honest, had always
deterred me before. I was the foster care/orphan girl finally adopted as an
older kid from a no-stoplight town in Kentucky. I didn’t want to play into the
stereotype, to perpetuate something negative, though. Maybe, too, I, always
wanting to choose joy as much as possible, just didn’t want to remember the
hard times. But, that’s ridiculous. Life can be hard, no matter how positive we
are. So at her urging, I realized I was missing many opportunities to mine rich
ore and I course-corrected. She wanted me to write the poems that I wanted and needed
to write, and if they were about Kentucky, they were about Kentucky. And this,
a true story, came out. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<i><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">How
many revisions did this poem undergo? How much time elapsed between the first
and final drafts? </span></b></i></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">This
went through several drafts as I recall. Certainly numerous small tweaks
because, to this day, I can’t seem to strip my language down to where it’s lean
enough, certainly not in the early drafts. I always start too big and have to
refine everything. Claudia took me through at least two edits with it, too, that
I remember, and I believe there were about four months between the very first
draft and the final version I turned in for publication.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<i><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Do
you believe in inspiration? How much of this poem was “received” and how much
was the result of sweat and tears? </span></b></i></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Oh,
I believe one hundred percent in both inspiration, a gorgeous muse that comes
and kisses you hard on the mouth when you least expect it, and also sweat and
tears pig-headed stubborn tenacity to birth a poem. Both are integral. Much of
the original part of the poem was “received,” just this gift of language, of the
narrative percolating up and out of me intuitively, but there were oodles of stray
bits that needed to be trimmed, too, and that took time and dogged resolve.
Maybe not literal sweat and tears, but certainly massively humbling moments
when I’d think, “How can I ever get this right?”</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<i><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">How
did this poem arrive at its final form? Did you consciously employ any
principles of technique?</span></b></i></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">This
poem arrived at its final form through the aforementioned convergence of
Claudia’s urging me to write what I wanted to write without fear, that gift of
original inspiration, and the pigheaded stubbornness that allowed me to keep at
it as I made dozens of edits. As far as technique, I tried very much so to be
sensitive to sound even though this is, in essence, a micro story that’s
lineated. This is a narrative poem, but pays some homage to lyricism, too,
which is indebted to those sonic moments that I purposefully embedded. I love a
good yarn, but I love beauty, too, oral and aural splendor. Not that I’m saying
that there’s splendor here in what I wrote, but I tried to hear this poem like
a reader would, to be sensitive to that, to hope for a moment or two that would
caress someone’s ear.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<i><b><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Was there anything unusual about the way in which
you wrote this poem?</span></b></i></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Only that it was one of the first pieces where I
started to let go of my profound self-consciousness and insecurity about being
the foster care/orphan girl from Kentucky. Claudia truly did help me realize it
was okay to be exactly who I was, on the page, and in life. There was a wild
freedom in that, a gift I’m still trying to repay.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><b><i>How
long after you finished this poem did it first appear in print?</i></b> </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">This
is really anomalous, but as a poet this was my first non-student publication in
print and the easiest by far. And please note that after this I waited over TEN
YEARS to begin submitting my poems again on my own because I needed to finish
my MFA, and I had babies, and I worked multiple jobs, had multiple surgeries, and
moved back and forth overseas, too. It sounds crazy and surreal, but I didn’t even
have to submit this poem. Claudia was guest editing a small, but lovely
literary journal called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Visions
International,</i> and she asked to include this piece specifically. Yes, how
remarkably generous of her. I think I might have to go cry now after typing
that last sentence, remembering her shining benevolence.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">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? </span></i></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Oh,
this varies with every poem for me. Since I finally started pretty regularly
(well, it still ebbs and flows since I’m writing so much fiction and teaching
at UAH, too) submitting poems for publication four years ago, there’s been a
diversity in terms of how long I let a poem sit. One poem, “For Emmylou,” I wrote
and started submitting just a few weeks later after having edited/revised it
only a few times and it got picked up only a few months later by <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Pinch</i>, I believe. Some I wait much
longer in terms of gestating time. Honestly, I go by gut instinct or sometimes
ADD tendencies with what’s humming along right in front of me at the moment.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Could
you talk about fact and fiction and how this poem negotiates the two? </span></i></b></div>
<b><i>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I’d
like to say that this poem is totally fact, or compressed fact because I
condensed some elements from different parts of my family. But memory is a
prism, through which the truth/history/our past is poured and refracted, which
means that our truth, even when we can pass a lie detector test and say that
we’re absolutely conveying the story as accurately as we remember it, is
somewhat malleable or tenuous and it splinters into facets. I think there have
to be fragments of fiction in this, even though my heart believes I’ve told the
honest-to-goodness truth. I believe this poem is a dance, yes a dance, of fact
and fiction, like so many things are.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<i><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Is
this a narrative poem?</span></b></i></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Most
certainly this is narrative, but with tiny bursts of what I hope to be lyrical
light because I was a musician for a long time and the sonorous aesthetics of
language move me. Beautiful sounds folding over and into themselves make love
to my ears and I try to incorporate them into every poem a tiny bit--even when
I have a specific story I need to convey. At least that’s my hope, even if I
can’t always bring it to fruition. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><b><i>Do
you remember who you were reading when you wrote this poem? Any influences
you’d care to disclose? </i></b></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Oh
my heavens, there isn’t enough time to list everyone I was reading. I’ve long
been an insomniac and thus a voracious reader, but these were my touchstones
then and still are. I know specifically because I discussed these writers at
length with Claudia (and she’s the one who first got me gobsmacked about Betty
Adcock!) as I proceeded with my Honors Thesis, what would grow to be my MFA Thesis,
and finally into <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Blood Harmony</i>:
Robert Penn Warren, Natasha Trethewey, Steve Scafidi, Betty Adcock, Dave Smith,
James Wright, Ted Kooser, Muriel Rukeyser, and though they are prose writers,
they nonetheless influenced my poetry beyond description and I was flitting
between them, too, at the time: Carson McCullers, Eudora Welty, Flannery
O’Connor, Lee Smith, Annie Dillard, Jill McCorkle, and William Faulkner. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<i><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Do
you have any particular audience in mind when you write, an ideal reader? </span></b></i></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I
am greedy and want a dichotomy, please, when it comes to this question; I
envision two readers! I long for the poet who will desire the spondees that I’m
madly in love with as well as the references to Eugenio Montale, or anyone with
knowledge of prosody and who has read and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">loved
</i>widely in poetry, but I’d concurrently love to have a reader who doesn’t
know a thing about poetry technically. It’d be my dream, my honor, to write a
poem, the same poem, that would engage both kinds of readers deeply, to make
them think and feel and dream, to sense all that a poem can be, and maybe even
a little offering of mine could do that one day, or at least I aspire to write
something that could do that.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<i><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">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?</span></b></i></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Only
Claudia and maybe one or two in our small Senior Seminar workshop saw this
poem. For more recent poems, however, over the years I’ve been grateful to have
had the finest creative writing professors (not only Claudia, but Jen Atkinson,
Eric Pankey, Jeanne Larsen, Peter Klappert, etc.) and fellow workshop poets in my
undergrad and MFA programs. And recently I’ve also worked with not only some
gifted UAH professor-poets, but some amazingly talented and inspiring poets in
a group lovingly brought together by Jeff Hardin, whom he calls the Fellowship.
I’m intensely grateful to this summer/fall’s Fellowship group, as I believe
they have helped me grow tremendously. I send them the roughest of rough drafts
all the time and they still speak to me afterwards! Additionally, there have
been some powerhouse poets, people who are leaps and bounds beyond me, who have
generously helped me and encouraged me with individual poems even though they
have never formally been my professors, people like Steve Scafidi, Dave Smith, and
R. T. Smith. Their advice has been gold, pure gold, I tell you. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<i><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">How
does this poem differ from other poems of yours? </span></b></i></div>
<i><b>
</b></i><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">It’s
more literal. Many of my other poems “go someplace else” as I like to describe
it…some kind of otherworldly breaking through, with a moment of magic or
mystery or just some tiny bit of the “other” touching the mundane. This one is
exactly what it says it is, though.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<i><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">What
is American about this poem? </span></b></i></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">The
bleeding of the women as they have to just keep on working. Wait, that’s not
American, that’s everywhere. Sad, but true. Maybe the combine, the organist playing
the church hymn, those feel as if they are classic Southern/Americana images.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Was this
poem finished or abandoned?</span></b></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">As much as
I could possibly endeavor to do so, I humbly proffer that this poem was
finished.</span></div>
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</style>Brian Brodeurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18306752905070477332noreply@blogger.com322tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4112204366956454376.post-4843378458915247632018-12-04T15:39:00.007-05:002018-12-04T15:42:46.692-05:00William Brewer <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://williambrewer.net/" target="_blank">William Brewer</a> is the author of <a href="https://milkweed.org/book/i-know-your-kind" target="_blank"><i>I Know Your Kind</i></a> (2017), a winner of the National Poetry Series, and <a href="http://www.poetrysociety.org/psa/store/chapbooks/" target="_blank"><i>Oxyana</i></a>. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in <a href="https://www.aprweb.org/" target="_blank"><i>American Poetry Review</i></a>, <a href="https://www.thenation.com/" target="_blank"><i>The Nation</i></a>, <a href="http://www.nereview.com/" target="_blank"><i>New England Review</i></a>, <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/" target="_blank"><i>The New Yorker</i></a>, <a href="https://apublicspace.org/" target="_blank"><i>A Public Space</i></a>, <a href="https://thesewaneereview.com/" target="_blank"><i>The Sewanee Review</i></a>, and other journals. Formerly a Stegner Fellow, he is currently a Jones Lecturer at Stanford University. <br />
<br />
<br />
STRAYS<br />
<br />
It was only after waking for the first time in years<br />
beside a stranger, in that gray valley<br />
where morning hasn’t yet taken responsibility,<br />
that I thought I understood at last<br />
why the man from the bar who never spoke<br />
but drank quietly every day at the same seat<br />
for the same hours, and whom I was once<br />
paid to follow home, would sit in his small<br />
living room and call the pound on speakerphone<br />
and ask about a dog that didn’t exist<br />
so that when the receptionist<br />
went walking through the kennels<br />
holding the cordless receiver<br />
looking for the dog-that-wasn’t <br />
you could hear all hell rattling in the cages, <br />
thrashing the chains, could almost sense, <br />
even from where I was standing<br />
outside his window looking through a break<br />
in the curtains, the drool shining on the teeth<br />
bared in the black, dank holes, how<br />
enough abandoned things screaming<br />
could make a sound large enough to find<br />
a rhythm in it, which is to say, something dependable—<br />
I woke next to no one and when she woke<br />
I was no one for a minute, too.<br />
<br />
<br />
<i><b>When was this poem composed? How did it start? </b></i><br />
<br />
It was composed sometime in February of 2017. I was due to visit a mentor’s house and bring some poems, which I did every week. I had nothing new to show her and had spent the previous day toiling over some terrifically bad thing that I knew I couldn’t bring. Then, that morning, in what was maybe a flash of panic about showing up empty handed, I wrote this poem over maybe an hour and a half? But in truth, I think it had been brewing in my head for maybe a year, and I had to slog through the mud of that bad poem to finally break through into the more interesting thing. My imagination is sometimes very earnest and tries to gives pieces a chance that don’t really deserve one.<br />
<br />
<b><i>How many revisions did this poem undergo? How much time elapsed between the first and final drafts? </i></b><br />
<br />
After I showed it to my mentor, she had me bring it into workshop, and after that I tinkered a bit more, so maybe four drafts total? This is very rare. But again, I think this was a poem that incubated in the brain and was born almost fully formed.<br />
<br />
<b><i>Do you believe in inspiration? How much of this poem was “received” and how much was the result of sweat and tears? </i></b><br />
<br />
I of course believe in inspiration, though I think that the more interesting occurrences of inspiration are often engendered through a lot of sweat and tears. The hardest work is getting your imagination to completely overpower your humdrum mind and make something you had no idea was buzzing around inside your skull. This poem happened in a flash that, in truth, came only after I banged my forehead into an oak desktop for twenty four hours.<br />
<br />
<b><i>How did this poem arrive at its final form? Did you consciously employ any principles of technique?</i></b><br />
<br />
I’d like to think that at this point I’ve internalized technique so that when it’s being deployed, it’s happening through instinct, which of course just means that I hope my instincts have become more elegant expressions because of my study of technique.<br />
<br />
<i><b>Was there anything unusual about the way in which you wrote this poem?</b></i><br />
<br />
It doesn’t usually happen that quickly.<br />
<br />
<i><b>How long after you finished this poem did it first appear in print? </b></i><br />
<br />
About sixteen months.<br />
<br />
<i><b>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? </b></i><br />
<br />
No rules about this. I send poems once I think they’re done.<br />
<br />
<i><b>Could you talk about fact and fiction and how this poem negotiates the two? </b></i><br />
<br />
I think the question of fact and fiction in poetry is tremendously boring and is a symptom of our current age, when the people that run our world operate through a system of blatant, unending lies. I believe that we, as a literary culture, have allowed our desperate—though completely understandable—desire for facts to infect how we engage with literature, especially poetry. We’re asking for the facts from an art form that is in service to truths. Facts aren’t poetry’s job. This poem is 100% true and 100% false. <br />
<br />
<i><b>Is this a narrative poem?</b></i><br />
<br />
The more I hear this phrase, the less I’m sure what it means. There’s a narrative in the sense that something happens, but I’m inclined to describe this as essentially lyrical. Or maybe it’s an act of cinema. Yeah, that’s what it is—I think.<br />
<br />
<i><b>Do you remember who you were reading when you wrote this poem? Any influences you’d care to disclose? </b></i><br />
<br />
I can’t remember who I was reading at the time but there’s a pretty strong chance that a book by one or more of the following writers was present on my desk: <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/wg-sebald" target="_blank">W.G. Sebald</a>, <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/carl-phillips" target="_blank">Carl Phillips</a>, <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/solmaz-sharif" target="_blank">Solmaz Sharif</a>, <a href="https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/margaret-ross" target="_blank">Margaret Ross</a>, <a href="https://www.bl.uk/people/virginia-woolf" target="_blank">Virginia Woolf</a>, <a href="https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/1887/don-delillo-the-art-of-fiction-no-135-don-delillo" target="_blank">Don DeLillo</a>.<br />
<br />
<i><b>Do you have any particular audience in mind when you write, an ideal reader? </b></i><br />
<br />
My wife, my mentors, my friends—I try not to look like an idiot in front of them, though I often do, and that’s okay.<br />
<br />
<i><b>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?</b></i><br />
<br />
Wife, mentors, friends, and this one was also seen by my Stegner Workshop, which was really generous and great.<br />
<br />
<i><b>How does this poem differ from other poems of yours? </b></i><br />
<br />
It’s part of what will be my second book, which is different than my first book in a million different ways, though if I think about what those differences are I’ll lose a sense of creative freedom and naivety, so I can’t say.<br />
<br />
<b><i>What is American about this poem? </i></b><br />
<br />
I wrote it.<br />
<br />
<i><b>Was this poem finished or abandoned? </b></i><br />
<br />
It abandoned me.<br />
<br />Brian Brodeurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18306752905070477332noreply@blogger.com92tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4112204366956454376.post-88601845321466939732018-10-12T16:36:00.001-04:002018-10-12T16:40:08.110-04:00Amit Majmudar <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Amit Majmudar is a novelist, poet, translator, essayist, and diagnostic nuclear radiologist (M.D.). He is the author of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Godsong-Verse-Translation-Bhagavad-Gita-Commentary/dp/1524733474" target="_blank"><i>Godsong</i></a> (2018), a verse translation of the Bhagavad Gita, and three collections of poetry, most recently <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Dothead-Poems-Amit-Majmudar-ebook/dp/B010ZXQADW/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1539376255&sr=1-1&keywords=dothead+majmudar" target="_blank"><i>Dothead</i></a> (2016). He writes and practices in Westerville, Ohio, where he lives with his wife, twin sons, and daughter. <br />
<br />
<br />
INVOCATION<br />
<br />
The arms I sing. Forget the man, there is<br />
no other epic. Sing the arms of kids, <br />
the ones with pustules all along their veins<br />
<br />
like runway track lights burning for a plane<br />
that blew up hours ago with no survivors. <br />
The ones with runes no parent can decipher, <br />
<br />
one message, knifed and scarred and knifed again<br />
in a mystic tongue forgotten who knows when. <br />
The arms imprinted with a shadow grip<br />
<br />
as if the dad who grabbed and crushed had dipped <br />
his hand in black paint first. The arms with tight<br />
arcs of perforation: human bites<br />
<br />
that get infected faster than a dog’s. <br />
The toddler’s arms with both hands scalded raw<br />
all glisteny and hog-pink, swollen taut, <br />
<br />
the tantrum over, the lesson taught, <br />
two signal fires that call across the plain<br />
the city is sacked and all the children slain.<br />
<br />
<br />
<i><b>When was this poem composed? How did it start?</b></i><br />
<br />
I have little exact memory of when I composed this poem (other than that it was some time in 2013, since its publication date is in early 2014). I remember it started with the first line and wrote itself from there.<br />
<br />
<i><b>How many revisions did this poem undergo? How much time elapsed between the first and final drafts?</b></i><br />
<br />
I usually just revise as I go, so each line may have been tweaked and redone and micro-revised a dozen times. I'd need a keystroke tracker program to figure out exactly what word or punctuation mark I changed when. So that aspect of the poem's genesis is lost. <br />
<br />
<i><b>Do you believe in inspiration? How much of this poem was “received” and how much was the result of sweat and tears?</b></i><br />
<br />
I do believe in inspiration, but I don't believe in the poet's passivity in the inspired state. It only feels passive because of the muscle memory that comes from practice. I believe that sweat and tears, put in copiously early in the career, can make you likelier to "receive" poems from yourself, or the Muse, or the Gods, or the subconscious or whatever.<br />
<br />
<i><b>How did this poem arrive at its final form? Did you consciously employ any principles of technique?</b></i><br />
<br />
Initially I wrote it in couplets with spaces between the couplets. Then I rearranged the poem into tercets, and it looked better that way. The technical aspects are on the surface--heroic couplet, basically, which dovetails well with the theme of an Invocation to the Muse. <br />
<br />
<i><b>Was there anything unusual about the way in which you wrote this poem?</b></i><br />
<br />
Not really. Just me in my study, at my iMac, tapping away. <br />
<br />
<i><b>How long after you finished this poem did it first appear in print?</b></i><br />
<br />
About ten months or so.<br />
<br />
<b><i>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?</i></b><br />
<br />
I've gotten poems accepted within hours of writing them. I recently sold a novel to Penguin Random House India that I'd written in 2010. There are no rules. I write a lot, and some things I bury and discover later, other things I am very aggressive with sending out.<br />
<i><b><br />Could you talk about fact and fiction and how this poem negotiates the two?</b></i><br />
<br />
The poem conjures some memories of the time I spent as a medical student in an adolescent psychiatry unit. A lot of suicide attempts and people who engaged in self-harm. Cutters and drug abusers. I would go in each morning and interview these kids. I was told some things I will never forget. Images I can't shake, and it's been like sixteen years. Like the girl whose stepdad took her to the basement and tied a rope around her neck and tied the other end around a crossbeam and then raped her with her hanging there. He did it standing up with his hands behind his back. And she had to cling to him while he did it because she knew if she let go she would fall and hang herself. It turned him on, how she clung to him. She was ten when it happened. She was fourteen when I interviewed her. She had emptied a bottle of Tylenol into her body the night before. She attempted suicide annually. "One of these times," she told me, "I'll get this right."<br />
<i><b><br />Is this a narrative poem?</b></i><br />
<br />
Not really. Only implicitly, obliquely. See above.<br />
<br />
<i><b>Do you remember who you were reading when you wrote this poem? Any influences you’d care to disclose?</b></i><br />
<br />
No, I don't remember who I was reading, but I know my influence when I write the heroic couplet is basically <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/alexander-pope" target="_blank">Alexander Pope</a>.<br />
<br />
<i><b>Do you have any particular audience in mind when you write, an ideal reader?</b></i><br />
<br />
No. My ideal readers were the old <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/learn/glossary-terms/elizabethan-age" target="_blank">Elizabethans</a>. They liked metaphor and emotion and serious play and wit.<br />
<br />
<i><b>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?</b></i><br />
<br />
No and no.<br />
<br />
<i><b>How does this poem differ from other poems of yours?</b></i><br />
<br />
It's not that often that I directly engage with the classical Mediterranean epic tradition in this overt a way.<br />
<br />
<b><i>What is American about this poem?</i></b><br />
<br />
The runway tracklights. And the speaker.<br />
<br />
<i><b>Was this poem finished or abandoned?</b></i><br />
<br />
Finished.Brian Brodeurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18306752905070477332noreply@blogger.com145tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4112204366956454376.post-66418192289792174092018-07-23T14:29:00.002-04:002018-07-23T14:30:18.206-04:00Maryann Corbett<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="http://www.maryanncorbett.com/" target="_blank">Maryann Corbett</a> spent almost thirty-five years working for the Office of the Revisor of Statutes at the Minnesota Legislature. She is the author of four books of poems and three chapbooks; her most recent book is <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Street-View-Poems-Maryann-Corbett/dp/192740990X" target="_blank"><i>Street View</i></a>, which was a finalist for the 2016 Able Muse Book Prize. Her work has appeared in many journals, such as <a href="http://32poems.com/" target="_blank"><i>32 Poems</i></a>, <a href="https://ecotonemagazine.org/" target="_blank"><i>Ecotone</i></a>, <a href="http://alscw.org/publications/literary-imagination/" target="_blank"><i>Literary Imagination</i></a>, <i><a href="https://www.rattle.com/" target="_blank">Rattle</a></i>, and <a href="https://www.smu.edu/southwestreview" target="_blank"><i>Southwest Review</i></a>, and in a variety of anthologies like <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Imago-Dei-Poems-Christianity-Literature/dp/0891123210" target="_blank"><i>Imago Dei </i></a>and <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Measure-Anthology-Poetic-Everymans-Library/dp/0375712488/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1532369399&sr=1-1&keywords=Measure+for+Measure%3A+An+Anthology+of+Poetic+Meters&dpID=51TNrPexaAL&preST=_SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch" target="_blank"><i>Measure for Measure: An Anthology of Poetic Meters</i></a>. She is a past winner of the Richard Wilbur Award and the Willis Barnstone Translation Prize and a past finalist for the Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award. One of her poems will be included in <i>Best American Poetry 2018</i>.<br />
<br />
<br />
FINDING THE LEGO <br />
<br />
You find it when you’re tearing up your life, <br />
trying to make some sense of the old messes, <br />
moving dressers, peering under beds. <br />
Almost lost in cat hair and in cobwebs,<br />
in dust you vaguely know was once your skin, <br />
it shows up, isolated, fragmentary. <br />
A tidy little solid. Tractable. <br />
Knobbed to be fitted in a lock-step pattern <br />
with others. Plastic: red or blue or yellow. <br />
Out of the dark, undamaged, there it is,<br />
as bright and primary colored and foursquare <br />
as the family with two parents and two children <br />
who moved in twenty years ago in a dream. <br />
It makes no allowances, concedes no failures, <br />
admits no knowledge of a little girl <br />
who glared through tears, rubbing her slapped cheek. <br />
Rigidity is its essential trait. <br />
Likely as not, you leave it where it was.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b><i>When was this poem composed? How did it start?</i></b><br />
<br />
I needed my records to figure this out, because the poem is among my earliest. I came back to writing poetry, after some thirty years away from it, in late 2005 and started workshopping poems on discussion boards in 2006. I do recall that this poem was workshopped. My submission records say I first sent the poem out in late 2007, so its first drafts must have happened within that range. <br />
<br />
At that time, a great many of my poems had to do with mothering, mostly because I was then the mother of college students and making the shift to mothering adults. The trigger experience of finding an old, stray Lego happened many, many times.<br />
<br />
<i><b>How many revisions did this poem undergo? How much time elapsed between the first and final drafts? </b></i><br />
<br />
There were several changes during workshopping—probably in more than one online workshop, because during those years I was active in several at once. I recall the changes as small and having to do with smoother meter. I don’t remember making changes between magazine submissions. When I included the poem in my second book, which came out in 2013, I made another change during the proof stage; what had been “looking under beds” in the poem’s magazine publication became “peering under beds” for the book.<br />
<br />
<b><i>Do you believe in inspiration? How much of this poem was “received” and how much was the result of sweat and tears? </i></b><br />
<br />
I do believe one is “hotter” some days than others, better attuned to really good choices. There’s something about intensity of emotional involvement that turns up the heat. The memories involved in this one had that effect. That may be why this poem felt “received”—that is to say, close to finished after relatively few tweaks.<br />
<br />
<b><i>How did this poem arrive at its final form? Did you consciously employ any principles of technique?</i></b><br />
<br />
I write a great deal of blank verse, and during those years I would often begin by turning on the iambic pentameter spigot and letting it run. I allowed the memories and associations to be what they were. My iambics are often very loose in the first instance; they admit a great many substitutions. Revision quite often involves taking a hot iron to the wrinkles, and it did in this case.<br />
<br />
<b><i>Was there anything unusual about the way in which you wrote this poem?</i></b><br />
<br />
At the time I wrote this, I was using my usual methods: letting the poem happen as it would and then subjecting it to critique. <br />
<br />
Since then, some things have changed about the way I work: I hope that I’m now demanding enough to see on my own the flaws that workshopping helps one see. (But see my answer to the question about how long I let poems sit. <i>Mea culpa</i>.)<br />
<br />
Another difference is that I worry more now about how a poem will come across in a reading. If I had worried about that in those days, the poem might never have been written. As it is, I don’t believe I’ve ever read it to an audience.<br />
<br />
<b><i>How long after you finished this poem did it first appear in print? </i></b><br />
<br />
Quite a while, according to my submission records! It went to nine magazines over the course of three years before it was finally accepted by <a href="https://think-journal.submittable.com/submit" target="_blank"><i>Think Journal </i></a>in 2010. Then it was included, with one revision, in the final manuscript of my book <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Credo-Checkout-Line-Winter-Poems/dp/1927409144" target="_blank"><i>Credo for the Checkout Line in Winter</i></a>, which appeared in 2013, and poems from that book were chosen for <a href="https://www.americanlifeinpoetry.org/" target="_blank">American Life in Poetry</a>.<br />
<br />
<b><i>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? </i></b><br />
<br />
I have to admit that my worst poetic habit is not letting poems “steep” long enough. Fairly often I revise while a poem is still in submission, or after it’s come back, or after it’s appeared and I want to include it in a book. <br />
<br />
I push myself to submit poems at regular intervals, a practice I regularly think I should change because it rushes the process<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10.0pt;">—</span></span><style><!--
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<br />
-->but I haven’t yet changed it, in twelve years of submitting.<b><i><br />Could you talk about fact and fiction and how this poem negotiates the two? </i></b><br />
<br />
This poem is cagey about fact. While it doesn’t deliberately fictionalize, it leaves the story vague and general. The vagueness allows people to see story elements that were not in my own mind when I was writing. I was asked once whether the poem was written out of the memory of the child or of the parent. I declined to answer, in part because I would rather not remember and in part because I think the poem is richer, and meaningful to more readers, if not nailed down.<br />
<br />
<b><i>Is this a narrative poem?</i></b><br />
<br />
I would call it a lyric poem based on a recurring narrative that many readers will relate to.<br />
<br />
<b><i>Do you remember who you were reading when you wrote this poem? Any influences you’d care to disclose?</i></b> <br />
<br />
In those years I was first coming into contact with the poetry of <a href="http://howapoemhappens.blogspot.com/2009/09/richard-wilbur.html" target="_blank">Richard Wilbur,</a> <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/anthony-hecht" target="_blank">Anthony Hecht</a>, <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/rhina-p-espaillat" target="_blank">Rhina Espaillat</a>, <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=timothy+murphy+poet&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b-1-ab" target="_blank">Timothy Murphy</a>, and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M._A._Griffiths" target="_blank">Maz Griffiths</a>, to name just a few. I was also reading the poetry that other participants posted on <a href="https://www.ablemuse.com/erato/" target="_blank">Eratosphere</a>, <a href="http://www.thealsopreview.com/messages/19/69.html?1266272466" target="_blank">The Gazebo</a>, <a href="https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/thewaters35527/" target="_blank">The Waters</a>, and some other boards now long gone.<br />
<br />
<b><i>Do you have any particular audience in mind when you write, an ideal reader? </i></b><br />
<br />
I think a poet always hopes for a reader who sees the world the way the poet sees it, so that the words chosen make an immediate connection. Apart from that, different poems need readers in different groups. Nearly all the time, my ideal reader needs at least to expect meter and to recogize it even when it isn’t ribbon-smooth. Often, too, my ideal reader needs to have an attitude to rhyme that’s like the one expressed in <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/ae-stallings" target="_blank">A. E. Stallings</a>’s <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/articles/69202/presto-manifesto-" target="_blank">“Presto Manifesto!”</a> At the time when this poem was written, my ideal reader would probably have been a parent. Not always, but rather often lately, my ideal reader is a believer of some kind, or at least knowledgeable about “churchy” matters and matters of the spirit. <br />
<br />
<b><i>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></b><br />
<br />
Yes, a fair number of people saw it, and a handful of people commented. Although I don’t workshop now, I owe a great deal to the group of poets who posted at Eratosphere in the late 2000s and who in some cases still post there. <br />
<br />
<b><i>How does this poem differ from other poems of yours? </i></b><br />
<br />
I’m not sure it is. I was going to say that it’s more guarded and less revealed—much of what I write is quasi-confessional—but I haven’t taken a close look at twelve years' worth of poems. It may be a bit choppier—written more in fragments and less in sentences, which adds to its hesitant quality.<br />
<br />
<b><i>What is American about this poem? </i></b><br />
<br />
Apart from being metrical (which is still not typical for an American poet), just about everything: the assumptions about family structure, family homes, and families’ private truths. And even though the Lego brand is manufactured by a Danish company, is there any better symbol of an American childhood?<br />
<br />
<b><i>Was this poem finished or abandoned? </i></b><br />
<br />
I believe it’s finished, but perhaps I only believe that because its current form is rather prominently fixed online. In the unlikely event that I publish a selected some day, I may yet think about it again!<br />
<br />Brian Brodeurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18306752905070477332noreply@blogger.com207tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4112204366956454376.post-45166471491989695502018-07-10T14:26:00.003-04:002018-07-10T14:27:34.246-04:00Austin Allen<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://austinallenwriting.com/" target="_blank">Austin Allen</a>’s first poetry collection, <a href="https://waywiser-press.com/product/pleasures-of-the-game/" target="_blank"><i>Pleasures of the Game</i></a> (Waywiser Press, 2016), was awarded the Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize. His poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in <a href="https://yalereview.yale.edu/'" target="_blank"><i>The Yale Review</i></a>, <a href="https://www.missourireview.com/" target="_blank"><i>The Missouri Review</i></a>, <a href="https://thesewaneereview.com/" target="_blank"><i>The Sewanee Review</i></a>, <a href="http://32poems.com/" target="_blank"><i>32 Poems</i></a>, and <a href="http://www.versedaily.org/2017/theguitar.shtml" target="_blank">Verse Daily.</a> He is a doctoral student in creative writing at the University of Cincinnati.<br />
<br />
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<br />
<br />
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<br />
MARIS*<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
*Roger Maris, American baseball player, famous for breaking Babe Ruth’s single-season record of 60 home runs in 1961. Because Maris had a longer season than Ruth in which to accumulate his total, his feat generated fierce controversy, and one sportswriter suggested that an asterisk accompany his name in the record books. The commissioner of baseball agreed, but the mark was never added.</blockquote>
<br />
Asterisk, dark kiss, sign you were born under,<br />
little appendix twinging in your gut,<br />
making its clever point, its “Well yes but…” <br />
Has someone carved it on your grave, I wonder?<br />
<br />
It multiplies, becomes a flurry of flakes,<br />
hardens to hail and pelts you as you run,<br />
head lowered, one blast shy of sixty-one.<br />
Litters its thistles, drives spikes through your spikes.<br />
<br />
*<br />
Babe Ruth ate the past. Which would have been<br />
the present, back then. That huge son of a bitch<br />
gobbled and guzzled, smoked and sinned so much,<br />
what’s left for you? The wine is drained, the women<br />
<br />
know the score. Father of modern sport<br />
and giant baby, hopeless little shit<br />
sent to reform school, where he learned to hit,<br />
and grin, and trot around the bases toward—<br />
<br />
*<br />
Rip the game stitch from stitch, green blade from blade.<br />
Spill all the ball’s yarn brains, the whole white mile<br />
spooled to the core. You’re starting to taste bile—<br />
retch and spit up your black tobacco cud,<br />
<br />
spit seeds, spit bubblegum, spit <i>it</i>: one spiked<br />
windpipe obstruction like a Cracker Jack toy<br />
lodged back there, somehow, since you were a boy…<br />
You don’t remember childhood much. You liked<br />
<br />
baseball, liked summertime. Each place you lived<br />
seemed colder than the last. Old tribal nations<br />
under the fields, train platforms without stations.<br />
Some years your parents quarreled and you moved.<br />
<br />
You’re not star-crossed; you don’t believe in streaks;<br />
statistically, things happen. Still, the team’s<br />
away games always give you hard-luck dreams:<br />
Ruth’s twenties roar, the cagefaced umpire blocks<br />
<br />
your way, you can’t reach—even to start from—home—<br />
somehow the fix is in—each word you shout<br />
at those fat folded arms is asterisked out…<br />
The grass mends. The crowd goes tame. The seams resume.<br />
<br />
*<br />
Although it comes late, you hit that final blast.<br />
The asterisk needs an asterisk of its own.<br />
Above your Little League diamond, diamonds shone<br />
unqualified....The record for time past<br />
<br />
is broken, is broken. The child defeats the father,<br />
memorabilia gathers on the shelf,<br />
but time had more time to surpass itself,<br />
so I’m not buying any of it, either.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b><i>When was this poem composed? How did it start? </i></b><br />
<br />
I wrote the poem in 2011 and included it in my first book, <i>Pleasures of the Game</i>. I’d been fascinated by the <a href="http://www.rogermaris.com/" target="_blank">Roger Maris</a> story since childhood and had wanted to write about him for years. The asterisk beside his name in the record books is just an urban legend, but it spoke to something real: a lingering perception that he’d fallen short of <a href="http://www.baberuth.com/" target="_blank">Babe Ruth</a>, that his record technically didn’t count. He knew many fans felt this way and was shaken by the controversy.<br />
<br />
I think most of us can relate to the fear of the asterisk, which goes something like this:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
YOU HAVE ACHIEVED INCREDIBLE SUCCESS*</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
*just kidding</blockquote>
<b><i>How many revisions did this poem undergo? How much time elapsed between the first and final drafts? </i></b><br />
<br />
The poem had a number of false starts. The earliest draft I can find is from March 2011, and the first one that resembles the finished poem is from October 2011. Then came a number of edits before I sent it out to journals. Two years later, I made another substantial change before my book came out: I tweaked the narrative framing so that the poem addresses Maris as “you,” from the perspective of an unnamed “I,” rather than speaking as Maris.<br />
<br />
I did this after a friend suggested I’d made Maris sound too poet-like. Although I was never aiming for a literal imitation of his voice, I found the critique helpful, and I think the final version is better for the change.<br />
<br />
<b><i>Do you believe in inspiration? How much of this poem was “received” and how much was the result of sweat and tears? </i></b><br />
<br />
Sometimes a poem will come together quickly, but not often. I sweated this one out. On the other hand, glancing at these old drafts, I see I made a sudden burst of progress around 10/30/11, so inspiration (whatever it is) played a part.<br />
<br />
<b><i>How did this poem arrive at its final form? Did you consciously employ any principles of technique?</i></b><br />
<br />
One conscious choice was the use of slant or imperfect rhymes: “flakes / spikes,” etc. These seemed appropriate for a poem that’s all about “close, but not quite.” They’re also sprinkled irregularly throughout the poem—I was trying to keep myself as well as the reader off balance.<br />
<br />
<b><i>Was there anything unusual about the way in which you wrote this poem?</i></b><br />
<br />
These days it’s rare for me to revise a poem drastically several times over. I plan and prepare more, so that I have a better idea of what I want to do by the time I start writing. I still work slowly, but more of that time goes into fiddling with details.<br />
<br />
<b><i>How long after you finished this poem did it first appear in print? </i></b><br />
<br />
About a year. It got picked up by<a href="https://www.ironhorsereview.com/" target="_blank"><i> Iron Horse Literary Review</i></a> in 2012 and became one of my first journal publications.<br />
<br />
<i><b>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? </b></i><br />
<br />
It varies quite a bit. Sometimes I send things out too soon. Everything about the current market encourages that impulse—you have to fight it. Better to let the poem breathe for a while.<br />
<b><i><br />Could you talk about fact and fiction and how this poem negotiates the two? </i></b><br />
<br />
“Maris” deals with well-known, real-life events, but still takes plenty of creative license. I was going more for psychological than biographical truth. I don’t know, for example, whether he actually resented Babe Ruth, a man he never met. But doesn’t it seem plausible?<br />
<br />
<b><i>Is this a narrative poem?</i></b><br />
<br />
A fractured one, yes.<br />
<br />
<b><i>Do you remember who you were reading when you wrote this poem? Any influences you’d care to disclose? </i></b><br />
<br />
I forget who I was reading at the time, but <a href="https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/robert-frost" target="_blank">Frost</a>, <a href="https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/w-h-auden" target="_blank">Auden</a>, and <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/marianne-moore" target="_blank">Marianne Moore</a> all explored connections between games and writing (including, in Moore’s case, baseball and writing). Their influence shaped <i>Pleasures of the Game</i> in general and might have crept into “Maris.”<br />
<br />
<i><b>Do you have any particular audience in mind when you write, an ideal reader? </b></i><br />
<br />
I tend to agree with Auden’s couplet: “Art, if it doesn’t start there, at least ends / In an attempt to entertain our friends.”<br />
<br />
I also write with live performance in mind. At poetry readings there are always a few audience members who’ve been roped into attending and are skeptical of poetry. I try to write poems that will win them over.<br />
<br />
<b><i>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></b><br />
<br />
My MFA classmates saw a draft version of “Maris.” Outside of workshops, I generally show poem drafts to three or four friends. One friend has been my default first reader for about ten years now; we share and comment regularly on each other’s work. We don’t always take each other’s advice, but I never publish anything without getting her opinion first. (See Auden couplet above.)<br />
<br />
<i><b>How does this poem differ from other poems of yours? </b></i><br />
<br />
Structurally, it’s a little odder than most of my poems. It feels unsettled to me, unstable in its mix of fact and fantasy, and I hope it feels that way to the reader, too.<br />
<br />
<i><b>What is American about this poem? </b></i><br />
<br />
Besides the baseball stuff? The neurotic attitude toward success.<br />
<br />
<i><b>Was this poem finished or abandoned? </b></i><br />
<br />
Finished.*Brian Brodeurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18306752905070477332noreply@blogger.com47tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4112204366956454376.post-23792214682621526192018-05-07T15:03:00.002-04:002018-05-07T15:04:36.253-04:00Sarah Rose Nordgren <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl_7PrC3JBrWbXFdLbD9PWkgwRzo3p1S7J66-XHFNBqhz0__5t17p_87WFrQv6m91Q2VSCu31orYuXGXUA8ZaPsCmzQvA6HtmEkCHsDMKUN6FtVOWqSj46sAZb3eaWdOyKijURkNVbrFnr/s1600/Unknown.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1067" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl_7PrC3JBrWbXFdLbD9PWkgwRzo3p1S7J66-XHFNBqhz0__5t17p_87WFrQv6m91Q2VSCu31orYuXGXUA8ZaPsCmzQvA6HtmEkCHsDMKUN6FtVOWqSj46sAZb3eaWdOyKijURkNVbrFnr/s320/Unknown.jpeg" width="213" /></a></div>
<a href="http://sarahrosenordgren.com/" target="_blank">Sarah Rose Nordgren </a>is a poet, teacher, and multiform text artist. Her two books of poetry are <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Best-Bones-Poetry-Sarah-Nordgren/dp/0822963175" target="_blank"><i>Best Bones</i></a> (2014), winner of the Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize, and <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Darwins-Mother-Poetry-Sarah-Nordgren/dp/082296516X/" target="_blank"><i>Darwin’s Mother </i></a>(2017), both published in the Pitt Poetry Series through University of Pittsburgh Press. Among her awards are fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, the Vermont Studio Center, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the Bread Loaf and Sewanee Writers Conferences, as well as an Individual Excellence Award from the Ohio Arts Council. Her poems and essays appear widely in periodicals such as <a href="http://www.bu.edu/agni/" target="_blank"><i>Agni</i></a>, <a href="https://www.pshares.org/" target="_blank"><i>Ploughshares</i></a>, <a href="https://www.kenyonreview.org/" target="_blank"><i>The Kenyon Review Online</i></a>, <a href="http://bestnewpoets.org/" target="_blank"><i>Best New Poets</i></a>, <a href="http://copper-nickel.org/" target="_blank"><i>Copper Nickel</i></a>, and <a href="https://aprweb.org/" target="_blank"><i>American Poetry Review</i>.</a> Nordgren currently lives in Cincinnati and is an Associate Editor for <a href="http://32poems.com/" target="_blank"><i>32 Poems</i></a>. <br />
<br />
<br />
MATERIAL<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Yes, we have a soul. But it’s made of lots of tiny robots.</span></blockquote>
<blockquote>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">—Giulio Giorello</span></blockquote>
My soul rose up in me,<br />
a colony I follow. <br />
My soul has a trillion brittle wings,<br />
a billion black bodies. <br />
My soul formation is Stratus. <br />
My soul’s parts know little<br />
and don’t care whether I live or die. <br />
Its components make a mind outside of me,<br />
hovering over the driveway. <br />
My soul is not waiting—<br />
It cannot wait. <br />
What is the sound of my soul? <br />
Incessant clicking and chattering<br />
like many sets of tiny, wind-up teeth. <br />
It appears as a hurricane,<br />
sandstorm, or soot billowing. <br />
Its moveable parts can arrange themselves<br />
to make a mechanical hand.<br />
My soul pulls at my soul. <br />
I am not responsible for my soul<br />
for it acts independently. <br />
I am in awe of its cities <br />
and public works.<br />
Its vast demolition projects. <br />
Every seventeen years<br />
my soul disperses after mating<br />
and litters the road<br />
with fat, crushed zeros. <br />
<br />
<br />
<i><b>When was this poem composed? How did it start? </b></i><br />
<br />
I started writing this poem while at a residency at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts in the summer of 2013. I actually can’t believe it was that long ago, because this poem still feels pretty new to me, but I’m going to trust the date that the Word document says it was created.<br />
<br />
The poem really grew from my encounter with that wonderful quote from Italian philosopher <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giulio_Giorello" target="_blank">Giulio Giorello</a>, which I came across in philosopher <a href="http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/dennett/" target="_blank">Daniel Dennett</a>’s book, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Freedom-Evolves-Daniel-C-Dennett/dp/0142003840" target="_blank"><i>Freedom Evolves</i></a>. It made my brain explode a little bit! The basic concept, of course, is that the soul’s existence relies on a process of emergence, so that’s what I was playing with here. <br />
<br />
<i><b>How many revisions did this poem undergo? How much time elapsed between the first and final drafts? </b></i><br />
<br />
This poem looked very much the same when I first wrote it as it does now, but I’d say it went through about three or four proper drafts in which I was mostly experimenting with different words and phrasings here and there. The first draft was in May 2013, and the last significant draft is dated August 2015, so there was about two years of fermentation. <br />
<br />
<i><b>Do you believe in inspiration? How much of this poem was “received” and how much was the result of sweat and tears? </b></i><br />
<br />
I very much believe in inspiration—and it’s made of lots of tiny robots too, I think. In this poem—as in many of the poems from <i>Darwin’s Mother</i>—I had a very loose and open compositional process. The poems are pretty raw and fresh feeling, and a little lopsided at times too. They’re much less “wrought” than many poems from my first book, and I really enjoyed using a gentler handle on my own language. This poem came fairly quickly, and I’d say it felt about half-received and half-made. <br />
<br />
<i><b>How did this poem arrive at its final form? Did you consciously employ any principles of technique?</b></i><br />
<br />
As I mentioned, this poem was mostly born in its final form. Its structure relies, of course, on the <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/learn/glossary-terms/anaphora" target="_blank">anaphora </a>of “My soul” which served as a generative device in the writing of the poem, but which I also hope creates a kind of incantatory effect in reading it. <br />
<br />
<i><b>Was there anything unusual about the way in which you wrote this poem?</b></i><br />
<br />
The anaphora or listing structure of this poem is not usual for me at all. Also, the line lengths are more jagged than I’d generally write, but it came out of this jaggedy feeling of all of the insects swarming, and the lines do emerge into a kind of soul-shape when taken together.<br />
<br />
<i><b>How long after you finished this poem did it first appear in print? </b></i><br />
<br />
I guess I’ll consider the poem “finished” in August 2015, and it was appeared in <a href="http://www.narrativemagazine.com/" target="_blank"><i>Narrative </i></a>in June 2016, so about a year. <br />
<br />
<b><i>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? </i></b><br />
<br />
I don’t have rules about this and it definitely varies. Like most poets I’m sure, I’ve definitely had the experience of being excited about a new poem and sending it out too early. Then it either doesn’t get taken—and you feel ashamed for having sent it in the first place because you begin to doubt it’s ready—or it does get taken and you realize it wasn’t ready, and you’re in the position of either letting it run or pulling it after the fact, which is also embarrassing. <br />
<br />
The past few years I haven’t felt much of a rush, and I’m a poet who often thinks in books rather than in poems. I’ve just now started to send out some poems that I wrote two years ago for my next book, and it still feels pretty early since I don’t have a handle on that project yet. <br />
<b><i><br />Could you talk about fact and fiction and how this poem negotiates the two?</i></b> <br />
<br />
It’s all fact! <br />
<br />
Seriously though, I think this poem exists between the two poles, perhaps in the realm of “speculation.” Many of the poems in <i>Darwin’s Mother </i>are thinking through existential questions, and this is one of those. <br />
<br />
<i><b>Do you remember who you were reading when you wrote this poem? Any influences you’d care to disclose? </b></i><br />
<br />
I was reading a lot of evolutionary theory, philosophy, and nonfiction, hence the Dennett and Giorello. In terms of literary texts, I believe that summer I had on my desk <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/edith-sodergran" target="_blank">Edith Södergran</a>, <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/jean-valentine" target="_blank">Jean Valentine</a>, <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/mary-ruefle" target="_blank">Mary Ruefle</a>, and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lydia_Davis" target="_blank">Lydia Davis</a>, some of my go-tos. <br />
<br />
<i><b>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?</b></i><br />
<br />
I didn’t have a consistent feedback-system while writing <i>Darwin’s Mother</i>, as I was traveling through a number of “betweens” in my life during those years. I did have a monthly group with two other women in Cincinnati that met for awhile, but I don’t think I brought this poem there. <br />
<br />
In summer 2015 I was a Fellow in <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/sidney-wade" target="_blank">Sidney Wade’s</a> workshop at the Sewanee Writer’s Conference, and after the conference she asked to see the manuscript of <i>Darwin’s Mother </i>and gave me some great suggestions. And this is a big deal: the final line of “Material” was originally “fat, crushed nothings,” and she suggested the change to “zeros” which I think is much better, even though I was already using “zeros” elsewhere in the book. <br />
<br />
<b><i>What is American about this poem? </i></b><br />
<br />
I recently read <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/susan-howe" target="_blank">Susan Howe</a>’s <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Birth-mark-Essays-Susan-Howe/dp/0811224651" target="_blank"><i>The Birth-mark</i></a> in which she talks about “the stutter,” or “the sounding of uncertainty” as the most interesting quality in American literature. I think (I hope) this poem has a little of the stutter in it, in its attempt to characterize the ungraspable—the wilderness of the unknown. Or perhaps it’s like a scientific process of trial and error. Or perhaps it’s a wandering litany like Ginsberg’s “America.” <br />
<br />
<i><b>Was this poem finished or abandoned? </b></i><br />
<br />
Finished. Once your zeros are crushed, you’ve got to reincarnate somewhere else. Brian Brodeurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18306752905070477332noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4112204366956454376.post-6571059006352907062018-04-05T14:59:00.005-04:002018-04-05T14:59:47.413-04:00Erica Dawson<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCEWQQHuSnP7CxT89zaCVBrtdvcp0rBfKtCfrnvdIjKQXrXI53ox5-Xdkai87vDWWWYDKf4thfGYeAQgdlxs1Ii2xv8Mofmqun3bpWU5xgolWwZPcDNdipgejec3KbnPkfB12op8RGtZ0X/s1600/Dawson+2016+copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="170" data-original-width="151" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCEWQQHuSnP7CxT89zaCVBrtdvcp0rBfKtCfrnvdIjKQXrXI53ox5-Xdkai87vDWWWYDKf4thfGYeAQgdlxs1Ii2xv8Mofmqun3bpWU5xgolWwZPcDNdipgejec3KbnPkfB12op8RGtZ0X/s1600/Dawson+2016+copy.jpg" /></a></div>
<a href="http://ericadawsonpoet.net/" target="_blank">Erica Dawson </a>is the author of two award-winning collections of poetry: <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Small-Blades-Hurt-Erica-Dawson/dp/1939574048/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8" target="_blank">The Small Blades </a>Hurt</i> (Measure Press, 2014) and <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Big-Eyed-Afraid-Erica-Dawson/dp/1904130267/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8" target="_blank"><i>Big-Eyed Afraid</i> </a>(Waywiser, 2007). Her new book, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/When-Rap-Spoke-Straight-God/dp/1947793039/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1522954157&sr=8-1&keywords=when+rap+spoke+straight+to+god&dpID=51%252BcwfLAC9L&preST=_SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch" target="_blank"><i>When Rap Spoke Straight to God</i></a>, is forthcoming from Tin House Books in Fall 2018. Her work has appeared in <i>Best American Poetry</i>, <a href="http://www.benningtonreview.org/" target="_blank"><i>Bennington Review</i></a>, <a href="http://www.harvardreview.org/" target="_blank"><i>Harvard Review</i></a>, <a href="https://www.vqronline.org/" target="_blank"><i>Virginia Quarterly Review</i></a>, and many other journals and anthologies. She’s an associate professor of English and Writing at the University of Tampa. She serves as director of UT’s low-residency MFA program.<br /><br /><br />
LANGSTON HUGHES'S GRANDMA MARY WRITES A LOVE LETTER TO LEWIS LEARY YEARS AFTER HE DIES FIGHTING AT HARPER'S FERRY <br /><br />My dearest, sweetest Lew— <br />
It’s like there’s permanence in <i>West </i><br />
Virginia, not the state, the sound—the rest <br />
After the gin fools you<br /><br />And the <i>uh</i> goes on like “<i>Lee</i>”<br />
And <i>autumn 1859</i>. <br />
I’ve lost all semblance of “I’m fine.” <br />
So I say damn the free<br /><br />Water beneath the thick <br />
Ice spots on the Cuyahoga and Lake <br />
Erie. Damn rifles. Damn the ache <br />
Of numbness. Snowflakes prick<br /><br />Your tall Oberlin grave. <br />
I try to scrape it clean with my<br />
Frostbitten index finger. I <br />
Marvel at how the cold can save<br /><br />A tear, at how I sit <br />
Under my chestnut tree and wait <br />
For nuts, plate Charles’s dinner late, <br />
Allow Louise’s fit<br /><br />To last another hour. <br />
Damn both my abolitionist <br />
Husbands, their spot–on aim, fist–<br />
in–the–air. Why don’t they glower<br /><br />Like I do when I yell<br />
Louder than any choir could, <br />
Or, out back, take an ax to wood <br />
And wonder if you fell<br /><br />Like broken logs, without <br />
Movement, your body dead already, <br />
All solid like a Cleveland eddy <br />
The young ones skate about.<br /><br />They’re in love with being lovers. <br />
The world’s all to themselves. No sword <br />
Can pierce them when they huddle and hoard <br />
Their weapons under covers.<br /><br />I wish them ill; no right <br />
To do so, yes, I know. I’m so<br />
Tired of when thin white sheets glow <br />
Dusk red in autumn light.<br /><br />Damn all Octobers, sin, <br />
Forgiveness. Dam the streams until <br />
Oceans of buried brothers spill <br />
Like grief beneath the skin<br /><br />Of rivers. Best intentions <br />
And kind regards, Lew, take this letter <br />
As proof I am not getting better. <br />
I am its two dimensions: <br /><br />Two praying hands, my skirt <br />
Pressed to my thighs pressed closed. Damn brass <br />
Reverie and all the leaves of grass <br />
So green the small blades hurt. <br /><br /><br />
<i><b>When was this poem composed? How did it start? </b></i><br /><br />I started the poem in mid to late 2010, I believe. I was very interested in American History when writing <i>Blades</i>; I became a little obsessed with Abraham Lincoln, and then <a href="https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/walt-whitman" target="_blank">Walt Whitman</a>, and then <a href="https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/langston-hughes" target="_blank">Langston Hughes</a>. Researching Hughes lead me to the story of his grandmother. I was so struck by this woman who endured so much grief. I wanted to somehow connect with that kind of sadness. So I began writing. <br /><br /><b><i>How many revisions did this poem undergo? How much time elapsed between the first and final drafts? </i></b><br /><br />I’ll revise until I’m blue in the face, if I let myself. It probably went through a solid ten drafts, which is actually a small number for me. The poem was always in the rhyming quatrains; but, at first, it wasn’t a <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/learn/glossary-terms/persona" target="_blank">persona poem</a>. And, it wasn’t an <a href="https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/text/epistle-poetic-form" target="_blank">epistle</a>, either. I knew to connect with this amazing woman, I was going to have to try to live in her moments. And it seemed like a good idea to make the poem a kind of active moment where she addressed the love she lost.<br /><br /><b><i>Do you believe in inspiration? How much of this poem was “received” and how much was the result of sweat and tears? </i></b><br /><br />I definitely believe in inspiration. I was certainly inspired by the life of this woman. I think this poem, though, was mostly a result of sweat and tears, trying different things out, breaking it apart and putting it together again.<br /><br /><b><i>How did this poem arrive at its final form? Did you consciously employ any principles of technique?</i></b><br /><br />Again, a lot of sweat and tears. As I said, the quatrains happened immediately. Sometimes my ideas for form and structure come first, after the initial idea for the poem; then, the content starts to become clearer. For me, form can be extremely generative. It took me a very long time to get to the ending of the poem, though. I wanted a strong monosyllabic rhyme for the first and fourth lines of the last stanza. I wanted a hard consonant: a <i>K</i> or a <i>T</i>. Something with punch. But, I had no idea how to bring it to a close, how to say something about this woman while saying something about our country and its history. <br /><br /><b><i>Was there anything unusual about the way in which you wrote this poem?</i></b><br /><br />It was pretty standard procedure for me. Sometimes, though, the form comes to me after the content. <br /><br /><i><b>How long after you finished this poem did it first appear in print?</b></i><br /><br />Not long at all. I was thrilled when <a href="https://blackbird.vcu.edu/" target="_blank"><i>Blackbird</i></a> gave it a home.<br /><br /><i><b>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? </b></i><br /><br />It varies. If I were to wait until I felt a poem was “ready” or “done,” I’d never send anything out. So I usually aim for some kind of moderate satisfaction with the poem before sending it out. Sometimes it takes years, sometimes only a few months, sometimes even just weeks.<br /><br /><b><i>Could you talk about fact and fiction and how this poem negotiates the two? </i></b><br /><br />The basic facts are true: Hughes’ grandmother lost two abolitionist husbands, the first in the battle at Harper’s Ferry. His grave is located in Ohio. And, it’s true that her second husband’s name was Charles and their daughter’s name was Louise. The rest is a product of my imagination—my ideas of what she’d say if she had the chance to communicate with her deceased husband.<br /><br /><i><b>Is this a narrative poem?</b></i><br /><br />I’d say yes. I think it tells a kind of story. Not a complete story, of course: but, I think that place, scene, and a particular chain of events make the poem narrative, in some ways.<br /><br /><i><b>Do you remember who you were reading when you wrote this poem? Any influences you’d care to disclose?</b></i> <br /><br />Whitman and Hughes were obviously the biggest influences. <a href="https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/ezra-pound" target="_blank">Pound’s</a> <a href="https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/river-merchants-wife-letter" target="_blank">“The River-Merchant’s Wife: A Letter”</a> was definitely an inspiration once I decided the poem needed to be a kind of epistle.<br /><br /><b><i>Do you have any particular audience in mind when you write, an ideal reader? </i></b><br /><br />Not really. I’m pretty unaware of audience when I’m writing. In those early stages, my opinions and preferences are the only ones that matter. I’d get lost in anxiety if I thought too much about who would read my work or want to read my work. I do hope that my readers are interested in the ways traditional form and contemporary/timely content can work together without seeming old or stodgy. <br /><br /><b><i>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></b><br /><br />NO (caps necessary). I’m super protective of my work when I’m actively working on it. If I get seriously stuck, I may ask a really close writer friend for suggestions. But, usually, I keep things to myself. <br /><br /><b><i>How does this poem differ from other poems of yours? </i></b><br /><br />At the time, it was the only true persona poem I’d ever really written. That was new territory for me. And it really changed me as a writer: much of my new book involves taking on various voices that aren’t my own.<br /><br /><b><i>What is American about this poem? </i></b><br /><br />I hope the whole thing is American. I wanted to tap into something that spoke to the connections between our collective histories and personal histories, and how we negotiate national and personal trauma and tragedy.<br /><br /><i><b>Was this poem finished or abandoned? </b></i><br /><br />I was moderately satisfied. That’s as close to finished as I ever get. <br />Brian Brodeurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18306752905070477332noreply@blogger.com95tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4112204366956454376.post-64942085597716191392018-03-22T14:40:00.000-04:002018-03-22T14:40:36.415-04:00Morri Creech <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="http://www.morricreech.com/" target="_blank">Morri Creech</a> is the author of three collections of poetry, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Paper-Cathedrals-Wick-Poetry-First/dp/0873387163/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1521743245&sr=1-1&keywords=paper+cathedrals&dpID=4138A0HVYBL&preST=_SY344_BO1,204,203,200_QL70_&dpSrc=srch" target="_blank"><i>Paper Cathedrals</i></a> (Kent State U P, 2001), <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Field-Knowledge-Morri-Creech/dp/1904130232" target="_blank"><i>Field Knowledge</i></a> (Waywiser, 2006), which received the Anthony Hecht Poetry prize and was nominated for both the <i>Los Angeles Times</i> Book Award and the Poet’s Prize, and <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Sleep-Reason-Morri-Creech/dp/1904130534" target="_blank"><i>The Sleep of Reason</i></a> (Waywiser, March 2013), a finalist for the 2014 Pulitzer Prize. His fourth collection, <i>Blue Rooms</i>, will be published by Waywiser in Fall of 2018. A recipient of NEA and Ruth Lilly Fellowships, as well as grants from the North Carolina and Louisiana Arts councils, he is the Writer in Residence at Queens University of Charlotte, where he teaches courses in both the undergraduate creative writing program and in the low-residency M.F.A. program. He lives in Charlotte, North Carolina with the novelist <a href="https://www.sarahcreech.org/" target="_blank">Sarah Creech</a> and their two children. <br />
<br />
<br />
AGE OF WONDERS <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
January 2011 <br />
<i> Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita</i><br />
—Dante</blockquote>
Old decade done, the morning throws off its shawl<br />
of frost and the hedges drip with thaw water.<br />
Like some postmodern Narcissus I stare at the pool<br />
in my bathroom sink and pat my cheeks with lather<br />
to scrape the aging face brisk, smooth, and pale;<br />
beyond my window a persistent clamor<br />
of horns and engines—as early commuters rush <br />
toward the shrines of commerce—drowns out Hardy’s thrush<br />
<br />
with the hope of goods and fortunes. Past forty now,<br />
I lace my shoes and hit the Nordic track,<br />
munch spoonfuls of bran and diced fruit, watch the Dow<br />
streak past a flat screen rich with bric-a-brac<br />
and sleek, tanned prophets who proclaim the Tao<br />
of global markets, who’s in, who’s out, who’s back<br />
from jail, rehab or chemo, while the snows<br />
recede on Everest and the deficit grows. <br />
<br />
What good is my pessimism? The soul completes<br />
its journey in the dark and out of sight<br />
or sulks the days in its tent of sinew, greets<br />
the last hour happier than the first; but night<br />
finds poor body cold on the chartered streets—<br />
no point refusing him some warmth and light.<br />
In T-shirt and shorts I sniff the heated air;<br />
my Reeboks shuffle down a winding stair.<br />
<br />
Still, something in me bristles. Is it age<br />
merely, a dunderheaded sense the past<br />
was better somehow—that glimmering mirage<br />
glimpsed from a rearview mirror as the mist<br />
ahead parts to reveal the yawning ledge<br />
where the road should be, all distance closing fast?<br />
Is it like that grumble before the gray<br />
dandruff of history smothered out Pompeii?<br />
<br />
Behind the bleach white sepulchers and smiles,<br />
the lifted tits, twelve second abs, celebs<br />
and pop stars tricked out in outlandish styles,<br />
it flashes like a model’s picket ribs<br />
showing beneath her nightie where the aisles<br />
crowd toward the check out and the bounty ebbs:<br />
the sublime is out of joint, the ship has wrecked,<br />
huge mounds of kitsch bury the intellect.<br />
<br />
Not that one has much time to notice it,<br />
fixed in some grimace of acceleration<br />
(texting, say, on a highway late at night)<br />
or savoring the popular elation<br />
of Living in the Now—while skill and wit<br />
go the old way of income, jobs, vacation,<br />
savings accounts or the environment;<br />
and nobody thinks to wonder where they went.<br />
<br />
The shower steams up while the kettle shrieks.<br />
When did the promise sour? I think of all<br />
that didn’t happen: the poems, books, and bucks,<br />
freedom from the tyranny of dull<br />
offices, projects, and bosses, and whole weeks<br />
in cerebrotonic thought of the Ideal.<br />
The present’s proof (as has been said already)<br />
that the future isn’t what it used to be.<br />
<br />
Mid-journey, though one of history’s darlings still,<br />
I pour my tea dregs down the drain and tie<br />
the silk around my neck, mustering the will<br />
to head for work. Trawling the squares of sky<br />
trapped in my window frame, inevitable<br />
for all their seeming randomness, clouds go by<br />
like traffic, brushed and freaked with pewter flaws,<br />
obeying—as all things do—time’s hidden laws.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b><i>When was this poem composed? How did it start? </i></b><br />
<br />
I started it in the middle of January, 2011, as the epigraph suggests. I have always wanted to write an “occasional” poem, and this one was inspired in many ways by <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/thomas-hardy" target="_blank">Hardy’s</a> <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44325/the-darkling-thrush" target="_blank">“The Darkling Thrush,”</a> a New Year’s poem and a pessimistic meditation on the turn of the previous century. I was closing in on the end of my third book, <i>The Sleep of Reason</i>, and the last several poems of that collection came to me more or less in a white heat—I wrote two other, shorter poems and began this one all in the same week. As soon as I sat down, the first stanza tumbled out.<br />
<br />
<b><i>How many revisions did this poem undergo? How much time elapsed between the first and final drafts? </i></b><br />
<br />
Like most of my poems, the first draft came rather quickly—I wrote all but the final stanza in a single sitting. But the final stanza was exceptionally difficult for some reason. It took me over a week to get that right. Once I got the final stanza nailed down, the poem probably went through twenty or thirty drafts—mostly small changes in phrasing. Generally speaking, my drafts appear pretty close to final form, and the revision process is more a tinkering with words and rhythms than a series of major overhauls.<br />
<br />
<b><i>Do you believe in inspiration? How much of this poem was “received” and how much was the result of sweat and tears? </i></b><br />
<br />
I do believe in inspiration, definitely. For me, poems are a complicated <i>pas de deux</i> between surrender and will. Poems generally arise out of surrender—I stare off into space and try not to “think” too hard, until an image or a phrase surfaces—and then I consciously push it forward in an effort to contextualize it, to discover its narrative or meditative trajectory. But then at some point I get stuck, and I have to surrender to the poem again, submit to what it wants to do: so I just stare off into space until something reveals itself. I refer to those moments when I get stuck as the “seams” of the poem; when I re-read this piece, I can spot the junctures or seams where I hesitated and had to surrender my will in order to advance to the next line. Hopefully the seams are invisible to other readers, though.<br />
<br />
<b><i>How did this poem arrive at its final form? Did you consciously employ any principles of technique?</i></b><br />
<br />
I am a formal poet, and in this piece I employ <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/learn/glossary-terms/ottava-rima" target="_blank">ottava rima</a>, an Italian stanza used by <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/lord-byron" target="_blank">Byron</a> in the nineteenth century as a vehicle for narration and wit, and then used by <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/william-butler-yeats" target="_blank">Yeats</a> in the twentieth for the purposes of “serious” meditation. Though I have usually explored the form in the Yeatsian sense—I’ve been playing with ottava rima since my first book—here I’m decidedly more Byronic. The stanza is composed of eight lines of iambic pentameter, rhyming <i>abababcc</i>. I don’t know how I decided to use it for this poem—it just sort of happened that way. It’s a go-to stanza form, one that I enjoy due to both the difficulty of the triple-rhyming and the delight of the resolving couplet. It seemed to suit the witty pessimism I was striving for. <br />
<br />
<b><i>Was there anything unusual about the way in which you wrote this poem?</i></b><br />
<br />
When I completed the penultimate stanza, the poem just stalled. For several days I entertained the possibility that the poem didn’t need an additional stanza at all, but for some reason I just didn’t feel satisfied. I tried tacking on another eight lines, but when I shared it with a friend it became clear that the lines were terrible. I was pretty perplexed, but nothing spurs me on like discouragement and adversity. I rewrote and rewrote until things clicked into place. Now, the final stanza may be my favorite part of the poem.<br />
<br />
<i><b>How long after you finished this poem did it first appear in print? </b></i><br />
<br />
It was published later in 2011, by <a href="https://www.smu.edu/southwestreview" target="_blank"><i>The Southwest Review</i></a>. So it was a matter of several months.<br />
<br />
<i><b>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? </b></i><br />
<br />
I tend to jump the gun on submitting. Though I should definitely be more principled about things, I have a childish need for instant gratification. Sometimes it leads to embarrassment, of course, but in this case things turned out all right. I think I let the poem sit around for about three weeks before sending it out.<br />
<br />
<i><b>Could you talk about fact and fiction and how this poem negotiates the two? </b></i><br />
<br />
For me, poetry is a fictive art, and there’s definitely a distance between the speaker and the poet here: for example, I don’t have a Nordic track and I don’t wear neckties. Having said that, the poem explores the difficulties and disappointments of middle age, and the spirit of that is true despite the questionable veracity of the details. <br />
<br />
<i><b>Is this a narrative poem?</b></i><br />
<br />
It’s a meditative poem framed around a narrative, but there is definitely an element of story. It begins with breakfast and exercise and ends with the speaker leaving for work. It covers narrative ground. <br />
<br />
<i><b>Do you remember who you were reading when you wrote this poem? Any influences you’d care to disclose? </b></i><br />
<br />
I was reading Lord Byron, <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/james-merrill" target="_blank">James Merrill,</a> William Butler Yeats, <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/robert-lowell" target="_blank">Robert Lowell</a>, and <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/claude-mckay" target="_blank">Claude McKay</a> at the time. They’re all in there somewhere, quarreling with each other and calling me out, at times, on my comparative incompetence.<br />
<br />
<i><b>Do you have any particular audience in mind when you write, an ideal reader? </b></i><br />
<br />
I try to please a handful of dead writers I admire, who cannot read my poems and would likely disapprove if they could. For this reason, my poetry career is a kind of ongoing existential disappointment.<br />
<br />
<i><b>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?</b></i><br />
<br />
My wife, the novelist Sarah Creech, looks at everything I do, usually at the precise moment I am finished with the first draft. A smile or a wrinkle of the lip tells me most of what I need to know initially. I have two additional readers who are unsparing in their appraisals, but also generous in telling me when things are working. One is a former student, a friend, and a fellow poet; he looks at all my early drafts. Sometimes he tells me to put things away, and other times he encourages me to keep going, offering thoughtful suggestions and tactful objections. The other friend—also a fellow poet—reads things once they’re more polished and “finished.” If I didn’t have these three critics, my poems would be much worse. <br />
<br />
<i><b>How does this poem differ from other poems of yours? </b></i><br />
<br />
There’s a grim, even bitter, sense of humor to it that I think sets it apart.<br />
<br />
<i><b>What is American about this poem? </b></i><br />
<br />
Everything. It’s a critique of contemporary American culture—its obsession with appearance and material success, its pop-culture narcissism, its nihilism and decadence. There’s nothing more American than complaining bitterly in the midst of staggering abundance. <br />
<br />
<i><b>Was this poem finished or abandoned? </b></i><br />
<br />
Old poems always strike me as alien and unfamiliar when I reread them. I finished this one years ago, but it has since abandoned me.<br />
<br />Brian Brodeurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18306752905070477332noreply@blogger.com38tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4112204366956454376.post-82334685612313720042018-02-15T12:03:00.001-05:002018-02-15T12:04:27.868-05:00Chloe Honum <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijq-fNsOx4BeTZ6i0S3_IeUFXfdtP1cByHHtROr5TIJ-ARrJWXdZcGEC5BwF3oTR9YcAdAyIiKt8vdZPcG5x9bMcYnRrNcZ0VVaI29oLjviwSx8Qww3g3VFoVBN-mu1bgLkpt-rKmQhGAW/s1600/Honum_AuthorPic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1535" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijq-fNsOx4BeTZ6i0S3_IeUFXfdtP1cByHHtROr5TIJ-ARrJWXdZcGEC5BwF3oTR9YcAdAyIiKt8vdZPcG5x9bMcYnRrNcZ0VVaI29oLjviwSx8Qww3g3VFoVBN-mu1bgLkpt-rKmQhGAW/s320/Honum_AuthorPic.jpg" width="306" /></a></div>
<a href="http://chloehonum.com/" target="_blank">Chloe Honum </a>grew up in Auckland, Aotearoa/New Zealand. She is the author of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Tulip-Flame-Chloe-Honum/dp/0986025755/ref=la_B00I50UBLA_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1391477974&sr=1-1" target="_blank"><i>The Tulip-Flame</i></a> (2014), which was selected by <a href="https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/tracy-k-smith?gclid=Cj0KCQiA_JTUBRD4ARIsAL7_VeVmDrp9TRz5w76a53udvmKB5boQMssgEIh3LkjI5-WoqJxFXq1zwWIaAmzZEALw_wcB" target="_blank">Tracy K. Smith</a> for the Cleveland State University Poetry Center First Book Prize, named a finalist for the PEN Center USA Literary Award, and won Foreword Reviews Poetry Book of the Year Award, the Eric Hoffer Award, and a Texas Institute of Letters Award. She is also the author of a chapbook, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Then-Winter-Chloe-Honum/dp/1495157652/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1488858272&sr=1-3&keywords=chloe+honum" target="_blank"><i>Then Winter</i></a> (Bull City Press, 2017). Her poems have appeared in <a href="https://www.theparisreview.org/" target="_blank"><i>The Paris Review</i></a>, <a href="https://orionmagazine.org/" target="_blank"><i>Orion</i></a>, <a href="https://thesouthernreview.org/" target="_blank"><i>The Southern Review</i></a>, and elsewhere, and her awards include a Ruth Lilly Fellowship and a Pushcart Prize. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Baylor University. <br />
<br />
<br />
SNOW WHITE<br />
<br />
Queen, you were starlight <br />
obsessing over an empty cradle,<br />
then over the door to the cradle room,<br />
then over the hallway to the door. <br />
<br />
I too feel my life is moving backward. <br />
I spend hours recalling<br />
how I reeled, as if from dream<br />
to dream, when you knocked, <br />
<br />
how crows swooped and dived <br />
like black fire behind you. <br />
The prince tells me I moan <br />
for you in my sleep— <br />
<br />
good star, bad mother, lone tree <br />
in a vast field on which the seasons hang<br />
their sheets, wet and colored <br />
with all the illnesses of beauty.<br />
<br />
<br />
<i><b>When was this poem composed? How did it start? </b></i><br />
<br />
I think I wrote this poem in 2008, maybe early 2009. As with many of my poems from that time, it likely started as a line or an image that came to me as I walked to or from campus at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, where I was an MFA student. I had lots of time to think while walking up and down the steep hills in Fayetteville. <br />
<br />
<b><i>How many revisions did this poem undergo? How much time elapsed between the first and final drafts? </i></b><br />
<br />
I’m not sure of the number of revisions, but it was written during a period in which I was working hard on a single poem at a time. My MFA was a four-year program, and by the second year I’d developed a steady rhythm of finishing one poem a month. I started other poems, too, and brought them as drafts to workshop, but I concentrated on and finished one at a time. It seemed like a slow pace compared to some writers, but I was happy with it. I’d work on my one poem every day, often first thing in the morning and last thing at night, often for hours at a time, and by the end of the month it would be finished. <br />
<br />
<i><b>Do you believe in inspiration? How much of this poem was “received” and how much was the result of sweat and tears? </b></i><br />
<br />
I believe in both inspiration and sweat. I remember that much of this poem was written in intense concentration and toil. But the ending came almost fully formed, in a burst. <br />
<br />
<i><b>How did this poem arrive at its final form? Did you consciously employ any principles of technique?</b></i><br />
<br />
Several of the poems in my first book, <i>The Tulip-Flame</i>, share this poem’s form. Four quatrains of fairly short and uniform lines. Four little boxes. There was a wildness in those poems that craved something orderly and sturdy to lean on. A bit like ballet, which is a theme in the book, the form allowed me to be meticulous and precise while remaining present with my most untamable subject matter. <br />
<br />
<b><i>Was there anything unusual about the way in which you wrote this poem?</i></b><br />
<br />
During the phase in which I wrote this, I’d draft poems in mechanical pencil, on enormous sketch pads. There was a satisfaction in striking things out, penciling in alternatives, drawing big swooping arrows to switch things around. I felt the construction of the lines differently than I did when drafting on a keyboard and screen. I was also in the habit of working on poems in the middle of the night. I’d wake at three or so in the morning, go downstairs in my drafty house in Fayetteville, and work on my poem-in-progress for a while before going back to sleep. Again, these were my MFA days, when I had lots of time completely to myself. In the later stages, after I’d typed up the poem, I’d print it out, attach it to a clipboard, and carry it around the house with me as I got ready for class, prepared food, or did housework! It was a strange and beautiful time. <br />
<br />
<i><b>How long after you finished this poem did it first appear in print? </b></i><br />
<br />
About five years. I first sent it out in 2010. It was rejected from quite a few journals. It has a strange opening that I liked and refused to change, but that several people said they didn’t “get.” <a href="http://amleahy.com/" target="_blank">Anna Leahy</a> accepted it for publication in the February 2014 issue of <a href="http://journals.chapman.edu/ojs/index.php/TAB-Journal/index" target="_blank"><i>Tab</i></a> and later nominated it for a Pushcart. It was republished in the 2016 Pushcart Prize anthology, which then led to my being a guest poetry editor for the 2017 anthology, a thrilling honor. I owe this poem—and Anna—a lot, and I’m grateful for its slower path toward publication.<br />
<br />
<b><i>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? </i></b><br />
<br />
I have no rules about that. My practice has varied a lot. <br />
<br />
<b><i>Could you talk about fact and fiction and how this poem negotiates the two? </i></b><br />
<br />
My mother died from suicide when I was seventeen. We were physically far away from one another at the time. She was at home in Aotearoa/New Zealand, where I was raised, and I was in California, where I’d recently moved to live with my paternal grandmother. It was mid-winter in New Zealand, mid-summer in the U.S. It’s a disorienting grief I carry, and I long for her in my every breath. That is the fact beneath the poem. The fiction is obvious in that it’s written in the voice of Snow White, speaking from her life after the known story has ended. I’d like to be clear, though, that I don’t mean to conflate my mother with the queen in the poem. Not at all. It’s just that the persona offered a different way in. Through that voice—and the big fiction of it—I was able to say something about early trauma and the constant nature of my own longing. <br />
<br />
<i><b>Is this a narrative poem?</b></i><br />
<br />
Not really, though it does lean on the narrative of the fairytale. <br />
<br />
<b><i>Do you remember who you were reading when you wrote this poem? Any influences you’d care to disclose? </i></b><br />
<br />
In stepping into the fairytale character persona, I was guided by “<a href="http://www.bu.edu/agni/poetry/print/2002/56-howe.m.html" target="_blank">Gretel, from a Sudden Clearing</a>,” by <a href="https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/marie-howe" target="_blank">Marie Howe</a>, my first poetry teacher. As with so much of her work, that poem stayed with me from the moment I read it. <br />
<b><i><br />Do you have any particular audience in mind when you write, an ideal reader? </i></b><br />
<br />
In the midst of writing a poem, I often have a longing to reach someone. There’s often a “you” involved, whether or not that person is addressed on the page. And the “you” often brings up a kind of desire and distance; some have died, some are unreachable for other reasons. After about the first draft, I imagine a wider audience—strangers, friends, past teachers, or whoever else. So the idea of audience changes as I push on. I don’t think about this as I’m writing, and it doesn’t happen in neat stages, but I can feel the pattern. Often, there’s an intensely personal and urgent “you” for whom the poem begins to live. And then there’s a necessary widening out from that original desire, and a giving over to craft to make the actual thing. <br />
<br />
<b><i>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></b><br />
<br />
I share my drafts with my partner, who is also a poet, and sometimes with a very close friend who is a sister-poet to me. <br />
<br />
<i><b>How does this poem differ from other poems of yours? </b></i><br />
<br />
In terms of style, it shares important elements with other poems in my first book. It differs quite a bit from my newer work, though. Looking at this poem now is like glimpsing my younger self, seeing her fierce precision and stubbornness. I chiseled the poems in my first book with a kind of obsessiveness that, though I’m grateful to have experienced, I can’t quite imagine repeating. My newer poems breathe differently and move differently. They’re a bit less lonely, thank goodness. They’re not constantly standing on a cliff’s edge. They can walk through the world a bit, put their hands to the ground. <br />
<b><i><br />What is American about this poem? </i></b><br />
<br />
I’m not entirely sure. I wrote it in Arkansas, using a persona from a German fairytale, while deeply homesick for Aotearoa/New Zealand. In terms of programs and degrees, my study of poetry has been in America. But learning to read and write in Aotearoa—land of the long white cloud, land of my heart—will always be as important to my aesthetic awareness, and in many ways more so, as anything I learned in college. <br />
<i><b><br />Was this poem finished or abandoned? </b></i><br />
<br />
Finished. Brian Brodeurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18306752905070477332noreply@blogger.com303tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4112204366956454376.post-17328702616860766952018-01-05T14:29:00.006-05:002018-01-05T15:01:14.796-05:00David Baker <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEify6oTihODNsgBrKIbqttm3CqNKAZzCBUgp-yLnaLwKryO5RUrVaRfwi5p2kc27idmzaRQaWCq8CUf2v8UFLHGe1iGBAxfnDGkx9ppsv5BdKcojUv5CkkpixdgGNeLZW_YWq92C4BsC6ee/s1600/baker_david.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="720" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEify6oTihODNsgBrKIbqttm3CqNKAZzCBUgp-yLnaLwKryO5RUrVaRfwi5p2kc27idmzaRQaWCq8CUf2v8UFLHGe1iGBAxfnDGkx9ppsv5BdKcojUv5CkkpixdgGNeLZW_YWq92C4BsC6ee/s320/baker_david.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
David Baker is author of twelve books of poetry, including <i>Swift: New and Selected Poems</i> (forthcoming 2019), <a href="http://books.wwnorton.com/books/Scavenger-Loop/" target="_blank"><i>Scavenger Loop</i></a> (2015), and <a href="http://books.wwnorton.com/books/detail.aspx?ID=20457" target="_blank"><i>Never-Ending Birds</i></a> (2009), which was awarded the Roethke Memorial Poetry Prize in 2011. His six books of prose include <i>Seek After: On Seven Modern Lyric Poets</i> (2018), <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Show-Me-Your-Environment-Essays/dp/047205225X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1515178864&sr=1-1&keywords=show+me+your+environment" target="_blank"><i>Show Me Your Environment: Essays on Poetry, Poets, and Poems</i> </a>(2014) and, with Ann Townsend, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Radiant-Lyre-Essays-Lyric-Poetry/dp/1555974600" target="_blank"><i>Radiant Lyre: Essays on Lyric Poetry</i></a> (2007). Among his awards are prizes and grants from the Guggenheim Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Mellon Foundation, and Society of Midland Authors. He holds the Thomas B. Fordham Chair at Denison University, in Granville, Ohio, and is Poetry Editor of <a href="https://www.kenyonreview.org/" target="_blank"><i>The Kenyon Review</i></a>.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
SWIFT <br />
<br />
1.<br />
into flight, the name as velocity, <br />
a swift is one of two or three hundred<br />
swirling over the post office smokestack.<br />
First they rise come dusk to the high sky,<br />
<br />
flying from the ivy walls of the bank<br />
a few at a time, up from graveyard oaks<br />
and back yards, then more, tightening to orbit<br />
in a block-wide whirl above the village.<br />
<br />
<br />
2.<br />
Now they are a flock. Now we’re holding hands.<br />
We’re talking in whispers to our kind, who<br />
stroll in couples from the ice cream shop<br />
or bike here in small groups to see the birds.<br />
<br />
A voice in awe turns inward; as looking<br />
down into a canyon, the self grows small.<br />
The smaller swifts are larger for their singing,<br />
the spatter and high <i>cheeep</i>, the shrill of it.<br />
<br />
<br />
3.<br />
And their quick bat-like alternating wings.<br />
And the soft pewter sky sets off the black <br />
checkmark bodies of the birds as they skitter <br />
like water toward a drain. Now one veers, <br />
<br />
dives, as if wing-shot or worse out of the sky <br />
over the maw of the chimney. Flailing—<br />
but then pulling out, as another dips<br />
and the flock reverses its circling.<br />
<br />
<br />
4.<br />
They seem like leaves spinning in a storm, <br />
blown wild around us, and we their witnesses.<br />
Witness the way they finish. The first one <br />
simply drops into the flue. Then four, <br />
<br />
five, in as many seconds, pulling out of <br />
the swirl, sweep down. So swiftly, we’re alone.<br />
The sky is clear of everything but night.<br />
We are standing, at a loss, within it.<br />
<br />
<br />
<i><b>When was this poem composed? How did it start? </b></i><br />
<br />
I remember, in this case, specifically. I started this poem in the late summer of 2009. I revised it through early summer 2010, and it appeared in <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/lisa-russ-spaar" target="_blank">Lisa Russ Spaar</a>’s column in <a href="https://www.chronicle.com/" target="_blank"><i>Chronicle of Higher Education</i></a> in October 2010. I’m still pleased with this poem; it serves as the opening poem to my volume, <i>Scavenger Loop</i>, and it provides the title for my forthcoming book, <i>Swift: New and Selected Poems</i>.<br />
<br />
The birds—the chimney swifts—are real and local. Every summer for decades they assemble in my village in Ohio, and especially in August and September they perform this dusk flight, gathering from all over the village into a loose cloud, then slowly into a tighter funnel circling and dipping lower over the big chimney of our old post office. At sundown, in twenty-thirty minutes, they swoop down one at a time, in increasing numbers, and disappear into the flue and spend the night, dozens, hundreds, packed in the three-story big brick stack. The poem started by watching, evening after evening. Often still I stand there on the corner across the street, alone, and then sometimes people join me. We are quiet. We watch them. We wish we could fly. The swifts, like bats, fly with alternating wingbeats, one wing up when the other’s down.<br />
<br />
<b><i>How many revisions did this poem undergo? How much time elapsed between the first and final drafts? </i></b><br />
<br />
I am pretty slow and obsessive. I don’t count revisions, but I imagine this poem took a dozen large-scale revisions and maybe three dozen more with tweaks. The early poem was in unmeasured lines in eight-line stanzas, with no sections. Then it was in couplets. I kept sharpening, pressing it into <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/learn/glossary-terms/syllabic-verse" target="_blank">syllabics</a>. There were two or three spots where the phrasing evaded me. About a year elapsed between first partial draft and final version. There is no hurry in poetry, right?<br />
<br />
<i><b>Do you believe in inspiration? How much of this poem was “received” and how much was the result of sweat and tears? </b></i><br />
<br />
I believe inspiration comes to us when we are working. <i>In</i> + <i>spirare</i> = to breathe in, to be breathed-in-to. Much of the detailing of this poem was observed. It was not given. It was received. The tone of “Swift” is part of a larger tone I try and try to achieve—something like a quiet and very precise attention. Something about presence and the proximity of something other than myself, that other breathing thing. I don’t have words for what I mean; I don’t want them. I want the poem to go in search of that tone, as an achievement of syntax, phrasing, all the musical possibilities of the language, an achievement of discovery and that odd ancient newness of a real poem.<br />
<i><b><br />How did this poem arrive at its final form? Did you consciously employ any principles of technique?</b></i><br />
<br />
I cannot really separate principles of technique from aspects of subject. One enables the other. Of course I employ technique. The fundamentals of syntax, word choice, lineation are all technique. I have been trying to work in syllabics for many years, more than twenty. I like the rhythmic fluctuation alongside (or within) the regular mathematics of syllabics. That is, I don’t want a bouncy recurrence of rhythm, but instead a dynamic tension set up between the regularity of syllabics and the variable rhythm of my own sense of music. A tension between the math and the music of the thing. That’s it. <br />
<br />
What else was I thinking about, regarding technique? Pattern of image; line and stanza and (in this case) section; music music music in the form of harmony, repetition, counterpoint, modulation, key change. I wanted this poem to sound like a viola on the two lower strings. That’s the quiet pitch of the swifts in flight.<br />
<br />
<i><b>Was there anything unusual about the way in which you wrote this poem?</b></i><br />
<br />
I take notes by hand. I write drafts on the keyboard. I print drafts out and revise by hand and in my head, and then revise on the keyboard. I walk around with multiple drafts in my folder and in my head. I take my time. That is not unusual in my practice. <br />
<br />
<i><b>How long after you finished this poem did it first appear in print?</b></i> <br />
<br />
I think there were just a few months, maybe three or four. This particular venue—Lisa’s column in the <i>Chronicle</i>—had a pretty quick turnaround. The more usual wait is a year or two between a poem’s being finished and its journal appearance, and sometimes longer. As I said, there is no hurry in poetry.<br />
<br />
<i><b>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? </b></i><br />
<br />
I am slow. I will not send a poem off for some time, months. I have been too hasty at times, and usually regretted my haste. I don’t have rules about this. I write fewer poems these days and try to respond as I can when editors may be so kind as to invite me to submit. I’m holding a couple of poems right now, waiting, checking to see if they are really ready to be seen. One is about a month old, and one—which I keep fiddling with, tiny changes, back and forth—has been “finished” for about six months. You know, you make a tiny change somewhere and that effect may ripple far off.<br />
<br />
Some of my caution, or patience, derives from being a poetry editor. I read thousands upon thousands of poems a year at <i>The Kenyon Review</i>. People are writing too many poems; or, I mean, are sending too many out to journals. Instead of writing five new poems, I wish they’d write one new poem and revise it five times or give it five times as much time to settle. <br />
<br />
We are too busy making products and not poems, not poetry. So many of the poems I read are just not quite finished, at least to my sense of it all. One more draft, I think over and again. There is no hurry in poetry. There is, to be sure, hurry in our hearts, hurry in our professional identities (with all those resumes and professional reviews and applications). Hurry in our need for validation and attention. But the art of poetry is far more patient and far more demanding than the profession of poetry.<br />
<br />
<i><b>Could you talk about fact and fiction and how this poem negotiates the two? </b></i><br />
<br />
I don’t know. Some of my poems are close to actual, close to being autobiographical experience or memory. Are they fact? Some of my poems are made-up, mostly. <br />
<br />
But really, these are not a useful binary, in my way of thinking. The putting of a word onto paper makes it an artful, and fictional, gesture. And a word on a page is, of course, a real thing, a materiality, an art-in-fact, artifact. A work of art, a poem, is more interested in being an authenticity than a fact; more interested in being artful than make-believe. They are always both.<br />
<br />
<i><b>Is this a narrative poem?</b></i><br />
<br />
All poems are narrative poems. Yes, “Swift” is narrative. It is also lyric. <br />
<br />
I intend to write more about this distinction sometime soon. I think the dichotomy set up between narrative poetry and lyric poetry is, alas, a false one, another false and misleading binary, though I understand its history and its use. To the Greeks a narrative poem was an epic; a dramatic poem was a choral play; and lyric poem was a relatively shorter poem to be sung with a lyre or lute. Now, of course, we have the novel instead of the epic, and the play instead of choral drama. And our poetry has the potential to maintain and employ all of these attributes—of story, of song, of performance, of communal memory, of intimate personal insight. <br />
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But back to that binary and my dispute. What I think is this: To be a poem a thing must have vivid lyrical qualities. These may be sonorous qualities, they may be discordant, they may be coherent, they may be wildly jagged. But a poem is a lyrical form of language. Poems are lyric. <br />
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Poems are also narrative. All language is narrative. The fundamental relationship between subject and predicate is narrative. A narrative doesn’t necessarily require a long, sustained storyline or chronology. But time passes in the interstices between word and word, thing and act, and this temporal passage—whether it is almost instantaneous or epochal—contains story. Pound’s little verb-free “In a Station of the Metro” is a narrative poem and a lyric poem.<br />
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“Swift” has other narrative aspects, of course, too. It uses those things we tend to assign to fiction, like characters and setting and action. But I hope its lyric qualities are as vivid and rich as its narrative ones, in balance, in this case, two wings alternating into flight.<br />
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<i><b>Do you remember who you were reading when you wrote this poem? Any influences you’d care to disclose? </b></i><br />
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I do remember some of what I was reading when I wrote “Swift.” I read all the time, both for my daily pleasure and for the professional pleasure and task at <i>The Kenyon Review</i>. I was reading <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/stanley-plumly" target="_blank">Stanley Plumly</a> at the time, whom I read often. I’ve learned more about syllabics—and the dynamic rhythmic possibilities of syllabics—from Stan and from <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/marianne-moore" target="_blank">Marianne Moore</a> than from any other poets. I was reading, I believe, <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/carl-phillips" target="_blank">Carl Phillips’</a> <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/tradebooksforcourses/academictrade/9780374532161/speaklow" target="_blank"><i>Speak Low</i></a>; it had just come out, I believe, in 2009 when I started “Swift.” I was reading <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/emily-dickinson" target="_blank">Dickinson </a>poems, her bird poems, of which there are scads. I was also reading those weird little <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%C3%A9sar_Aira" target="_blank">Cesar Aira</a> novels during those couple of years. Go figure.<br />
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<i><b>Do you have any particular audience in mind when you write, an ideal reader? </b></i><br />
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I write for myself and strangers. That’s <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/gertrude-stein" target="_blank">Gertrude Stein</a>. I’m with her. I write to attend to the music in my heart and my head, and I write—or aspire to write—in such a way that someone I don’t know may read and find purposeful music in my poems. I write for Dickinson and <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/john-keats" target="_blank">Keats</a>, too. Relentless readers with endless patience and infinite soulful wisdom. <br />
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<i><b>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?</b></i><br />
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I wait a while. I don’t show early drafts to anyone. I know what to do. I know where I tend to mess up or get hasty. I know from all the <i>Kenyon Review</i> poems what most of the day’s clichés are.<br />
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Then my first and best reader is <a href="http://barrowstreet.org/press/book/vestigial/" target="_blank">Page Starzinger</a>, my partner now of more than ten years. She is relentless and understanding. She knows those habits of mine, too, and her aesthetic and critical senses are sufficiently different from mine that she pushes me out of my comfort or my go-to stances. My background is music and hers is visual art. That’s a good difference.<br />
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And yes, I have a small group of dear trusted other readers, whom I turn to at different times for different things: Stan Plumly again, Carl Phillips, <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/jill-bialosky" target="_blank">Jill Bialosky</a> (my blessing-of-an-editor), <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/linda-gregerson" target="_blank">Linda Gregerson</a>, <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/ann-townsend" target="_blank">Ann Townsend</a>, <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/tr-hummer" target="_blank">Terry Hummer</a>, sometimes other folks. But these particular friends have helped me for years, decades, and each brings a different set of questions to the page. Poetry, such a private individual art, depends on others. I love that.<br />
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<i><b>How does this poem differ from other poems of yours?</b></i> <br />
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I don’t know. I’m not the right person to make that assessment. It’s different because it’s about swifts rather than deer or cornfields or my neighbors or ecological degradation? <br />
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<i><b>What is American about this poem? </b></i><br />
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I can either ignore this question or write a book. <br />
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I am American, my idiom is American, and it is specific to my Midwestern life, my village life, all those other aspects of identity that make up a self or selves. The aesthetic is probably a version of latter-day Romanticism, wishful semi-post-Capitalism, devout naturalism—spooky action-at-a-distance—and some other isms. I write a lot about American poetry and poets. I guess I’m one. <br />
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There’s a lot more to say, about hopefulness, or community, or privilege, or awe, or music. But the more I explain the poem the farther it seems to me.<br />
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<i><b>Was this poem finished or abandoned? </b></i><br />
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The version of “Swifts” I read in public these days is slightly different, revised since it appeared in <i>Scavenger Loop</i>. There’s one rascal phrase I keep adjusting. I read it different ways, depending.<br />
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<i><b>Was this poem finished or abandoned?</b></i><br />
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Yes. Brian Brodeurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18306752905070477332noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4112204366956454376.post-70275376305785973022017-12-13T12:36:00.001-05:002017-12-13T12:36:46.775-05:00Sasha Pimentel <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-Po-athzd1OTQFCAXTI4i1NJJOVm_ylhjOV84OeYyDXvgfafLZxlDWwFtKGIOzZjzv64JPTVgt2efhzyv4QGR-LkdhvsmXOlfQZmuvvFXYLCv9RyP-pi6yy7cmZS3yxY-aTF4ZtTMg2GH/s1600/Sasha+Pimentel%252C+Photo+Credit+Jorge+Salgado.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="821" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-Po-athzd1OTQFCAXTI4i1NJJOVm_ylhjOV84OeYyDXvgfafLZxlDWwFtKGIOzZjzv64JPTVgt2efhzyv4QGR-LkdhvsmXOlfQZmuvvFXYLCv9RyP-pi6yy7cmZS3yxY-aTF4ZtTMg2GH/s320/Sasha+Pimentel%252C+Photo+Credit+Jorge+Salgado.jpg" width="205" /></a></div>
Born in Manila, Philippines and raised in the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, <a href="https://www.sashapimentel.com/" target="_blank">Sasha Pimentel </a>is the author of <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/554554/for-want-of-water-by-sasha-pimentel/9780807027851/" target="_blank"><i>For Want of Water</i></a> (Beacon Press, 2017), selected by Gregory Pardlo as winner of the 2016 National Poetry Series. She’s also the author of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Insides-Swallowed-Sasha-Pimentel-Chacon/dp/0981669387" target="_blank"><i>Insides She Swallowed</i></a> (West End Press, 2010), winner of the 2011 American Book Award. Selected as a finalist for the 2015 Rome Fellowship in Literature (American Academy of Arts and Letters), her work has recently appeared in such journals as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/section/magazine" target="_blank"><i>New York Times Magazine</i></a>, <a href="https://the-american-poetry-review.myshopify.com/" target="_blank"><i>American Poetry Review</i></a>, <a href="http://lithub.com/" target="_blank"><i>LitHub</i></a>, <a href="https://www.guernicamag.com/" target="_blank"><i>Guernica </i></a>and the <a href="https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/sasha-pimentel" target="_blank">Academy of American Poets website</a>, among others. She is an Associate Professor in the Department of Creative Writing at the University of Texas at El Paso, on the border of Ciudad Juárez, México, to students from all over the Americas in their bilingual (Spanish-English) MFA Program.<br /><br /><br /><br />
THAI MASSAGE <br /><br />
In the dark room he asks me <br />to change where we have to<br />bow below the ceiling, coughing<br />while he draws the sheet hung<br />to save my modesty, though<br />I have none to save. I peel off<br />my wet dress for pants thin<br />as the pillowcases I slept on<br />as a girl in Georgia, the purple<br />tie-dye ballooning my pelvis,<br />and I knot the remaining cloth<br />at my navel, fold the sheathing<br />I arrived inside, seams filled<br />with smoke, city, into a sharp<br />black square at the corner<br />of the single mattress. I can see<br />his body moving quickly, quietly<br />lighting candles behind the cot<br />-ton: divided, we both know not<br />to speak. This is the last trip<br />I’ll take with the one I still call<br />my husband, this man and this<br />room now a bought hour <br />of silence from the silence of<br />my body walking behind another<br />in Bangkok, and I pleat myself<br />into the center of the bed, my<br />calves under my thighs, palms<br />sweating the lap, the way Asian<br />women know to wait. He senses<br />my pinned posture and pulls<br />the twin sheet back, and for <br />the first time I see him beyond<br />instruction, or introduction, how<br />the small hoods of his eyes drip<br />into his smooth high cheeks,<br />his tendonous neck and clavicles<br />rooting to a person more furtive <br />than my own. He asks me where<br />I hurt, everywhere. But more<br />at my neck and lower back,<br />because I won’t ask this stranger <br />to cup the cone of my caged <br />heart. The springs depress<br />where he has sunk in to hold <br />me, his chest at the hump<br />of my spine, my hands in <br />his, our fingers entrenched.<br />He says of our shared, colored<br />skin <i>same</i>, <i>same</i>, and I say <i>sawat<br />dee ka </i>because I do not know<br />how to use the language past<br />gratitude—my accent broken,<br />tiger balm spiriting his pores,<br />and his breath at my neck, the two<br />candles hunkering blue light<br />in the corner, and somewhere<br />below, banned from this dark<br />room and in the laboring street<br />is the one who’s forgotten<br />to touch me, a man framing<br />in telephoto the smoky arms<br />of women frying chicken over gel<br />gas, and the foreheads of girls<br />hacking durian, their temples<br />shining, bent to the million<br />spines at each green shell, their <br />steel knives unstringing such<br />soft yellow fruit. Still to come<br />is a grief so large it will shape into<br />an estranged and swollen face<br />cursing me at the next party, our<br />future folding into our past, wine<br />staining our hands, our lips.<br />The sun drops, conspires<br />to further the darkness of this<br />blued room, where candles are <br />shivering in secret. The fan <br />whirs. The man embracing me <br />squeezes our four hands, and I <br />understand the gesture to trust <br />him. He swings me, cracks my back. <br /><br /><br /><b><i>When was this poem composed? How did it start?</i></b> <br /><br />I first sat down to write this poem in December 2012. It started with a memory, and a feeling that I had about that memory.<br /><br /><b><i>How many revisions did this poem undergo? How much time elapsed between the first and final drafts? </i></b><br /><br />Getting the rhythm of the poem’s language took some time. It was hard for me to get this poem’s rhythm, its voice and sense of line, and that took sustained days of writing over several weeks. The revising its nooks and crannies after the poem had taken its main shape took about a year. So some drafts. But I’m a really slow writer compared to other, better writers.<br /><br /><i><b>Do you believe in inspiration? How much of this poem was “received” and how much was the result of sweat and tears? </b></i><br /><br />The scene of this poem came to me very quickly in the writing process, partly because I’d thought about the scene already, even if not yet in the terms of a poem. I guess you could say that was “received.”<br /><br />But everything else was sweat, no tears. I tell my students that exactly where something is hardest to write is exactly where we should double down, and write it out. That difficult subject or emotion may be something about which we may want to cry. But I don’t believe that I should be so into my own work that I can be moved to tears by something I’ve written, or am writing, myself. I save my tears for symphonies; that scene in <i>It’s Kind of a Fumny Story</i> when they’re singing “Under Pressure”—singing it hard—and as the song softens, their faces become bathed in blue light; and other people’s poetry.<br /><br />I believe in inspiration, but limitedly: that inspiration alone can’t make a poem. The rest is work.<br /><br /><i><b>How did this poem arrive at its final form? Did you consciously employ any principles of technique?</b></i><br /><br />I knew that I felt touched by this encounter, that I had witnessed in this person—a stranger—both an intimacy and an elegance that moved me. That cracked something open in me then, in my autobiographical time, something I could not name. <br /><br />So in writing time, I sat down to try to get as close as I could to naming it. I sat down at first just to write a portrait of him, to try to find a language that could capture some of his dignity, and the intimacy that I’d felt. But in writing the portrait, I discovered that such intimacy of encounter necessitated a first person point-of-view, an exchange between two people that was sharpened by a single, personal “I.” I discovered, as I wrote the poem, that I couldn’t separate the “I” as character too far from the “I” that was me, Sasha writing it, because as I questioned from where that intimacy came, I realized it had originated from my own autobiographical hurt.<br /><br />Likely for this masseuse, it was just another paid job, I another tourist. He wasn't the one who was changed by the experience, it was me. I think it was the gentlest that a man had touched me in years at that point in my life, maybe ever, without wanting something in return. I suppose that’s because what I had to give, the baht, was already given. I knew from my own childhood and almost all my experiences with men until my second husband, Michael, the touch of a man as only applied in desire, or violence. That men touched women’s bodies in order to receive, or to reflect themselves, back. To be touched physically, with hands that didn’t ask for my skin to swell—to meet those hands not by welt nor sexual surrender—it shocked me, stirred in me that maybe my body could live a different existence, as it does now. So while I first tried to write the poem in longer lines (a longer line can accommodate more possibilities in language), I learned while writing it that such a moment needed more breath, more hesitancy, more space for the speaker to breathe as she learned to realize in that moment what she was experiencing. In real life, it took me over a year to realize what I had experienced. But the poem needed that pained and mending understanding to happen in its own unfolding present. <br /><br />
In his essay “<a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?contentId=60328" target="_blank">My Grandfather's Tackle Box: The Limits of Memory-Driven Poetry</a>,” <a href="https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/billy-collins" target="_blank">Billy Collins </a>writes: “[e]ven a poem based on a past event can give off a feeling of immediacy
if it manages to convey an awareness that it exists in the present
tense of its own unfolding—an awareness, ultimately, of its own language.” Meaning, if we are to leap in a poem beyond the first stirrings, or scene, into something larger than the first perception, it has to be through a concrete present that leaps by sonic and imagistic intuition into a new territory. Sometimes that new territory is a new knowledge, or a music, or an awareness that something will come from this—which is why in this poem there’s a hint to the future, a future the speaker can almost sight, but not quite. Why that future seems to wobble in the corners of the room, or in the fan, because though the speaker is moving into an awareness that something is happening, that she is experiencing something that will forever change her, she doesn’t know yet how those changes will happen. Only that she is being changed, will change.<br /><br />Once I found the line length (the hardest thing for me to find), I could listen to the rhythm of the poem’s language, guided by the line telling me when to speak and when to pause. Then I followed that rhythm, and wrote the poem to be as long as it needed to be to tell its story. Which was longer than I’d initially conceived.<br /><br /><i><b>Was there anything unusual about the way in which you wrote this poem?</b></i><br /><br />I think after I had typed several drafts and I still couldn’t find a line length that felt right, I had to hand-write the poem multiple times in different ways to slough off the visual habits I’d developed with my computer screen and word processor.<br /><br /><i><b>How long after you finished this poem did it first appear in print? </b></i><br /><br />Four years.<br /><br /><i><b>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?</b></i> <br /><br />I always let a poem sit for months, more often a year or two. I’m old enough to know that if it turns out, after time, a poem I’ve written is shitty, that I can always write another one. I can out-wait the shittiness of my own writing. But not so old enough that I can come to a poem’s final form so quickly, as more seasoned poets can do, they live with the song in their ears so. <br /><br />I let a poem wait inside my computer, or if I really like it, I print it out and lay it on a corner of my desk, so I if glance at it between reading and studying later, I might remember it’s there. I need for time to efface the superficial layers between what’s real in a poem—if there’s a real emotion there that needs words—really needs it, something plain and true—versus the want to have written. <br /><br />I don’t trust myself because I’m a nerd. Michael says he often wakes to me swiping on the square blue glow of my ipad, and I’m reading poems or essays on craft then. I tell my students, why waste a minute not in poetry? Even the busiest of people can keep poetry books near the toilet—there’s always time to read the most incredible thing to read, even if what your body is doing is ordinary. But I fall in love with other poets’ poems so much, so easily, sometimes I just want to write because that poet has opened something in me. <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/11/20/repentance" target="_blank">Natasha Tretheway’s “Repentance</a>,” for example. Great art makes you want to make great art. But it doesn’t mean that what you make will also be great.<br /><br />I’ve developed an aesthetic that doesn’t believe in poetry as experiment, nor poetry as play. I think loss is the necessary bitter half to the poems that end up compassionate, or generous—that the capaciousness of a poem comes from its own understanding of what we risk, how great it is what can be lost. And because a poem’s form is part language, part space or silence, I think if we dare to speak against that whitespace, it ought to have as its engine, necessity. <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/unbound/poetry/antholog/levine/oneword.htm" target="_blank">“He Would Never Use One Word Where None Would Do,”</a> <a href="http://howapoemhappens.blogspot.com/2009/04/philip-levine.html" target="_blank">Philip Levine</a> titles a poem, and while I fail to achieve that standard, I take the advice to heart with each poem I’m writing now.<br /><br />If I let a poem sit, with time I can see if there’s something real there, or if it was just desire, or sheen.<br /><i><b><br />Could you talk about fact and fiction and how this poem negotiates the two? </b></i><br /><br />I think I’ve been talking about this already. But in short: the events themselves all happened, even down to how I folded my street dress in exchange for a soft t-shirt and fisherman’s pants, and how I sat. The fiction lies in the narrative drama that comes from the adjectives and verbs I gave to those facts.<br /><br />Oh, and the sun dropping. I think the actual massage was earlier in the day. But in the poem I needed the sun to drop to signal transition, change.<br /><br /><i><b>Is this a narrative poem?</b></i><br /><br />It’s narrative in that time moves the telling of the story forward, versus a lyrical poem centered around an emotion, or a question. <br /><br />But <a href="https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/federico-garc%C3%ADa-lorca" target="_blank">Federico García Lorca</a> says that “<i>[l]a verdadera lucha es con el duende</i>.” And one of the ways that a poem can access that struggle with “black sounds” is through an awareness of its own wrestling of language. I like to interpret that wrestling of language as between a poem’s narrative momentum versus its lyrical intensity. This isn’t just in poems. In the writing I admire, which transcends genre, there’s always that visceral push and pull between the telling of a story and a euphoric celebration of language, as with Toni Morrison’s <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Beloved-Toni-Morrison/dp/1400033411" target="_blank"><i>Beloved</i></a>. Narrative momentum is what pushes the writing ahead, how things unfold, or a character’s desire. There’s a forward propulsion of narrative time, which is not the same as “real time.” But lyrical intensity is what I call those parts of constructed language that are so musical, so sensual, yet also so unadorned, they seem to linger outside of time. Those moments when stubborn language finally gets past itself as a medium, and arrives perhaps at what <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Beloved-Toni-Morrison/dp/1400033411" target="_blank">William Carlos Williams</a> calls “not in ideas, only in things,” what <a href="https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/richard-hugo" target="_blank">Richard Hugo</a> calls the real subject beneath the subject, the “treasure,” what <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/honoree-fanonne-jeffers" target="_blank">Honorée Fanonne Jeffers</a> calls “not the necessary self awareness […] but rather, the necessary questions,” and what <a href="https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/major-jackson" target="_blank">Major Jackson </a>calls “to be inside a poem and to be vulnerable.”<br /><br />So time moves forward as the story is told in these poems. But I hope too that maybe, for a bit, it feels like it can stop, too.<br /><br /><i><b>Do you remember who you were reading when you wrote this poem? Any influences you’d care to disclose? </b></i><br /><br />Without a doubt, Philip Levine. I’ve read, studied and taught his corpus, and I continue to return to his poetry every few days, but most especially when I’m trying to write something that feels hard to get out. I’m always thinking of how his poems stretch and arc. How his poems extend what is specific into what is large, so that the specific becomes saturated with the large. <br /><br />I know I was reading <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/jorge-luis-borges" target="_blank">Jorge Luis Borges’s</a> lectures from <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Craft-Verse-Charles-Norton-Lectures/dp/0674008200" target="_blank"><i>This Craft of Verse</i></a> and his poems selected by Alexander Coleman, Gwendolyn Brooks’s <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Annie-Allen-Gwendolyn-Brooks/dp/B0007DTSEY/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1513186025&sr=8-3&keywords=annie+allen" target="_blank"><i>Annie Allen,</i></a> Cyrus Cassell’s <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Crossed-Out-Swastika-Cyrus-Cassells/dp/1556593791/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1513186058&sr=1-1&keywords=The+Crossed+Out+Swastika" target="_blank"><i>The Crossed Out Swastika</i></a>, Eduardo Corral’s <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Slow-Lightning-Yale-Younger-Poets/dp/030017893X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1513186086&sr=1-1&keywords=slow+lightning" target="_blank"><i>Slow Lightning</i></a>, Louise Glück’s <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Wild-Iris-Louise-Gluck/dp/0880013346/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1513186107&sr=1-1&keywords=the+wild+iris" target="_blank"><i>Wild Iris</i></a>, Corrinne Clegg Hales’s <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Make-Right-Corrinne-Clegg-Hales/dp/1932870474/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1513186132&sr=1-4&keywords=to+make+it+right" target="_blank"><i>To Make It Right</i></a>, Juan Felipe Herrera’s <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Reasons-Mexicanos-Cant-Cross-Border/dp/0872864626/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1513186166&sr=1-1&keywords=187+reasons+mexicans+cross+the+border" target="_blank"><i>187 Reasons Mexicanos Can’t Cross the Border</i></a>, Edward Hirsch’s illuminating aesthetics in <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Demon-Angel-Searching-Artistic-Inspiration/dp/0151005389/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1513186193&sr=1-5&keywords=the+demon+and+the+angel" target="_blank"><i>The Demon and the Angel</i></a>, Langston Hughes’s <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Collected-Langston-Hughes-Vintage-Classics/dp/0679764089/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1513186230&sr=1-1&keywords=hughes+collected+poems" target="_blank"><i>Collected</i></a> edited by Arnold Rampersad and David Roessel, June Jordan’s <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Directed-Desire-Collected-Poems-Jordan/dp/1556592345/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1513186268&sr=1-1&keywords=directed+by+desire" target="_blank"><i>Directed By Desire</i></a>, Yusef Komunyakaa’s <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Pleasure-Dome-Collected-Wesleyan-Poetry/dp/0819567396/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1513186292&sr=1-1&keywords=pleasure+dome+komunyakaa" target="_blank"><i>Pleasure Dome</i></a> and <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Chameleon-Couch-Poems-Yusef-Komunyakaa/dp/0374533148/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1513186313&sr=1-1&keywords=couch+komunyakaa" target="_blank"><i>The Chameleon Couch</i></a>, Dorianne Laux’s <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Facts-About-Moon-Dorianne-Laux/dp/0393329623/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1513186334&sr=1-1&keywords=facts+about+the+moon" target="_blank"><i>Facts About the Moon</i></a>, Li-Young Lee’s <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Book-My-Nights-American-Continuum/dp/1929918089/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1513186355&sr=1-1&keywords=book+of+my+nights" target="_blank"><i>Book of My Nights</i></a> and his memoir<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Winged-Seed-Remembrance-American-Readers/dp/1938160045/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1513186376&sr=1-1&keywords=the+winged+seed" target="_blank"><i> The Winged Seed</i></a>, Hugh Martin’s <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Stick-Soldiers-New-Poets-America/dp/1938160061/ref=sr_1_sc_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1513186409&sr=1-1-spell&keywords=the+stick+soliders" target="_blank"><i>The Stick Soldiers</i>,</a> and many others. <br /><br />I know that because I just looked back into my syllabi from that period of time, and those were the books I was teaching. <br /><br />I know too that during that time I was actively studying, if not formally teaching their books right then: Rosa Alcalá, Maram Al-Masri, Denise Duhamel, Rita Dove, Beth Ann Fennelly, Jorie Graham, Marilyn Hacker, Shirley Lim, Federico García Lorca, Dunya Mikhail, Anna Moschovakis, Octavio Paz, Paisley Rekdal, Adrienne Rich, Stanley Kunitz, Brian Turner, Gerald Stern, Leon Stokesbury, William Carlos Williams, C.D. Wright, and prose writers Mikhail Bulgakov, Italo Calvino, Steven Church, Julio Cortázar, Truman Capote, Amy Hempel, Kazuo Ishiguro, Franz Kafka, Milan Kundera, Toni Morrison, Haruki Murakami, and Alice Munro. <br /><br />I know this because sometimes when I’m trying to learn what a writer’s doing, technically, in a literary text, I type up that text into a Word document so I can understand it through my hands and eyes—so I can read it through my body, rather than through my intellect. And these were some of the documents I can find that I’d typed up during that time.<br /><b><i><br />Do you have any particular audience in mind when you write, an ideal reader? </i></b><br /><br />To anyone who is willing to take the time to read any of my poems, I’m grateful.<br /><br /><b><i>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></b><br /><br />Just my husband, Michael. He knows what I care about most in poems—partly because I’ve spent too many nights or mornings not letting him sleep because I’m babbling to him before bed, or as he’s waking, about poetry. But he’s the person I trust in all things valuable to me, poetry being very high on that list.<br /><i><b><br />How does this poem differ from other poems of yours? </b></i><br /><br />While this poem takes up some of the same concerns as its brothers and sisters in <i>For Want of Water</i>, what is body, what is family, and what we can’t say, because it’s not dealing with larger issues like the border, immigration, drugs or war as the other poems are, it’s more narratively direct.<br /><br /><b><i>What is American about this poem? </i></b><br /><br />The poem’s insistence and centering of “self,” and its belief that intimacy is immediately possible between strangers—that’s very un-Filipina of me. I understand the word “American” to define not just North America or the United States’ part of North America, but the entire Spanish- and English-speaking Americas. So too then that the “laboring street” is still part of the personal experience; it informs the dark, private room. <br /><br />Also: the <i>what have I done</i> of it. The <i>what will I do</i> of it. That the speaker feels, in that space, a foreigner. That it ends with its history sopping its present.<br /><br /><i><b>Was this poem finished or abandoned? </b></i><br /><br />Both. It’s as abandoned and as finished as the moment in my life from which this poem was dug.Brian Brodeurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18306752905070477332noreply@blogger.com35tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4112204366956454376.post-73860275641459952322017-12-01T12:26:00.003-05:002017-12-01T12:26:26.528-05:00Michael Shewmaker<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://www.michaelshewmaker.net/" target="_blank">Michael Shewmaker</a> is the recent winner of the Hollis Summers Poetry Prize and author of <a href="https://www.michaelshewmaker.net/penumbra" target="_blank"><i>Penumbra</i></a> (Ohio UP, 2017). His poems recently appear in <a href="https://yalereview.yale.edu/" target="_blank"><i>Yale Review</i></a>, <a href="http://www.vqronline.org/" target="_blank"><i>Virginia Quarterly Review</i></a>, <a href="http://poems.com/poem.php?date=17271" target="_blank"><i>Poetry Daily</i></a>, <a href="http://parnassusreview.com/" target="_blank"><i>Parnassus</i></a>, <a href="http://www.oxfordamerican.org/" target="_blank"><i>Oxford American</i></a>, <a href="http://www.narrativemagazine.com/" target="_blank"><i>Narrative</i></a>, and elsewhere. A former Wallace Stegner Fellow, he is a Jones Lecturer in poetry at Stanford University.<br /><br /><br /><br />
<br />
THE ILLUSIONIST<br />
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Without the usual work of wands,<br />she dazzles solely with her hands.<br /><br />The coin behind your ear is gone.<br />Her turtledoves have turned to stone.<br /><br />She plucks the rose from her corsage,<br />your ring tucked in its petaled cage.<br /><br />She knows your card. She levitates.<br />The coin appears in duplicates.<br /><br />And though she makes a show of it—<br />the scripted struggle, the long wait—<br /><br />no locks or chains are sound enough<br />to bind her to this stage. And though<br /><br />you know the limits of the eye,<br />her sleight of hand, the hidden lie,<br /><br />you choose to see as through a sieve.<br />You still applaud. You still believe.<br /><br /><br /><i><b>When was this poem composed? How did it start? </b></i><br /><br />It was mostly written in 2011, while I was living in Lubbock, Texas. It started with me watching a late-night documentary on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWM4qQWwnu0" target="_blank">sleight of hand magic</a>. <br /><br /><i><b>How many revisions did this poem undergo? How much time elapsed between the first and final drafts? </b></i><br /><br />I don’t keep a system that numbers drafts, but I feel pretty confident that it went through at least fifty or so. I spent roughly a year-and-a-half with it before sending it to editors.<br /><br /><b><i>Do you believe in inspiration? How much of this poem was “received” and how much was the result of sweat and tears?</i></b> <br /><br />Yes. I definitely believe in inspiration. I’m certain the poem wouldn’t exist if I didn’t watch that documentary. The sweat and tears came after, when trying to realize the poem’s shape. For me, that’s almost always the bulk of the work—making the form and content inseparable, making the form the content and vice versa.<br /><br /><i><b>How did this poem arrive at its final form? Did you consciously employ any principles of technique?</b></i><br /><br />The eye rhymes are what finally allowed the poem to take its shape. I wanted the couplets to feel like little tricks, leading up to a finale. So, I hope, when the reader encounters the only full rhyme in the poem (<i>eye </i>and <i>lie</i>) it startles them, especially since it doesn’t look like it rhymes at all. I hope the poem itself, through its form and content, pulls off its own sort of sleight of hand.<br /><br /><b><i>Was there anything unusual about the way in which you wrote this poem?</i></b><br /><br />Not much, beyond what I just mentioned above. Just a lot of time at the desk, which isn’t unusual at all.<br /><i><b><br />How long after you finished this poem did it first appear in print?</b></i> <br /><br />It first appeared in print in <a href="https://www.newcriterion.com/issues/2013/9/the-illusionist" target="_blank">September 2013</a>. So, what, a little over a year or so? Even after that, though, the version above, which was recently published in my book, <i>Penumbra</i>, is still slightly different.<br />
<br /><i><b>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? </b></i><br /><br />I have some hard and fast rules about this that are probably silly, but they help me to sleep at night. I don’t send anything out until I’ve spent at least six months with it. <br /><i><b><br />Could you talk about fact and fiction and how this poem negotiates the two? </b></i><br /><br />Well, I hope it’s a fiction that’s a fact. I’ve been to plenty of magic shows, but the poem isn’t reportage. It’s an imagined experience that confronts our human need to believe in something.<br /><br /><i><b>Is this a narrative poem?</b></i><br /><br />That depends on how you define narrative. I find that we often talk about poems as if they’re some sort of binary system: lyric or narrative—as if they’re one or the other. It’s been my experience that they usually exist on a scale, or a gradient. Compared to my other work, though, “The Illusionist” seems to me tipped more toward lyric than narrative. <br /><br /><b><i>Do you remember who you were reading when you wrote this poem? Any influences you’d care to disclose? </i></b><br /><br />I do. Among other things, I was reading <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/derek-mahon" target="_blank">Derek Mahon</a> and thinking about his rhymes.<br /><br /><b><i>Do you have any particular audience in mind when you write, an ideal reader? </i></b><br /><br />This question is always difficult for me. I’m often trying to write the poems that I want to read, that I don’t see already in the world. (That is, I’m trying to write the poems only I can write, audience be damned.) At the same time, though, it’s important to me that people who I am close to, who may not have a college education, can pick up one of my poems and get something valuable out of it. I’m usually living in that tension when I’m writing. <br /><br /><b><i>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></b><br /><br />Yes. I’m fortunate enough to have a handful of readers that I trust with almost everything I write. <br /><br /><i><b>How does this poem differ from other poems of yours? </b></i><br /><br />Many of my poems obsess about faith and doubt, specifically related to the different brands of Christianity I was raised in. I like that this poem entertains some of those same obsessions, but more obliquely. <br /><br /><i><b>What is American about this poem? </b></i><br /><br />Well, I’m an American and I wrote it. <br /><br /><i><b>Was this poem finished or abandoned?</b></i> <br /><br />Abandoned. Only and always. Though I’m not sure that abandoned and finished have to be mutually exclusive: <i>My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?... It is finished.</i><br /><br />Brian Brodeurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18306752905070477332noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4112204366956454376.post-84419469572681992462017-10-24T08:47:00.002-04:002017-10-24T09:10:49.784-04:00Jenny Molberg <style>
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<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="background: white; color: black;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/Jenny%20Molberg%E2%80%99s%20debut%20collection%20of%20poetry,%20Marvels%20of%20the%20Invisible,%20won%20the%202014%20Berkshire%20Prize%20(Tupelo%20Press,%202017).%20Her%20work%20has%20recently%20appeared%20or%20is%20forthcoming%20in%20Ploughshares,%20The%20Missouri%20Review,%20Copper%20Nickel,%20Boulevard,%20Poetry%20International,%20Best%20New%20Poets,%20and%20other%20publications.%20She%20is%20Assistant%20Professor%20of%20Creative%20Writing%20at%20the%20University%20of%20Central%20Missouri%20and%20Co-editor%20of%20Pleiades.%20Find%20her%20online%20at%20jennymolberg.com.%20%20%20CHRYSALIS%20%20I%20want%20to%20see,%20somewhere,%20the%20hot,%20cocooned%20unfolding%20of%20metamorphosis.%20The%20caterpillars%20are%20flown%20in%20from%20El%20Salvador,%20or%20New%20Guinea,%20and%20inside%20the%20dewed%20glass,%20shadows%20of%20men%20in%20white%20coats%20cloak%20the%20tic%20of%20emergent%20wings%E2%80%94%20What%20of%20the%20future%20do%20you%20hold%20inside%20yourself?%20See:%20if%20you%20take%20a%20scalpel%20and%20puncture%20the%20chrysalis,%20it%20will%20explode%E2%80%94yellow%20goo%20of%20cells,%20burst%20cells,%20amino%20acids,%20proteins,%20here%20a%20bit%20of%20gut,%20here%20a%20bit%20of%20brain.%20%20A%20thing%20builds%20a%20shell%20around%20itself,%20dissolves,%20becomes%20another%20thing.%20The%20way,%20when%20you%20are%20wrecked%20with%20love,%20you%20take%20only%20what%20you%20need,%20you,%20liquid%20version%20of%20yourself,%20all%20heart%20cells%20and%20skin%20cells%E2%80%94%20here%20a%20trough%20of%20heart,%20here,%20gutter%20of%20liver,%20channel%20of%20hearing%20or%20touch.%20What%20remains,%20as%20with%20the%20caterpillar,%20is%20memory.%20See,%20we%20melt%20entirely.%20%20I%20have%20been%20a%20child,%20a%20lake,%20a%20glacier,%20glacial%20pool,%20woman,%20river%20of%20woman,%20another%20woman,%20an%20older%20one.%20The%20oldest%20scientist%20asks,%20If%20we%20are%20all%20creatures%20of%20transformation,%20if%20we%20are%20never%20quite%20the%20same,%20what%20are%20we%20when%20we%20arrive%20at%20the%20moment%20of%20death?%20It%20is%20easier%20to%20think%20in%20death%20that%20I%20am%20me,%20but%20dying.%20See:%201668.%20The%20Dutch%20naturalist%20Jan%20Swammerdam%20dissects%20a%20caterpillar%20for%20Cosimo%20de%20Medici.%20And%20though%20we%20now%20think%20everything%20ends,%20turns%20to%20soup,%20to%20river,%20to%20ash%20and%20what%E2%80%99s%20passed%20is%20past,%20he%20unfolds%20the%20white%20sides%20of%20the%20insect%20and%20reveals%20two%20wing-buds,%20tucked%20tight%20inside%20the%20skin.%20%20Now,%20as%20I%20watch%20the%20knife%20pierce%20the%20chrysalis,%20a%20river%20of%20cells%20swelling%20through%20and%20out,%20I%20remember%20what%20my%20father%20once%20said,%20that%20what%20you%20see%20is%20only%20a%20fraction%20of%20what%20you%20can%20believe,%20and%20against%20the%20edge%20of%20the%20chrysalis,%20embryonic%20half-wings%20twitch%20without%20a%20body,%20waiting%20for%20their%20slow%20decay,%20and%20then%20for%20the%20next%20body%20that%20opens%20itself%20to%20the%20risk%20of%20flight.%20%20%20When%20was%20this%20poem%20composed?%20How%20did%20it%20start?%20%20%20This%20poem%20was%20composed%20in%202013.%20I%20was%20writing%20a%20collection%20of%20poems%20that%20responded%20to%20scientific%20texts%20and%20letters%20from%20the%2017th%20and%2018th%20centuries%20in%20Europe.%20The%20anecdote%20about%20Cosimo%20de%20Medici%20visiting%20Jan%20Swammerdam%E2%80%99s%20curiosity%20cabinet%20is%20taken%20from%20Renaissance%20and%20Revolution:%20Humanists,%20Scholars,%20Craftsmen%20and%20Natural%20Philosophers%20in%20Early%20Modern%20Europe,%20edited%20by%20J.V.%20Field%20and%20Frank%20A.J.L.%20James.%20I%20also%20discovered%20a%20webcam%20from%20the%20Florida%20Museum%20of%20Natural%20History,%20where%20you%20could%20follow%20rainforest%20butterflies%20during%20their%20process%20of%20metamorphosis.%20%20How%20many%20revisions%20did%20this%20poem%20undergo?%20How%20much%20time%20elapsed%20between%20the%20first%20and%20final%20drafts?%20%20%20This%20was%20not%20a%20poem%20that%20fell%20from%20the%20sky;%20I%20am%20sure%20I%20drafted%20the%20poem%20at%20least%20twenty%20times.%20I%20wrote%20the%20first%20draft%20in%202013%20and%20the%20final%20draft%20sometime%20before%20it%20was%20first%20published%20in%202015.%20%20%20Do%20you%20believe%20in%20inspiration?%20How%20much%20of%20this%20poem%20was%20%E2%80%9Creceived%E2%80%9D%20and%20how%20much%20was%20the%20result%20of%20sweat%20and%20tears?%20%20%20I%20absolutely%20believe%20in%20inspiration.%20Actually,%20sometimes%20I%20have%20to%20learn%20to%20tame%20my%20inspiration%20urge,%20so%20as%20not%20to%20constantly%20write%20poems%20on%20subjects%20that%20are%20inherently%20%E2%80%9Cpoetic.%E2%80%9D%20I%20believe%20it%20is%20important%20to%20write%20to%20my%20cultural%20moment%20and%20my%20own%20personal%20experience,%20and%20I%20like%20to%20put%20pressure%20on%20myself%20to%20invent.%20One%20thing%20I%20love%20about%20the%20scientific%20texts%20I%20explore%20is%20their%20language.%20Centuries-old%20science%20that%20now%20may%20seem%20outdated%20to%20us%20was%20filled%20with%20moments%20of%20shock%20and%20wonder%20for%20scientists%20then.%20I%20love%20to%20mine%20these%20texts%20for%20diction%20that%20I%20may%20not%20have%20otherwise%20used,%20so%20I%20would%20say%20that%20I%20did%20%E2%80%9Creceive%E2%80%9D%20the%20gift%20of%20their%20language%20and%20astonishment.%20I%20do%20feel%20I%20have%20%E2%80%9Creceived%E2%80%9D%20poems%20from%20the%20poetry%20gods%20before,%20but%20this%20is%20not%20one%20of%20them.%20Yes%E2%80%94sweat%20and%20tears%20galore,%20with%20this%20poem%20and%20so%20many%20others.%20But%20I%20live%20for%20that%20outpouring.%20%20How%20did%20this%20poem%20arrive%20at%20its%20final%20form?%20Did%20you%20consciously%20employ%20any%20principles%20of%20technique?%20%20Often,%20I%E2%80%99ll%20give%20myself%20rules%20for%20a%20poem%20that%20refuses%20to%20be%20contained.%20With%20this%20one,%20I%20didn%E2%80%99t%20though%E2%80%94pardon%20the%20awful%20pun%E2%80%94I%20just%20let%20it%20fly.%20%20Was%20there%20anything%20unusual%20about%20the%20way%20in%20which%20you%20wrote%20this%20poem?%20%20Perhaps%20this%20is%20unusual:%20the%20lines%20in%20the%20poem%20that%20use%20a%20first-person%20pronoun%20came%20from%20dreams,%20the%20kind%20of%20dreams%20that%20are%20so%20powerful%20that%20they%20change%20the%20way%20you%20see%20yourself.%20As%20I%20was%20doing%20this%20research%20and%20watching%20the%20butterflies%20slowly%20emerging%20from%20their%20cocoons,%20I%20was%20dreaming%20of%20being%20a%20woman%20who%20had%20lived%20forever,%20who%20kept%20melting%20into%20different%20bodies%20of%20water%20and%20growing%20back%20into%20another%20woman%20again.%20This%20reminded%20me%20of%20something%20my%20father,%20who%20is%20a%20pathologist,%20said,%20that%20%E2%80%9Cwhat%20you%20see%20is%20only%20a%20fraction%20of%20what%20you%20can%20believe.%E2%80%9D%20I%20am%20so%20struck%20by%20that%20word%20%E2%80%9Ccan,%E2%80%9D%20because%20it%20extends%20the%20ability%20of%20the%20imagination%20much%20further%20than%20the%20senses%20or%20any%20scientific%20fact.%20I%20think%20that%20poets%20and%20scientists%20share%20this%20quality,%20to%20be%20able%20to%20imagine%20possibilities%20so%20beyond%20logical%20proof%20that%20they%20allow%20for%20discovery.%20%20How%20long%20after%20you%20finished%20this%20poem%20did%20it%20first%20appear%20in%20print?%20%20%20The%20poem%20appeared%20in%20a%20feature%20at%20The%20Missouri%20Review%20in%202015,%20so%20about%20two%20years.%20%20How%20long%20do%20you%20let%20a%20poem%20%E2%80%9Csit%E2%80%9D%20before%20you%20send%20it%20off%20into%20the%20world?%20Do%20you%20have%20any%20rules%20about%20this%20or%20does%20your%20practice%20vary%20with%20every%20poem?%20%20%20This%20is%20probably%20a%20fault%20of%20mine%E2%80%94I%20often%20get%20excited%20about%20new%20work%20and%20send%20it%20out%20too%20early%20when%20left%20to%20my%20own%20devices.%20I%20seek%20out%20workshops%20with%20friends%20to%20try%20to%20prevent%20this.%20I%E2%80%99d%20love%20to%20have%20the%20patience%20many%20poets%20have,%20to%20let%20the%20poems%20marinate%20awhile%E2%80%94with%20some%20I%20do,%20with%20others,%20I%20get%20impatient.%20It%E2%80%99s%20my%20hope%20that%20I%20have%20good%20judgement%20about%20this,%20but%20who%20knows.%20%20Could%20you%20talk%20about%20fact%20and%20fiction%20and%20how%20this%20poem%20negotiates%20the%20two?%20%20%20%E2%80%9CFact%E2%80%9D%20is%20an%20interesting%20word%20in%20the%20context%20of%20this%20poem,%20because%20facts%20often%20change.%20In%20many%20ways,%20this%20is%20what%20the%20poem%20is%20about%E2%80%94there%20was%20the%20belief%20that%20the%20caterpillar%20turned%20completely%20to%20goo%20in%20the%20chrysalis,%20then%20Swammerdam%20showed%20us%20that%20this%20is%20not%20entirely%20true,%20as%20the%20tracheal%20tubes%20stay%20put%20and%20these%20things%20called%20%E2%80%9Cimaginal%20discs%E2%80%9D%20are%20there%20inside%20the%20caterpillar,%20waiting%20to%20become%20parts%20like%20wings%20and%20eyes%20and%20antennae.%20This%20idea,%20I%20think,%20could%20be%20applied%20to%20human%20experience:%20the%20%E2%80%9Cfact%E2%80%9D%20of%20me%20as%20a%20person%20can%20evolve.%20In%20terms%20of%20fiction:%20I%20think%20some%20people%20get%20tripped%20up%20on%20adhering%20to%20the%20literal,%20factual%20truth%20in%20poems,%20and%20one%20of%20the%20greatest%20lessons%20I%20learned%20from%20my%20teachers%20was%20that%20I%20could%20tell%20little%20lies%20to%20get%20to%20truer%20versions%20of%20the%20truth.%20My%20students%20think%20it%E2%80%99s%20hilarious%20when%20I%20tell%20them%20to%20lie,%20but%20I%20mean%20it!%20In%20a%20way,%20metaphors%20are%20lies,%20because%20(to%20take%20an%20example%20from%20the%20poem)%20I%20am%20obviously%20not%20a%20river.%20But%20the%20truer%20version%20of%20the%20truth%20is%20that%20I%20am.%20%20%20Is%20this%20a%20narrative%20poem?%20%20Can%20I%20be%20a%20pest%20and%20say%20yes%20and%20no?%20I%20think%20many%20of%20my%20poems%20have%20a%20narrative%20arc,%20but%20that%20may%20not%20make%20them%20necessarily%20%E2%80%9Cnarrative%20poems.%E2%80%9D%20Moments%20of%20lyricism%20seem%20important,%20too%E2%80%94asides%20and%20questions%20and%20wordplay%20and%20music-making%20are%20the%20most%20fun%20part%20of%20poems.%20Most%20of%20my%20favorite%20poems%20straddle%20this%20line.%20%20%20Do%20you%20remember%20who%20you%20were%20reading%20when%20you%20wrote%20this%20poem?%20Any%20influences%20you%E2%80%99d%20care%20to%20disclose?%20%20%20Absolutely!%20Charlotte%20Smith%20and%20John%20Donne%20were%20a%20couple%20of%20my%20fascinations%20during%20the%20time%20I%20wrote%20this%20poem,%20but%20also%20Brigit%20Pegeen%20Kelly%20(always),%20Bruce%20Bond,%20B.H.%20Fairchild,%20Marianne%20Moore,%20Elizabeth%20Bishop,%20Carl%20Phillips,%20and%20Aracelis%20Girmay%20were%20teaching%20me%20about%20poetry%20through%20their%20words.%20They%20all%20still%20teach%20me,%20and%20many%20more.%20%20Do%20you%20have%20any%20particular%20audience%20in%20mind%20when%20you%20write,%20an%20ideal%20reader?%20%20%20Honestly,%20no,%20not%20while%20I%20write%20my%20first%20drafts.%20As%20I%20start%20to%20think%20about%20final%20drafts%20and%20publishing,%20though,%20I%E2%80%99d%20say%20that%20Kathryn%20Nuernberger%20is%20my%20ideal%20reader.%20She%E2%80%99s%20the%20Moore%20to%20my%20Bishop,%20as%20we%20like%20to%20joke.%20If%20I%20can%20make%20her%20laugh%20or%20cry%20(preferably%20both),%20I%20think%20I%E2%80%99ve%20done%20my%20job.%20%20Did%20you%20let%20anyone%20see%20drafts%20of%20this%20poem%20before%20you%20finished%20it?%20Is%20there%20an%20individual%20or%20a%20group%20of%20individuals%20with%20whom%20you%20regularly%20share%20work?%20%20Yes,%20I%20often%20share%20my%20work%20with%20my%20dear%20friend%20and%20amazing%20poet%20Caitlin%20Pryor,%20as%20well%20as%20my%20always-teacher%20and%20good%20friend%20David%20Keplinger.%20I%E2%80%99ve%20recently%20started%20sharing%20poems%20with%20the%20poet%20Caridad%20Moro-Gronlier,%20whose%20work%20I%20admire.%20Bruce%20Bond%20and%20a%20handful%20of%20North%20Texas-affiliated%20poets%20have%20an%20annual%20poetry%20thread,%20where%20we%20write%20poems%20in%20a%20dialogue%20for%20about%20a%20month,%20and%20that%20is%20always%20fascinating%20and%20productive.%20%20How%20does%20this%20poem%20differ%20from%20other%20poems%20of%20yours?%20%20%20Ha!%20I%E2%80%99m%20not%20sure%20that%20it%20does%E2%80%94I%20think%20you%20picked%20a%20pretty%20emblematic%20one.%20%20What%20is%20American%20about%20this%20poem?%20%20%20What%20an%20interesting%20question.%20Perhaps%20the%20speaker%20of%20the%20poem%20is%20what%20is%20most%20American%20about%20the%20poem,%20as%20she%20watches%20the%20metamorphosis%20through%20a%20webcam%20in%20Florida,%20instead%20of%20doing%20first-hand%20research.%20Seems%20pretty%20lazy%20to%20me,%20speaker.%20Is%20that%20American?%20Probably.%20%20Was%20this%20poem%20finished%20or%20abandoned?%20%20%20I%E2%80%99d%20say%20the%20poem%20was%20finished,%20or%20at%20least%20I%20think%20it%20is.%20%20Thank%20you%20so%20much,%20Brian,%20for%20these%20wonderful%20questions%20and%20for%20allowing%20me%20this%20opportunity!" target="_blank">Jenny Molberg’s </a>debut collection of poetry, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Marvels-Invisible-Poems-Tupelo-Second/dp/1936797925" target="_blank"><i>Marvels of theInvisible</i></a>, won the 2014 Berkshire Prize (Tupelo Press, 2017). Her work has
recently appeared or is forthcoming in <i><a href="https://www.pshares.org/" target="_blank">Ploughshares</a>, <a href="https://www.missourireview.com/" target="_blank">The Missouri Review</a>,
<a href="http://copper-nickel.org/journal/" target="_blank">Copper Nickel</a>, <a href="https://www.boulevardmagazine.org/" target="_blank">Boulevard</a></i><a href="https://www.boulevardmagazine.org/" target="_blank">,</a> <a href="http://www.poetryinternationalweb.net/pi/site/home/web" target="_blank"><i>Poetry International</i></a>, <i>B<a href="http://bestnewpoets.org/" target="_blank">est New Poets</a></i>,
and other publications. She is Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at the
University of Central Missouri and Co-editor of <a href="http://www.pleiadesmag.com/" target="_blank"><i>Pleiades</i></a>. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "garamond";">CHRYSALIS<br /><br />I want to see, somewhere,<br />the hot, cocooned unfolding<br />of metamorphosis. The caterpillars<br />are flown in from El Salvador,<br />or New Guinea, and inside<br />the dewed glass, shadows<br />of men in white coats cloak<br />the tic of emergent wings—<br />What of the future do you hold<br />inside yourself? See: if you take a scalpel<br />and puncture the chrysalis,<br />it will explode—yellow goo<br />of cells, burst cells, amino acids,<br />proteins, here a bit of gut,<br />here a bit of brain.<br /><br />A thing builds a shell around itself,<br />dissolves, becomes another thing.<br />The way, when you are wrecked<br />with love, you take only what you need,<br />you, liquid version of yourself,<br />all heart cells and skin cells—<br />here a trough of heart,<br />here, gutter of liver, channel<br />of hearing or touch. What remains,<br />as with the caterpillar, is memory.<br />See, we melt entirely.<br /><br />I have been a child, a lake, a glacier,<br />glacial pool, woman, river of woman,<br />another woman, an older one.<br />The oldest scientist asks, If we are all<br />creatures of transformation,<br />if we are never quite the same,<br />what are we<br />when we arrive at the moment of death?<br />It is easier to think in death<br />that I am me, but dying. See: 1668.<br />The Dutch naturalist Jan Swammerdam<br />dissects a caterpillar for Cosimo de Medici.<br />And though we now think<br />everything ends,<br />turns to soup, to river, to ash<br />and what’s passed is past, he unfolds<br />the white sides of the insect and reveals<br />two wing-buds, tucked<br />tight inside the skin.<br /><br />Now, as I watch the knife<br />pierce the chrysalis,<br />a river of cells swelling through<br />and out, I remember<br />what my father once said,<br />that what you see is only a fraction<br />of what you can believe,<br />and against the edge of the chrysalis,<br />embryonic half-wings twitch<br />without a body, waiting<br />for their slow decay, and then<br />for the next body<br />that opens itself<br />to the risk of flight.<br /><br /><br /><b><i>When was this poem composed? How did it start? </i></b><br /><br />This poem was composed in 2013. I was writing a collection of poems that responded to scientific texts and letters from the 17th and 18th centuries in Europe. The anecdote about Cosimo de Medici visiting Jan Swammerdam’s curiosity cabinet is taken from<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Renaissance-Revolution-Humanists-Craftsmen-Philosophers/dp/0521627540" target="_blank"><i> Renaissance and Revolution: Humanists, Scholars, Craftsmen and Natural Philosophers in Early Modern Europe</i></a>, edited by J.V. Field and Frank A.J.L. James. I also discovered a webcam from the Florida Museum of Natural History, where you could follow rain-forest butterflies during their process of metamorphosis.<br /><br /><i><b>How many revisions did this poem undergo? How much time elapsed between the first and final drafts? </b></i><br /><br />This was not a poem that fell from the sky; I am sure I drafted the poem at least twenty times. I wrote the first draft in 2013 and the final draft sometime before it was first published in 2015. <br /><br /><i><b>Do you believe in inspiration? How much of this poem was “received” and how much was the result of sweat and tears? </b></i><br /><br />I absolutely believe in inspiration. Actually, sometimes I have to learn to tame my inspiration urge, so as not to constantly write poems on subjects that are inherently “poetic.” I believe it is important to write to my cultural moment and my own personal experience, and I like to put pressure on myself to invent. One thing I love about the scientific texts I explore is their language. Centuries-old science that now may seem outdated to us was filled with moments of shock and wonder for scientists then. I love to mine these texts for diction that I may not have otherwise used, so I would say that I did “receive” the gift of their language and astonishment. I do feel I have “received” poems from the poetry gods before, but this is not one of them. Yes—sweat and tears galore, with this poem and so many others. But I live for that outpouring.<br /><br /><i><b>How did this poem arrive at its final form? Did you consciously employ any principles of technique?</b></i><br /><br />Often, I’ll give myself rules for a poem that refuses to be contained. With this one, I didn’t though—pardon the awful pun—I just let it fly.<br /><br /><b><i>Was there anything unusual about the way in which you wrote this poem?</i></b><br /><br />Perhaps this is unusual: the lines in the poem that use a first-person pronoun came from dreams, the kind of dreams that are so powerful that they change the way you see yourself. As I was doing this research and watching the butterflies slowly emerging from their cocoons, I was dreaming of being a woman who had lived forever, who kept melting into different bodies of water and growing back into another woman again. This reminded me of something my father, who is a pathologist, said, that “what you see is only a fraction of what you can believe.” I am so struck by that word “can,” because it extends the ability of the imagination much further than the senses or any scientific fact. I think that poets and scientists share this quality, to be able to imagine possibilities so beyond logical proof that they allow for discovery.<br /><br /><i><b>How long after you finished this poem did it first appear in print? </b></i><br /><br />The poem appeared in a feature at <i>The Missouri Review </i>in 2015, so about two years.<br /><br />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? <br /><br />This is probably a fault of mine—I often get excited about new work and send it out too early when left to my own devices. I seek out workshops with friends to try to prevent this. I’d love to have the patience many poets have, to let the poems marinate awhile—with some I do, with others, I get impatient. It’s my hope that I have good judgement about this, but who knows.<br /><br /><b><i>Could you talk about fact and fiction and how this poem negotiates the two? </i></b><br /><br />“Fact” is an interesting word in the context of this poem, because facts often change. In many ways, this is what the poem is about—there was the belief that the caterpillar turned completely to goo in the chrysalis, then Swammerdam showed us that this is not entirely true, as the tracheal tubes stay put and these things called “imaginal discs” are there inside the caterpillar, waiting to become parts like wings and eyes and antennae. This idea, I think, could be applied to human experience: the “fact” of me as a person can evolve. In terms of fiction: I think some people get tripped up on adhering to the literal, factual truth in poems, and one of the greatest lessons I learned from my teachers was that I could tell little lies to get to truer versions of the truth. My students think it’s hilarious when I tell them to lie, but I mean it! In a way, metaphors are lies, because (to take an example from the poem) I am obviously not a river. But the truer version of the truth is that I am. <br /><i><b><br />Is this a narrative poem?</b></i><br /><br />Can I be a pest and say yes and no? I think many of my poems have a narrative arc, but that may not make them necessarily “narrative poems.” Moments of lyricism seem important, too—asides and questions and wordplay and music-making are the most fun part of poems. Most of my favorite poems straddle this line. <br /><br /><b><i>Do you remember who you were reading when you wrote this poem? Any influences you’d care to disclose?</i></b> <br /><br />Absolutely! <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/charlotte-smith" target="_blank">Charlotte Smith</a> and<a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/charlotte-smith" target="_blank"> John Donne</a> were a couple of my fascinations during the time I wrote this poem, but also <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/brigit-pegeen-kelly" target="_blank">Brigit Pegeen Kelly</a> (always), <a href="http://howapoemhappens.blogspot.com/2010/04/bruce-bond.html" target="_blank">Bruce Bond</a>, <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/b-h-fairchild" target="_blank">B.H. Fairchild</a>, <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/marianne-moore" target="_blank">Marianne Moore</a>, <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/elizabeth-bishop" target="_blank">Elizabeth Bishop</a>, <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/carl-phillips" target="_blank">Carl Phillips,</a> and <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/aracelis-girmay" target="_blank">Aracelis Girmay </a>were teaching me about poetry through their words. They all still teach me, and many more.<br /><br /><b><i>Do you have any particular audience in mind when you write, an ideal reader? </i></b><br /><br />Honestly, no, not while I write my first drafts. As I start to think about final drafts and publishing, though, I’d say that <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/kathryn-nuernberger" target="_blank">Kathryn Nuernberger</a> is my ideal reader. She’s the Moore to my Bishop, as we like to joke. If I can make her laugh or cry (preferably both), I think I’ve done my job.<br /><i><b><br />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?</b></i><br /><br />Yes, I often share my work with my dear friend and amazing poet <a href="http://www.caitlinpryor.com/" target="_blank">Caitlin Pryor</a>, as well as my always-teacher and good friend <a href="https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/david-keplinger" target="_blank">David Keplinger</a>. I’ve recently started sharing poems with the poet <a href="http://www.thecossackreview.com/supplement4/caridad_moro-gronlier.html" target="_blank">Caridad Moro-Gronlier</a>, whose work I admire. Bruce Bond and a handful of North Texas-affiliated poets have an annual poetry thread, where we write poems in a dialogue for about a month, and that is always fascinating and productive.<br /><br /><i><b>How does this poem differ from other poems of yours? </b></i><br /><br />Ha! I’m not sure that it does—I think you picked a pretty emblematic one.<br /><i><b><br />What is American about this poem? </b></i><br /><br />What an interesting question. Perhaps the speaker of the poem is what is most American about the poem, as she watches the metamorphosis through a webcam in Florida, instead of doing first-hand research. Seems pretty lazy to me, speaker. Is that American? Probably.<br /><i><b><br />Was this poem finished or abandoned? </b></i><br /><br />I’d say the poem was finished, or at least I think it is.</span>Brian Brodeurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18306752905070477332noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4112204366956454376.post-40681687378426544502017-10-12T15:44:00.001-04:002017-10-12T15:45:17.315-04:00Kathy Fagan <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Kathy Fagan’s latest collection is <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Sycamore-Poems-Kathy-Fagan/dp/1571314733" target="_blank"><i>Sycamore</i></a> (Milkweed Editions, 2017). She is also the author of the National Poetry Series selection <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Raft-Fagan/dp/0525481648" target="_blank"><i>The Raft </i></a>(Dutton, 1985), the Vassar Miller Prize winner <a href="https://www.amazon.com/MOVING-Vassar-Miller-Prize-Poetry/dp/1574410660/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1507836016&sr=1-1&keywords=moving+and+st.+rage" target="_blank"><i>MOVING & ST RAGE</i></a> (Univ. of North Texas, 1999), <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Charm-Poems-Kathy-Fagan/dp/0970817746/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1507836057&sr=1-1&keywords=fagan+the+charm" target="_blank"><i>The Charm</i></a> (Zoo, 2002), and <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Lip-Kathy-Fagan/dp/1597660493/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1507836081&sr=1-1&keywords=fagan+lip" target="_blank"><i>Lip</i></a> (Carnegie Mellon UP, 2009). Her work has appeared in <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/kathy-fagan" target="_blank"><i>Poetry</i></a>, <a href="https://www.theparisreview.org/" target="_blank"><i>The Paris Review</i></a>, <a href="https://www.thenation.com/authors/kathy-fagan/" target="_blank"><i>The Nation</i></a>, <a href="https://www.kenyonreview.org/" target="_blank"><i>The Kenyon Review</i></a>, <a href="http://www.slate.com/" target="_blank"><i>Slate,</i></a> <a href="http://www2.oberlin.edu/ocpress/field.html" target="_blank"><i>FIELD</i></a>, <a href="http://www.narrativemagazine.com/" target="_blank"><i>Narrative</i></a>, and<a href="https://newrepublic.com/" target="_blank"><i> The New Republic</i></a>, among other literary magazines, and is widely anthologized. Fagan is the recipient of awards and fellowships from, among others, the Ingram Merrill Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, The Frost Place, and the Ohio Arts Council. This year, she was awarded Ohio Poet of the Year for <i>Sycamore</i>. Director of Creative Writing and the MFA Program at The Ohio State University, she is currently Professor of English, Poetry Editor of OSU Press, and Advisor to <a href="http://thejournalmag.org/" target="_blank"><i>The Journal</i></a>. <br />
<br />
<br />
ELEVEN-SIDED POEM <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
after Carlos Drummond de Andrade’s “Seven-Sided Poem” </blockquote>
When I was dead, one of the whiter <br />
sycamores who live on the river said, <br />
Kathy, why didn’t you live in your body more? <br />
<br />
To which the oak added, That’s not an accusation;<br />
that’s a sympathetic question. <br />
<br />
Little sumac said, Don’t step on me, even your spectral form! <br />
The beech asked, Could we be cousins? <br />
And the fig, Why did you never properly learn <br />
to braid your hair? <br />
<br />
When sequoia called to say, <br />
You broke your vows, the birches said, <br />
Take us with you; the birds went with her. <br />
<br />
Magnolia, redbud, and cottonwood said, <br />
Our hearts bleed, the way the rain. <br />
But willow could say only, Garland, Tinsel. <br />
As if I alone had been responsible for Christmas.<br />
<br />
So I said, Listen, you trees <br />
(though I could not speak), <br />
I remember dying <br />
to grow up. Standing <br />
on tiptoe to pull my own baby <br />
teeth. Crushing my pelvis <br />
to kill any unborn hunched <br />
in the warm center. I sometimes stayed <br />
there myself. I sometimes left<br />
for a long time and was late to return. <br />
<br />
But I learned again, knees small and high, teeth <br />
showing when I smiled, <br />
clock after clock until quarter after clock, <br />
sugar everywhere, loose and in cubes. <br />
<i>Açúcar</i> it’s called, where I was conceived. <br />
<br />
A man came round with his paint <br />
roller to re-frost the scuffed bits. <br />
(Men are whitewashing both sides of the equator.) <br />
Someone brought his bird to the pool, <br />
arranged a chaise for each of them. <br />
Mothers with children in water wings. <br />
<br />
I stepped into water as warm as my body was before I forgot it. <br />
And the cold air after—<br />
I had forgotten that, too. <br />
<br />
Oh, but the meringue of the clouds was sweet<br />
that second time. Copious<br />
reasons for squinting, skin <br />
wet or dry, one large hand untangling my hair. <br />
<br />
You trees, I assure you, I was in full <br />
possession of my body when I died, <br />
all four of our blue eyes licked <br />
and all the candles blown. <br />
<br />
<br />
<i><b>When was this poem composed? How did it start?</b></i><br />
<br />
I’ve been lucky enough to tag along on a few international research trips with my husband, a physical chemist. I wrote the first draft of this poem in the office of a friend, a scientist-collaborator of my husband’s in fact, on a trip to Brazil in 2012. The building may have been standard issue suburban academic, circa mid-20th century, but outside the office window were several trees I could not immediately identify, filled with parrots—a pandemonium! I had also recently been to Miami—a greatly diverse and sophisticated city—which also happened to have been the location of my parents’ honeymoon many decades before. My parents were working-class people from New York City, my mom was first-generation American, and it was family legend I’d been conceived on this trip. The conflation of these circumstances got the poem going, but it was re-reading <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Drummond_de_Andrade" target="_blank">Carlos Drummond de Andrade</a> (translated by <a href="https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/elizabeth-bishop" target="_blank">Bishop</a>, herself an ex-pat living in Brazil and learning Portuguese), specifically his “<a href="http://www.theartdivas.com/2015/11/seven-sided-poem-bishop-translation-by.html" target="_blank">Seven-Sided Poem</a>,” that gave it momentum.<br />
<br />
<i><b>How many revisions did this poem undergo? How much time elapsed between the first and final drafts?</b></i><br />
<br />
Still writing in longhand, it’s hard to know exactly without some laborious digging into my files, but it’s typical for me to work a draft over at least a dozen times in longhand before keyboarding it in to Word, and then fairly typical to fool with another dozen or so drafts on screen before a poem is close to “done.”<br />
<br />
<i><b>Do you believe in inspiration? How much of this poem was “received” and how much was the result of sweat and tears?</b></i><br />
<br />
I’ve actually sweat and cried at various jobs I’ve had, but rarely has that happened when writing poems. Reading poems, but not writing them. Nor do I think of myself as “inspired” or plugged in to some larger creative construct. I’m old enough to know how my poems get made: I take lots of notes, some continue to seem interesting, some join together, musical/syntactical arrangements begin to work themselves out, an image/observation joins another image/observation, and then a full draft gets born, revisions happen, etc. That said, I used to believe in that old workshop saw: Write what you know. Now I write what I want to know. The photographer, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diane_Arbus" target="_blank">Diane Arbus</a>, said her mentor told her to take pictures of everything she’d never seen before. I think my impulse is similar. Freshness and surprise allow a poet to re-access and re-assess information—autobiography, history, art, politics—in extremely productive ways.<br />
<br />
<i><b>How did this poem arrive at its final form? Did you consciously apply any principles of technique?</b></i><br />
<br />
After a few drafts, it occurred to me I was modeling the Drummond de Andrade poem. At that point I became conscious, not of his lineation so much, but of his stanza. I decided I wanted eleven “sides,” or stanzas, to homage Drummond de Andrade’s seven.<br />
<br />
<b><i>Was there anything unusual about the way in which you wrote this poem?</i></b><br />
<br />
Well, aside from the de Andrade/Bishop influence, which was a one-off for me, though I admire both poets enormously, the most unusual thing about this poem is that I had a sense, a prescient sense really, that this poem of conception would become the final poem in the manuscript I was working on. I had most of the poems written for <i>Sycamore</i>, but not all, nor had I yet submitted it for publication. But suddenly I was allowing trees—many different kinds of trees—to address me directly, using my given name. I became willing—eager even—for a mythology of sorts to emerge between the trees and me, to become a character in my own book. I had long before crafted (I say crafted because to use the verb “write” doesn’t seem quite correct) the frontispiece to <i>Sycamore</i>, a “family tree,” chart or legend, “Platanaceae Family Tree,” and I felt a loose, intuitive connection to it as I worked on “Eleven-Sided....” I rarely write to a poetry project (though I have), nor do I trust much in happy accident (though I have), but in this case the results of both were generative enough to result in the opening and closing moments of the book.<br />
<br />
<b><i>How long after you finished this poem did it appear in print?</i></b><br />
<br />
It appeared in <a href="http://miramarmagazine.org/" target="_blank"><i>Miramar</i></a>, a small indie print journal from California, in 2014.<br />
<br />
<b><i>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?</i></b><br />
<br />
It varies poem to poem, but because I’m not as conscientious a submitter as I wish I were—I often put off submitting poems or don’t simultaneously submit; I understand this is true of many women poets—it’s usually at least six months to a year before I attempt to make work public.<br />
<br />
<b><i>Could you talk about fact and fiction and how this poem negotiates the two?</i></b><br />
<br />
That’s an interesting question because when I write poems I rarely consider notions of fact, fiction and negotiating the two. Re-reading the poem now, I see that quite obviously I was fictionalizing my own death. And of course, trees don’t talk—at least not in language we humans hear. There are few “facts” in this poem, but its emotional truths feel very direct to me, as direct as any in <i>Sycamore</i>. <br />
<b><i><br />Is this a narrative poem?</i></b><br />
<br />
If one thinks that the strategies of lyrical memoir can also be narrative, then yes. It does tell a story.<br />
<br />
<b><i>Do you remember who you were reading when you wrote this poem? Any influences you’d care to disclose?</i></b><br />
<br />
As I mentioned, I was reading Carlos Drummond de Andrade in translation. I was also reading what I could find in translation of the indigenous Guarani poet, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susy_Delgado" target="_blank">Susy Delgado</a>, in addition to prose by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorge_Amado" target="_blank">Jorge Amado</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarice_Lispector" target="_blank">Clarice Lispector</a>. I’m logically drawn, when I travel, to writers of the region—and often it’s the tension between their point of view and some history of my own that merges to form the beginnings of a poem for me.<br />
<i><b><br />Do you have any particular audience in mind when you write, an ideal reader?</b></i><br />
<br />
I think I must be my own ideal reader now. Yes, I can’t help but speak to poets before and, hopefully, to poets to come, and those poets who are my contemporaries. But I’m no longer ashamed to admit that I began writing poems to keep myself company—the same reason I read books as a child. I was reading a book of poems the other day, for professional reasons, in a crowded, noisy restaurant, and the lines were so completely lyrically enthralling that the outer world dropped away, leaving me with the words, the music, and the meaning of her lines only—the writer and I lived in some space between us and our experiences, bridging them, enhancing them. If I can write lines like that, lines that keep me and another reader company, I’ll feel like I’ve accomplished something like art.<br />
<br />
<b><i>Did you let anyone see drafts of this poem before you finished it? Is there an individual or group of individuals with whom you regularly share work?</i></b><br />
<br />
Milkweed gave me a poetry editor, a poet-editor, for <i>Sycamore</i>. I haven’t had that level of attention on my work since I was in grad school, if ever. I wish I had people with whom to share work on a regular basis. As it is, I’m extremely grateful for one or two readers to whom I send work—one just to drop it in his inbox so it feels like I’ve taken a step from inside my head to someone else’s, another who is different enough from me that I feel I’m taking a risk sending the work to her. They’re terrific poets, both, and generous friends.<br />
<br />
<i><b>How does this poem differ from other poems of yours?</b></i><br />
<br />
This poem feels a little more engaged in magical thinking than other poems of mine, and perhaps even more nakedly autobiographical than other poems in <i>Sycamore.</i><br />
<br />
<b><i>What is American about this poem?</i></b><br />
<br />
South American, strictly speaking. It’s also entirely self-mythologizing, which seems characteristically both North and South American.<br />
<br />
<i><b>Was this poem finished or abandoned?</b></i><br />
<br />
Because it felt to me, as I mentioned earlier, somehow connected to the prefatory legend in the book, and because I knew the poem would complete the book, “Eleven-Sided…” is more finished than abandoned. Or more resolved. As if certain notes were hit that were inevitable. The homage aspect of the poem also helped allow the poem to be a discrete and finished thing.Brian Brodeurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18306752905070477332noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4112204366956454376.post-16454729698932018122017-09-25T09:28:00.001-04:002017-09-25T09:28:22.279-04:00Richie Hofmann<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://richiehofmann.com/" target="_blank">Richie Hofmann</a> is the author of a poetry collection, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Second-Empire-Richie-Hofmann/dp/1938584163" target="_blank"><i>Second Empire</i></a> (2015), winner of the Beatrice Hawley Award. He is the recipient of a 2017 Pushcart Prize and a 2012 Ruth Lilly Poetry Fellowship, and his poems appear in <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/01/28/idyll-8" target="_blank"><i>The New Yorker</i></a>, <i><a href="https://www.pshares.org/authors/richie-hofmann" target="_blank">Ploughshares</a></i>, <a href="https://www.kenyonreview.org/tag/richie-hofmann/" target="_blank"><i>Kenyon Review</i></a>, <a href="https://www.newcriterion.com/issues/2013/1/mirror" target="_blank"><i>The New Criterion</i></a>, <a href="http://www.nereview.com/" target="_blank"><i>New England Review</i></a>, and <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/55859/fresco" target="_blank"><i>Poetry</i></a>. Co-founder of <a href="http://lightboxpoetry.com/" target="_blank">Lightbox Poetry</a>, an online educational resource for creative writing, and a book reviews editor for <i>Kenyon Review</i>, he is currently a Stegner Fellow in poetry at Stanford University.<br /><br /><br />MIRROR <br /><br />You’d expect a certain view from such a mirror—<br />clearer<br />than one that hangs in the entry and decays.<br />I gaze<br />past my reflection toward other things:<br />bat wings,<br />burnt gold upon blue, which decorate the wall<br />and all<br />those objects collected from travels, now seen<br />between<br />its great, gold frame, diminished with age:<br />a stage<br />where, still, the supernatural corps de ballet<br />displays<br />its masquerade in the reflected light.<br />At night,<br />I thought I’d see the faces of the dead.<br />Instead,<br />the faces of the ghosted silver sea<br />saw me.<br /><br /><br /><i><b>When was this poem composed? How did it start? </b></i><br /><br />I wrote “Mirror” on August 6, 2010. I had just spent time at <a href="http://www.sviastonington.org/james-merrill-house" target="_blank">The James Merrill House</a> in Stonington, Connecticut, and that gorgeous, ghostly apartment inspired the poem. The gold-framed mirror—too ornate, too large for the parlor—is a focal point of the residence. You catch yourself in it every time you cross the room to the study. I was twenty-three years old and obsessed with <a href="https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/james-merrill" target="_blank">James Merrill</a>; he had been the subject of my undergraduate thesis. The mirror features prominently in Merrill’s poetry and serves as a portal, in a sense, to the spirit world of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Changing-Light-at-Sandover/dp/0307263215" target="_blank"><i>The Changing Light at Sandover</i></a>. The ghosts, I imagined, were watching us through the mirror, and I wanted to write about that. I felt so much energy after that stay in Stonington, I wrote three poems that same week: “First Night in Stonington,” “Illustration from Parsifal,” and “Mirror.” These poems are the earliest poems I wrote that appear in my first collection, <i>Second Empire.</i><br /><br /><i><b>How many revisions did this poem undergo? How much time elapsed between the first and final drafts? </b></i><br /><br />Unlike so many poems, this poem’s first draft was, essentially, also its final draft. I did switch back and forth between having the poem appear as a singular block of text and to separate the rhyming units into couplets. I struck “much” from the second line. And I replaced “I imagined seeing faces of the dead” with “I thought I’d see the faces of the dead” for a more elegant meter. <br /><br /><b><i>Do you believe in inspiration? How much of this poem was “received” and how much was the result of sweat and tears?</i></b> <br /><br />I absolutely do. I feel like we’re in constant collaboration with the world around us (literary, artistic, and otherwise)—and that our poems have minds of their own and co-write themselves. I think, in a sense, it’s what “Mirror” is about. I would have to say the entirety of the poem was received.<br /><i><b><br />How did this poem arrive at its final form? Did you consciously employ any principles of technique?</b></i><br /><br />I’d read <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/randall-mann" target="_blank">Randall Mann’s</a> poem, “<a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/53498/straight-razor" target="_blank">Straight Razor,</a>” a few months before writing this poem (in <i>Poetry Magazine</i>). It’s a sexy, scary poem, and so brilliant and original in its deployment of rhyming couplets with these uneven meters (alternating tetrameter/pentameter lines with lines with a single beat). The proximity of those rhymes is so tantalizing in the poem. I’d had the form of the poem in my head since I read it (I don’t remember, but he might have read it, too, on the Poetry podcast, which I listened to every month in those days…) and I knew I wanted to try my hand at that form. I love rhymes, and these quick, deceptive, surprising rhymes felt so much to me like the experience of catching oneself in the mirror of another life.<br /><br /><i><b>Was there anything unusual about the way in which you wrote this poem?</b></i><br /><br />Only the speed with which it emerged. I would struggle to write this poem today, because I don’t have the same energy. I also trust myself less than I did when I was young and just starting to write poems.<br /><i><b><br />How long after you finished this poem did it first appear in print? </b></i><br /><br />It was published in January 2013 in <i>The New Criterion</i>.<br /><br /><i><b>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?</b></i> <br /><br />I sent this poem out fairly quickly, because it had been finished quickly and had no significant revisions. According to my records, I sent it to twenty-two magazines before <a href="http://davidyezzi.com/davidyezzi.com/home.html" target="_blank">David Yezzi </a>accepted it for <i>TNC</i>. My practice varies with each poem, in terms of when it’s ready to send out—you just <i>know,</i> I think. And I’m fairly liberal with publishing in magazines, knowing that (for me) many more poems will be published in magazines than will be collected in a current book project.<br /><br /><i><b>Could you talk about fact and fiction and how this poem negotiates the two? </b></i><br /><br />The poem is about imagination and performance and how real-world objects (fact?) reflect and create connections with other worlds (fiction?). <br /><br /><i><b>Is this a narrative poem?</b></i><br /><br />I would say “Mirror” is not a narrative poem, but I know that’s a difficult and slippery term with many meanings and associations. I wouldn’t say many of my poems are narrative poems. Often, I feel like I’m striving in poems to achieve a transformation within a stillness or a silence. To enact the sensuousness of nothing happening.<br /><br /><i><b>Do you remember who you were reading when you wrote this poem? Any influences you’d care to disclose? </b></i><br /><br />Merrill and Mann, of course, as I stated already. <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/rachel-hadas" target="_blank">Rachel Hadas</a>, too, and <a href="http://joriegraham.com/" target="_blank">Jorie Graham</a> and <a href="http://henricole.com/" target="_blank">Henri Cole</a> and <a href="https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/eavan-boland" target="_blank">Eavan Boland</a> and <a href="https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/j-d-mcclatchy" target="_blank">J. D. McClatchy</a> and <a href="https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/natasha-trethewey" target="_blank">Natasha Trethewey</a>. I hadn’t yet read <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/gjertrud-schnackenberg" target="_blank">Gjertrud Schnackenberg</a>’s poems. That summer, I was discovering <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/c-p-cavafy" target="_blank">Cavafy</a>, who has a poem called, <a href="http://www.cavafy.com/poems/content.asp?id=110&cat=1" target="_blank">“Mirror in the Front Hall,”</a> which I love and which I think of as a great grandfather to this poem. <br /><br /><i><b>Do you have any particular audience in mind when you write, an ideal reader? </b></i><br /><br />My teachers, living and dead. I would love to write a poem someday that the poets I love might admire or enjoy.<br /><br /><i><b>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?</b></i><br /><br />I’m certain I showed the poem to <a href="http://emilyleithauser.com/" target="_blank">Emily Leithauser</a>, one of my closest friends and a favorite writer and reader of poems.<br /><br /><i><b>How does this poem differ from other poems of yours? </b></i><br /><br />It’s much more guided by its structure and by the meaning of its structure than other poems of mine. I love to rhyme, and I often find rhyming is a way of collaborating with the English language when I write a poem, relinquishing some responsibility for writing the poem to the poem itself. But I don’t think I’ll write a poem in this specific form, with alternating rhythms line to line, ever again.<br /><br /><i><b>What is American about this poem? </b></i><br /><br />I struggle with this question. I am American and the locale the poem describes is American. Maybe the way the poem struggles with one’s place in history, with one’s relationship with the self and with the past reflects an American problem of identity and tradition? I don’t know.<br /><br /><i><b>Was this poem finished or abandoned?</b></i> <br /><br />Finished.<br /><br />Brian Brodeurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18306752905070477332noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4112204366956454376.post-57127074376377021982017-09-08T12:14:00.005-04:002017-09-08T12:16:23.432-04:00LaWanda Walters <style>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtk0g3-3-XefN4QNDOlYBxDV5UyOrK041ueFXgphsg4Z7bd8-81ceo9Sf7-vhiE4BTyhZS81C7cvTWrk8cQiNN0PUn3zPMA8dewPJl5VpIcYEjj5iYQGVbCRiZa9rQdCU5-fA9Gcx9eDmm/s1600/walters.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1297" data-original-width="1600" height="259" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtk0g3-3-XefN4QNDOlYBxDV5UyOrK041ueFXgphsg4Z7bd8-81ceo9Sf7-vhiE4BTyhZS81C7cvTWrk8cQiNN0PUn3zPMA8dewPJl5VpIcYEjj5iYQGVbCRiZa9rQdCU5-fA9Gcx9eDmm/s320/walters.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span lang="DE-AT" style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">LaWanda Walters earned her M.F.A. from Indiana
University, where she won the <a href="https://www.poets.org/" target="_blank">Academy of American Poets</a> Prize. Her first book
of poems, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Light-Odalisque-LaWanda-Walters/dp/1941209394" target="_blank"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Light Is the Odalisque</i>,</a> was
published in 2016 by Press 53 in its Silver Concho Poetry Series. Her</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> poems have appeared in <a href="http://review.antiochcollege.org/antioch-review-home" target="_blank"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Antioch Review</i></a>, <a href="https://www.cincinnatireview.com/" target="_blank"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Cincinnati Review</i></a>, <a href="https://thegeorgiareview.com/" target="_blank"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Georgia Review</i></a>,</span><span lang="DE-AT" style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> <a href="https://www.pshares.org/" target="_blank"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ploughshares</i></a>, </span><a href="http://shenandoahliterary.org/" target="_blank"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Shenandoah</span></i></a><span lang="DE-AT" style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">, and several
anthologies, including <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Obsession-Twenty-First-Carolyn-Beard-Whitlow/dp/161168529X" target="_blank"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Obsession:Sestinas in the Twenty-First Century</i></a></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> and </span><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Best-American-Poetry-2015/dp/1476708207" target="_blank"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="DE-AT" style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Best American Poetry 2015</span></i></a><span lang="DE-AT" style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">.
lives in Cincinnati with her husband, poet <a href="http://howapoemhappens.blogspot.com/2011/12/john-drury.html" target="_blank">John Philip Drury</a>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">HOW A POEM CAN STAUNCH A WOUND</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Writing
it, finding some music or metaphor</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">which, on
its own, takes surprisingly off—</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">the
concept distracting like a balsa-wood frame</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">that can
lift from the earth for a while, glide through</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">insect
territory, blue-green wings netted like tutus,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">the
tremulous fireflies’ lemony bulbs, wavering,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">near-sighted
in the arbitrary, tall, dangerous air</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">which also
carries a radio-control tower’s terrifying</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">signals,
the sand in the eye, the body preoccupied</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">by flight,
the dark speed outside an oval window,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">the
passengers’ comfort, pillows for their necks</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">and the
necessary, whistling air pressure—</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I can
feel, sometimes, elated.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">But for a
time the old master, Walt Whitman,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">did the
impossible, walked on the ground,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">muddy, in
Washington, let go, completely,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">his
tissue-paper poems. His mind got soaked </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">with the
bright blood on the grass everywhere, </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">too many
for the hospital so they set up tents,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">a young
soldier’s face turned away not to look</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">at the
stump, the free-spirited poet with his sleeves</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">rolled up
to swab out the “offensive” matter. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Those
young men who’d fallen as oddly as Icarus—</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">they
sometimes kissed his bearded lips</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">and called
him, gratefully, “Mother.”</span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">When was this poem composed? How did it start? </span></i></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I wrote and typed up the first draft on November 2, 2008. </span></div>
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<i><b><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">How many revisions did this poem undergo? How much time
elapsed between the first and final drafts? </span></b></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The final draft is dated December 12, 2012, so it took a
little over four years for the poem to settle into its ultimate form.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<i><b><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Do you believe in inspiration? How much of this poem was
“received” and how much was the result of sweat and tears? </span></b></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I definitely believe in inspiration. Inspiration is an idea,
like a musical idea, like a physicist’s idea. There has to be some kind of
context—noticing something and then making connections that seem fascinating, and
wanting to express what that connection is. Inspiration has to come from
involvement—from thinking or practicing or writing or being in the practice of
writing.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I think that inspiration, in the case of this poem, was in
thinking of the toy plane’s success in leaving the ground—how it was a device
that could somehow “trick” gravity, and therefore fly for a while. I think I
was feeling in some kind of emotional pain at the time, and playing with my
children distracted me from my pain in the same way that the balsa wood could “distract” gravity—sneak on up into the air while the
magnetic earth was looking elsewhere. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I knew I was writing a kind of “<a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/learn/glossary-terms/ars-poetica" target="_blank">ars poetica</a>,” but during
that temporary flight of my imagining I knew, too, the emptiness of the device.
It got me up in the air a bit, but then I wasn’t sure that it mattered. I had
been tooling along on my little device that “distracted” me from gravity but I
was running out of aero-dynamic time. I was up in the “high, dangerous” air and
was about to crash.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">But there were clues about where I was going even before I
knew it. My husband, John Drury, is a great source of stories about poets as
well as knowledge of poetry, and he had told me, at some point, about this time
in <a href="https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/walt-whitman" target="_blank">Walt Whitman’s</a> life when he was a nurse to wounded soldiers in Washington,
D.C. I had been struck by the man’s wholehearted generosity, how this poet who wrote
in sweeping lines and might be thought of as simply a brilliant romantic could
be so courageous and humane, able to handle the gory, “offensive matter”
without being repulsed, in his desire to help another human being.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I don’t know if Whitman was in my conscious mind at the
beginning of my writing. But my memory of the story John had told me about
Whitman being able to hold men and care for them in such difficult
circumstances—that his soaring voice and spirit included the fact of death as
much as it did life—well, Whitman saved this poem from its own suicide.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I wasn’t sure if my poem mattered and didn’t know where it
was going until I thought of Whitman, there on the bloody earth, swabbing the
stumps of injured men and bandaging them, the young men who had fallen as
“oddly as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icarus" target="_blank">Icarus</a>.” That idea reminded me of the sweet and shocking fact that
more than one dying soldier kissed Whitman’s lips and called him “Mother.” The
father, Daedalus, had built the dangerous design. The connection between a
falling boy and Whitman as “mother” was like finding the form that made the
poem work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<i><b><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">How did this poem arrive at its final form? Did you
consciously employ any principles of technique?</span></b></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">In the first draft, the opening stanza ended with “and the
necessary, whistling air pressure—” Then it simply jumped into the second
stanza’s “but for a time the old master, Walt Whitman.” It wasn’t until nearly
a year later, on October 31, 2009, that I inserted a line after that dash (“I
can feel, sometimes, elated”) and made the opening stanza one complete
sentence, with the flight of imagery and associations happening between the dashes,
parenthetically, and then leveling out to a feeling of elation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<i><b><span style="font-family: "times-roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Was there
anything unusual about the way in which you wrote this poem?</span></b></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Maybe the dangerous <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/learn/glossary-terms/volta" target="_blank"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">volta</i></a>, which almost breaks the poem in
half but actually makes the poem work. First there’s the aria about suspending
oneself from one’s disbelief, and then I find my real focus: air and earth, ego
and truth, a necessary struggle. </span></div>
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<i><b><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">How long after you finished this poem did it first appear in
print? </span></b></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Roughly seven and a half years. It never appeared in a
magazine, so its first publication was in my book, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Light Is the Odalisque</i>. </span></div>
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<i><b><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">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? </span></b></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I don’t have any rules, except that I know that my first
blush of happiness after I have written what I know is a poem can be
misleading—that I cannot just send the poem out that raw. Fortunately, I have
my in-house editor, John Drury, so he is usually the first person to touch the
poem while it is a little too hot and euphoric. So I guess I do know that there
must be a cooling-off period, and that I can be wiser about what works after a
few hours or days.</span></div>
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<i><b><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Could you talk about fact and fiction and how this poem
negotiates the two? </span></b></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">My poems are always rooted in an experience which includes
both some immediate fact and my feeling about the fact. In this case, I was playing
with one of those old toys—the kit that includes the pattern for a plane’s
wings and body—with my kids, outside in the grass at dusk when there were
fireflies around, and I was thinking how amazing it was that the toy plane
worked, and worked, really, like the ones we fly in. The fiction in this poem
is in the little aria of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>following the
toy plane through the “leaves of grass” and the world of insects that sing at
night or glow, as fireflies do, and in my linking this “flight” to the flights
of planes, to all the things that are present in the air. I think it’s amazing
that it’s all the same substance—the air through which a toy plane flies and
the air through which a Boeing airplane travels. Toy planes traverse the
territory of the adult world, and that playing is not separate from reality, since
there’s danger everywhere.</span></div>
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<i><b><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Is this a narrative poem?</span></b></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I’d call it a meditative poem that includes some narrative
about Walt Whitman’s experience as a nurse during the Civil War.</span></div>
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<i><b><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Do you remember who you were reading when you wrote this
poem? Any influences you’d care to disclose? </span></b></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I was thinking about “music or metaphor,” so I was certainly
influenced by <a href="http://www.jsbach.org/" target="_blank">Bach,</a> <a href="https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/wallace-stevens" target="_blank">Wallace Stevens</a>, <a href="https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/elizabeth-bishop" target="_blank">Elizabeth Bishop</a>, and what the painter
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Matisse" target="_blank">Henri Matisse</a> calls “essential lines.” Writing the poem revealed how much
Whitman himself was influencing my imaginative flight.</span></div>
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<i><b><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Do you have any particular audience in mind when you write,
an ideal reader? </span></b></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I write for people who, like myself, find both order and
honesty in poems in this chaotic world.</span></div>
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<i><b><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">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?</span></b></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">As I mentioned, my husband John is my in-house editor. And
I’m his first critic, as well.</span></div>
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<i><b><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">How does this poem differ from other poems of yours? </span></b></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I’m not sure it does. It finds images and the ways they
connect in order to explore the mystery of being in this reality we do not
really know. I really like Yeats’s statement that “Man can embody truth but he cannot
know it.”</span></div>
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<i><b><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">What is American about this poem? </span></b></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I guess I get to say Walt Whitman here.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><i><b>Was this poem finished or abandoned?</b></i> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Thanks to Whitman as my
muse, it found its ending.</span></div>
Brian Brodeurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18306752905070477332noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4112204366956454376.post-7888371131080124752017-02-24T09:40:00.003-05:002017-02-24T09:40:20.759-05:00Ellery Akers<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpBnb-yronGGGK3PylS_F5uqid4y0ox6bJ-FHmY8Q2NFXd62IiYTX7rU_8weUyFnSnakeZ0AUw8qVMrgQrQy3vptbJWV7985StPZPEmbY6QS3a4xdlV54lsP6VtIfw6uLCD8C8ABvNcSN9/s1600/ellery.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpBnb-yronGGGK3PylS_F5uqid4y0ox6bJ-FHmY8Q2NFXd62IiYTX7rU_8weUyFnSnakeZ0AUw8qVMrgQrQy3vptbJWV7985StPZPEmbY6QS3a4xdlV54lsP6VtIfw6uLCD8C8ABvNcSN9/s200/ellery.jpg" width="143" /></a></div>
Ellery Akers’s collection, <a href="http://www.autumnhouse.org/product/practicing-the-truth-ellery-akers/" target="_blank"><i>Practicing the Truth</i></a>, won the 2014 Autumn House Poetry Prize, the 2015 IPPY Silver Medal Award for Poetry, and the 2015 San Francisco Book Festival Award. Her previous collection, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Knocking-Earth-Wesleyan-New-Poets/dp/0819511625" target="_blank"><i>Knocking on the Earth</i></a>, was named a Best Book of the Year by the San Jose Mercury News. She is also the author of a children’s novel, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Sarahs-Waterfall-Healing-Story-Sexual/dp/1884444792/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1487946309&sr=1-1&keywords=sarah%27s+waterfall" target="_blank"><i>Sarah’s Waterfall</i></a>. She has taught writing at Cabrillo College and at conferences and currently teaches private poetry workshops in Marin County, California. An award-winning visual artist as well, Akers exhibits her paintings and drawings in galleries and museums nationally. <br /><br /><br />
<br />
HOOK <br /><br />One year a general<br />packs the dead arithmetic in a drawer—<br />all the subtractions, divisions.<br />The next year, vines cover the bunkers.<br />The brain resumes its starbursts of rehearsal.<br />The heart leaps under the defibrillator.<br />The bone eases into its socket.<br />Skin grows back. Scars fade. Eyes clear.<br />Look at the trees at the burn, six years later.<br />Look at the sprout on a hay bale<br />on a truck. Look at the woman who was raped,<br />had her hands cut off in a creek:<br />She’s getting married.<br />The choir sings. The bride smiles.<br />The groom slips a ring on her hook.<br /><br /><br /><i><b>When was this poem composed? How did it start? </b></i><br /><br />This was a 9/11 poem. I wrote it in September of 2001, after hiking in an area in the Marin hills that had been burnt in a fire. I’d been thinking about war, and noticed that the hills, which had been scorched and black, had turned green again, and that made me feel more hopeful about healing, regeneration, and the possibility of peace. Other elements entered into the poem; I noticed a green shoot growing out of a hay bale. I read several magazine articles, one about 9/11 medical crews, and one about the wedding of <a href="http://people.com/archive/a-victims-life-sentence-vol-29-no-16/" target="_blank">Mary Vincent</a>, the woman I refer to in the poem. <br /><br /><i><b>How many revisions did this poem undergo? How much time elapsed between the first and final drafts? </b></i><br /><br />About eight revisions. I brought it to my writing group four times, and after six months, I felt it was finished. This version was called “ Healing” and had two lines that mentioned healing. I sent it out, but no one accepted it, and I put it a drawer for ten years. In 2011, I took it out again, realized that explicitness was not serving the poem, cut the lines about healing, and sent it to <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/detail/55491" target="_blank"><i>Poetry</i></a>, who took it. <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poets/detail/christian-wiman" target="_blank">Christian Wiman</a>, the editor at the time, wisely suggested changing the title to Hook, and I agreed. I’d been attached to the idea of healing—that some things can be healed, while others can never be healed and can only be mourned—but the word itself was not serving the poem. <br /><br /><i><b>Do you believe in inspiration? How much of this poem was “received” and how much was the result of sweat and tears?</b></i><br /><br />If inspiration means taking dictation from the muse, and ending up with a perfect draft, then I don’t believe in inspiration. I believe in quantity. This poem was a result of forty two pages of free-writes. I looked them over and circled the good lines and stuck them together. I usually get about 1 out of forty pages of junky free-writes that has energy, or sometimes, just a couple of lines. I feel my job is to fail, and to enjoy failing, and pile up masses of material. I see it all as play. I like to trick myself with the same exercises I give my students; I find the concept of “exercises” is a freeing one for me that liberates me from trying to write well. I often “mistranslate” from the Swedish, or put ten strong verbs on the top of my page and try to include them in the poem. In this case the verbs “pack” and “slip” made it into the final draft. <br /><br />However, I did I experience inspiration once: I wrote a long poem that was “given” and had a hard time writing fast enough to keep up with the outpouring. But again, that was after writing thirty pages of junk: the gift happened on page thirty one. I’m also a visual artist, and have the same low average in painting. My hunch is this is fairly normal. I love what <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poets/detail/eavan-boland" target="_blank">Eavan Boland</a> says: “ I always think of myself as working on a rock face. Ninety days out of ninety-five, it’s just a rock face. The other five days, there’s a bit of silver, a bit of base metal…. Unless you have a failure rate that vastly exceeds your success rate, you’re not really in touch with what you’re doing as a poet.”<br /><br /><i><b>How did this poem arrive at its final form? Did you consciously employ any principles of technique?</b></i> <br /><br />I tried to get the creek, truck and hook slant rhymes close together in the poem. And I had a hard time with the beginning. Nothing worked until I leafed through my old notebooks—I never throw anything away—and found an old free-write on healing that had never coalesced into a poem, but had some good lines. I inserted them into "Hook" and was able to make the beginning work. <br /><br /><i><b>Was there anything unusual about how you wrote this poem?</b></i><br /><br />I don’t often use old material in a new poem. <br /><br /><i><b>How long after you finished this poem did it first appear in print? </b></i><br /><br />About five months.<br /><br /><i><b>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. </b></i><br /><br />It varies, though I never send anything out without my writing group looking at it. Sometimes a poem, like this one, will sit in a drawer for years before I’m able to look at it with a cold eye. Sometimes I’ll send it out within a few months. <br /><br /><i><b>Could you talk about fact and fiction and how this poem negotiates between the two? </b></i><br /><br />Except for the first four lines, almost everything else is factual, though I imagined myself into the wedding scene and added a few fictional details. <br /><br /><i><b>Is this a narrative poem?</b></i><br /><br />Yes.<br /><br /><i><b>Do you remember who you were reading when you wrote this poem? Any influences you’d care to disclose?</b></i><br /><br />I was reading a lot of classical Chinese poems about war, as well as Muriel Rukeyser’s <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/47657" target="_blank">“ I lived in the first century of world wars,”</a> Blas de Otero’s poem, "Fidelity," and magazine articles about 9/11 and Mary Vincent. <br /><br /><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poets/detail/william-e-stafford" target="_blank">William Stafford </a>had a big influence on me—I was lucky enough to work with him briefly—especially when he said, “Inspiration doesn’t lead to writing, writing leads to inspiration” and “lower your standards.” I love his books about writing, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/0472873008/?tag=mh0b-20&hvadid=3482133251&hvqmt=e&hvbmt=be&hvdev=c&ref=pd_sl_8bzqtp39fg_e" target="_blank"><i>Writing the Australian Crawl</i></a>, and <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Getting-Knack-Poetry-Writing-Exercises/dp/0814118488/ref=sr_1_6?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1487947120&sr=1-6" target="_blank"><i>Getting the Knack</i></a>.<br /><br /><i><b>Do you have any particular audience in mind when you write, an ideal reader?</b></i> <br /><br />I don’t write with anyone in mind. However, I like to feel my poems are accessible enough that anyone could understand them. I’d be pleased if someone who didn’t ordinarily read poetry chanced on a poem of mine and enjoyed it. <br /><br /><i><b>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? </b></i><br /><br />Yes, my writing group of forty years. I’m grateful to these wonderful writers, and if they tell me to cut something, I take it out. Sometimes, though, I have to add something to make a poem work and then I read Stafford again, who says, “You have to learn to say welcome.” He made me realize that well of creativity never runs dry; one can always get more. <br /><br /><i><b>How does this poem differ from other poems of yours? </b></i><br /><br />I write a lot of poems about war or climate change, subjects I care passionately about, but often they’re too high-pitched to work as poems. <br /><br /><i><b>What is American about this poem?</b></i><br /><br />It was inspired by 9/11, by an American wildfire, and by Mary Vincent, an American hero of mine.<br /><br /><i><b>Was this poem finished or abandoned?</b></i><br /><br />Finished. Brian Brodeurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18306752905070477332noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4112204366956454376.post-48348130391141265702016-12-31T10:18:00.002-05:002016-12-31T10:19:00.620-05:00Brian Patrick Heston<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Brian Patrick Heston grew up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His poems have won awards from the <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/foundation/prizes_fellowship" target="_blank">Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Foundation</a>, the <a href="http://www.torhouse.org/prize2014.htm" target="_blank">Robinson Jeffers Tor House Foundation</a>, the Lanier Library Association, and <a href="http://www.riverstyx.org/" target="_blank"><i>River Styx</i></a>. His first book, <a href="https://mainstreetragbookstore.com/?product=if-you-find-yourself" target="_blank"><i>If You Find Yourself</i></a>, won the Main Street Rag Poetry Book Award. He is also the author of the chapbook <i>Latchkey Kids</i>, which is available from <a href="https://www.finishinglinepress.com/" target="_blank">Finishing Line Press</a>. His poetry and fiction has appeared in such publications as <a href="http://www.bucknell.edu/west-branch-wired/print-magazine.html" target="_blank"><i>West Branch</i></a>, <a href="http://northamericanreview.org/" target="_blank"><i>North American Review</i></a>, <i><a href="http://harpurpalate.binghamton.edu/" target="_blank">Harpur Palate</a></i>, <a href="http://www.srpr.org/" target="_blank"><i>Spoon River Poetry Review</i></a>, <a href="https://poetlore.com/" target="_blank"><i>Poet Lore</i></a>, and <a href="http://prairieschooner.unl.edu/" target="_blank"><i>Prairie Schooner.</i></a> Presently, he is a PhD candidate in Literature and Creative Writing at Georgia State University.<br />
<br />
OVERTIME<br />
<br />
Gulls circle the Delaware, a fractured <br />
creeping glacier since February. <br />
Last week, beneath this illusion of land, <br />
that boy was found lodged in water weeds, <br />
the one who disappeared from his cold<br />
crowded schoolyard pen in West Philly. <br />
A cataract moon shimmered him just enough <br />
to be glimpsed by some dock worker <br />
drunk with exhaustion after a double shift. <br />
The worker called 911 to report what <br />
he thought it was, but couldn’t be sure <br />
of what he saw. The dispatcher asked him <br />
to look again and describe it, but he said, “no.” <br />
A car was promised anyway, and the worker <br />
waited a ways off, shoving his chin <br />
into his coat collar to protect against the chill. <br />
But there was nothing to protect against <br />
that silence where the dark place beckoned: <br />
You must see what you think you saw. <br />
So he returned to the river’s edge<br />
where his boot-prints led down a steep slope <br />
towards the shore. He stumbled carefully, <br />
aiming his heels for the luminous places. <br />
Then he stopped, and after trying not to see,<br />
prepared to open his shut eyes and be sure.]<br />
<br />
<br />
<b><i>When was this poem composed? How did it start?</i></b><br />
<br />
The poem was composed in 2014. It began as a scene that came to me in two lines “The gulls circle the Delaware’s dull mirror of ice. / Across that deadly illusion of land…” Both lines obviously went through some revision. Also part of the making of this poem has to do with my grandfather, who was a longshoreman along the Delaware for many years. He was retired by the time I became cognizant of what a longshoreman actually was. For this reason, I think I’ve always in some way mythologized that fact about him, especially since it’s become mostly a dying profession. I also once heard him at a barbecue talking about the bodies he would sometimes come across in the water. At the time, I thought he was just kidding everyone, which he often did when drinking. When I got older, though, I realized he probably was being serious. He worked on the Delaware River for over fifty years, so the odds of running into a body once or twice are probably very good. <br />
<br />
<b><i>How many revisions did this poem undergo? How much time elapsed between the first and final drafts? </i></b><br />
<br />
Not many, which surprises me. I think three at the most. It started out with a different title and a more open form, which is the case with most of my poems. However, it seemed to take its true form very quickly, and the title became fairly obvious to me after someone telling me the original title was confusing. The biggest bit of revision came with the final line. At the time when it was being written, I was taking a workshop at Georgia State with <a href="http://howapoemhappens.blogspot.com/2010/03/leon-stokesbury.html" target="_blank">Leon Stokesbury</a>. He basically suggested some tweaking of the poem, especially the last line, which helped it arrive at its final form. <br />
<br />
<b><i>Do you believe in inspiration? How much of this poem was “received” and how much was the result of sweat and tears?</i></b> <br />
<br />
I only believe in inspired ideas. The actual writing down of an idea into a poem is something else entirely. Most of my poems and stories come through sweat and tears. I work, many times, for months and months on things. This poem is very much an outlier in that regard. It came out mostly fully formed in the first draft and became what it is now by a second. The third draft, which was mostly tweaking, became the final draft. So I guess you can say it was inspired. However, I think what is more the case is that I was trying for a long time to write about my grandfather working on the Delaware River. Words and lines had been percolating in my mind for a long time, and 2014 just happened to be the year that it came together. <br />
<br />
<i><b>How did this poem arrive at its final form? Did you consciously employ any principles of technique?</b></i><br />
<br />
As I said, it began in a more open form, which is the way with most of my poems. What is also true of most of my poems, is that I always seem to gravitate toward a more consistent and uniform line. Many times I like a longer line closer to a prose sentence, which sounds much clearer to my ear. However, more open forms don’t tend to suit me. Seeing lines of varying lengths and breadths running down a page messes with my inner-obsessive compulsive too much. In this poem, meter is a little more pronounced, I think, and the line tends to remain closer to five beats. None of this, though, was consciously attempted. All I was really thinking about while writing it is making the situation dramatic and giving the language some music.<br />
<br />
<b><i>Was there anything unusual about the way in which you wrote this poem?</i></b><br />
<br />
Nothing unusual, I don’t think. I usually write first drafts in a notebook, and then I type that draft on a computer. I then print the draft out and mark it up on paper. This process will be repeated until I feel the poem is ready. <br />
<br />
<i><b>How long after you finished this poem did it first appear in print? </b></i><br />
<br />
It ended up in print faster, I think, than any poem I ever wrote. I started submitting it in April 2014 and it ended up finishing second for the <i>River Styx</i> International Poetry Prize. It appears in the January 2015 issue. <br />
<br />
<b><i>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? </i></b><br />
<br />
I don’t have any hard and fast rules on this, though I should. It all depends on the poem and its progress. If I really like something, I may send it off earlier than I should. Usually, though, I go through a bunch of revisions, which keeps the poem sitting for a few months before I feel ready to release into the wild.<br />
<br />
<b><i>Could you talk about fact and fiction and how this poem negotiates the two? </i></b><br />
<br />
I have very strong feelings about the notion of “fact” in poetry. I feel the beauty of poetry, or any art for that matter, is the ability to invent dramatic situations of either language or narrative. Now, the facts, if there are any, would be that my grandfather was a longshoreman and that he talked once about seeing dead bodies in the river. However, the poem itself is pure invention. I am not, obviously, a longshoreman, and I was very young when my grandfather actually worked on the river. I have visited the Delaware waterfront many times, but never the industrialized waterfront that my grandfather would have known. The poem is a fiction, and I proudly own that designation because I believe it allowed me to get much closer to emotional truth than if I had tried to stick to only real-life personages and events that actually happened. <br />
<br />
<b><i>Is this a narrative poem?</i></b><br />
<br />
Yes, without a doubt. It has a main character. It has a dramatic situation in which a character wants something. The character takes action to achieve this want, which then changes him psychologically. <br />
<br />
<b><i>Do you remember who you were reading when you wrote this poem? Any influences you’d care to disclose?</i></b><br />
<br />
I am always reading something. Though, I can’t recall who I was specifically reading when I wrote the poem. <a href="http://howapoemhappens.blogspot.com/2009/04/philip-levine.html" target="_blank">Philip Levine</a> and <a href="https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/elizabeth-bishop" target="_blank">Elizabeth Bishop</a> are always at work somewhere in my subconscious that’s for sure, as are <a href="https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/etheridge-knight" target="_blank">Etheridge Knight</a>,<a href="https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/jack-gilbert" target="_blank"> Jack Gilbert</a>, and <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poets/detail/raymond-carver" target="_blank">Raymond Carver.</a> <br />
<br />
<b><i>Do you have any particular audience in mind when you write, an ideal reader? </i></b><br />
<br />
I think people like those who I grew up with and people in my family. People who would be considered blue-collar workers. I know it’s probably a little idealistic to think people who don’t normally read poetry would be interested in my poetry, but those are the voices that inhabit me and probably will inhabit me until the poetry gods decide that I've said enough. <br />
<br />
<b><i>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></b><br />
<br />
My workshop at Georgia State saw this poem and were helpful as was Leon Stokesbury, the teacher of the workshop. My best reader, though, is <a href="http://brianbrodeur.wixsite.com/poetry" target="_blank">Brian Brodeur</a>, who I have shared drafts with for years. He’s pretty good with poetry but not with much else. Oh, he’s also good with beards. He’s a master of the beard. <br />
<br />
<b><i>How does this poem differ from other poems of yours? </i></b><br />
<br />
I don’t think it does differ. It tells a very definite story, which most of my poems do. It also has a certain formalism, which is also usually true of most of my poems. <br />
<br />
<b><i>What is American about this poem? </i></b><br />
<br />
The rhythms of the language, the dramatic situation, and the landscape depicted. I think only an American working-class culture could produce such a poem.<br />
<br />
<b><i>Was this poem finished or abandoned? </i></b><br />
<br />
Finished, I would say. So many others, though, are hopelessly abandoned.Brian Brodeurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18306752905070477332noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4112204366956454376.post-193508912859756532016-06-14T14:45:00.002-04:002016-06-14T14:45:45.955-04:00Daniel Groves
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poets/detail/daniel-groves" target="_blank">DanielGroves</a> is the author of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Lost-Boys-Poems-Poetry-Ser/dp/0820336793?ie=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0" target="_blank"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Lost Boys</i></a>
(University of Georgia Press/VQR Poetry Series,</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> 2010).
His poems have appeared in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://www.theparisreview.org/" target="_blank">Paris Review,</a>
<a href="http://yalereview.yale.edu/" target="_blank">Yale Review,</a> <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine" target="_blank">Poetry</a></i>, and elsewhere.</span>
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A DOG’S LIFE <i><br /><br />A stay of execution: one last day, <br />your day, old Everydog, then, as they say, <br />or as we say (a new trick to avoid <br />finalities implicit in destroyed), <br />you have to be put down, or put to sleep— <br />the very dog who, once, would fight to keep <br />from putting down, despite our shouts, a shoe <br />until he gnawed it to the sole, and who <br />would sit up, through our sleepless nights, to bark <br />away some menace looming in the dark. <br /><br />Can you pick up the sense of all this talk? <br />Or do you still just listen for a walk, <br />or else, the ultimate reward, a car?— <br />My God, tomorrow's ride . . . Well, here we are, <br />right now. You stare at me and wag your tail. <br />I stare back, dog-like, big and dumb. Words fail. <br />No more commands, ignore my monologue, <br />go wander off. Good dog. You're a good dog. <br />And you could never master, anyway, <br />the execution, as it were, of Stay<span style="color: black; font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"></span></i><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"></span>
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<i><b>When was this poem composed? How did it start? </b></i><br />
<br />
The first draft was composed in the spring of 2001 for a graduate school workshop. It started from my seeing or hearing the phrase "stay of execution" somewhere, and inverting it in the manner of <a href="https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/james-merrill" target="_blank">James Merrill</a>—his <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Collected-Poems-James-Merrill/dp/037570941X?ie=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0" target="_blank"><i>Collected Poems</i></a> had just been published and I was reading it at the time (the line "Change of clothes? The very clothes of change!," for example, appears in Merrill's poem "Dreams about Clothes"). <br />
<br /><i><b>How many revisions did this poem undergo? How much time elapsed between the first and final drafts? </b></i><br />
<br />It underwent two minor revisions—the first was a few months after it was drafted, and preceded its appearing in a <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/detail/41836" target="_blank">journal</a>; the second was a few years after that, and preceded its appearing in a <a href="http://www.ugapress.org/index.php/books/lost_boys" target="_blank">book</a>.<br /><br />
<i><b>Do you believe in inspiration? How much of this poem was “received” and how much was the result of sweat and tears? </b></i><br /><br />
I believe in inspiration, insofar as I doubt my own capacity for originality (let alone my capacity for sweat and tears). I suspect this poem was almost entirely "received."<br />
<br />
<i><b>How did this poem arrive at its final form? Did you consciously employ any principles of technique?</b></i><br /><br />
Its final form is the same as that of the first draft, save for the break between stanzas. I don't remember choosing to write it in pentameter couplets for any special reason, but my being used to writing in them probably helped me to finish the first draft rather quickly. I consciously employed the <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/resources/learning/glossary-terms/detail/chiasmus" target="_blank">chiasmus </a>that occurs in the first and last lines; I started from the notion of placing "stay of execution" in the first line and "execution of stay" in the last line, and the first draft was an attempt at imagining a plausible context for those lines.<br /><br />
<i><b>Was there anything unusual about the way in which you wrote this poem?</b></i><br /><br />
The first draft of it was written unusually quickly.<br /><br />
<i><b>How long after you finished this poem did it first appear in print? </b></i><br /><br />
Just over two years.<br /><br />
<i><b>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? </b></i><br /><br />
The practice varies, but I prefer to let a draft sit for a month or two before revisiting it with an eye toward sending it off.<br /><br />
<i><b>Could you talk about fact and fiction and how this poem negotiates the two? </b></i><br /><br />
When I wrote the first draft our family dog whom I had grown up with was getting close to the end of his life, and that may have suggested to me the scene in the poem, once I had the phrase “execution of stay” in my head. But he wouldn’t be put to sleep for another year and a half ,and I wouldn’t be there when he was. Besides that, there is nothing about the dog described in the poem that particularly resembles our dog, even though I’m sure I must have imagined him while writing it.<br /><br />
<i><b>Is this a narrative poem?</b></i><br /><br />
Slightly narrative—it might be called a <a href="https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/text/dramatic-monologue-poetic-term" target="_blank">dramatic monologue</a>.<br /><br />
<i><b>Do you remember who you were reading when you wrote this poem? Any influences you’d care to disclose? </b></i><br /><br />
I was reading Merrill’s <i>Collected Poems</i>, as mentioned. Also, I think the chiasmic structure of the poem owes something to my having read <a href="https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/howard-nemerov" target="_blank">Howard Nemerov’s</a> essay “Bottom’s Dreams: The Likeness of Poems and Jokes.”<br /><br />
<i><b>Do you have any particular audience in mind when you write, an ideal reader? </b></i><br /><br />
I think of a former teacher of mine, <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poets/detail/greg-williamson" target="_blank">Greg Williamson</a>, as an ideal reader. But most often I imagine that I am my own—only?—audience.<br /><br />
<i><b>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?</b></i><br /><br />
The members of the workshop that it was written for saw the first draft of this poem. I may share work with a former teacher or classmate of mine once in a while, but not regularly.<br /><br />
<b><i>How does this poem differ from other poems of yours? </i></b><br /><br />
It differs in being a version of dramatic monologue; few if any of my other poems feature a speaker addressing another character within them. It also, in my experience, elicits a more sympathetic response than my other poems, though I think that in its procedures—in how it proceeds by wordplay—it is more like my other poems than unlike them.<br /><br />
<i><b>What is American about this poem? </b></i><br /><br />
The speaker’s attitude to his dog, and the dog-related idioms played with, seem American, maybe, if not exclusively so.<br /><br />
<i><b>Was this poem finished or abandoned? </b></i><br /><br />
Euthanized?<i><b><br /></b></i>Brian Brodeurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18306752905070477332noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4112204366956454376.post-3202265500834099142016-02-29T16:42:00.003-05:002016-02-29T16:44:25.781-05:00Sheryl St. Germain<style>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyMJH6vpNWXBCl0H67khfqTHpv4bwWRHaQNj7oQnwkiYxOnLLRcwQjEvBHYKgiwqFlNr139CkrQVQrFNljsQZrjb9VQfiH_g7eeyrZx7zJGqwN3A2c6wzM93CtUB9Qwjxy2fIB9APYzFAi/s1600/Sheryl+2013.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="310" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyMJH6vpNWXBCl0H67khfqTHpv4bwWRHaQNj7oQnwkiYxOnLLRcwQjEvBHYKgiwqFlNr139CkrQVQrFNljsQZrjb9VQfiH_g7eeyrZx7zJGqwN3A2c6wzM93CtUB9Qwjxy2fIB9APYzFAi/s320/Sheryl+2013.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<a href="http://sheryl-stgermain.com/" target="_blank">Sheryl St. Germain's</a> essays and poems have received several
awards, including two NEA Fellowships, an NEH Fellowship, the Dobie-Paisano
Fellowship, the Ki Davis Award from the Aspen Writers Foundation, and the
William Faulkner Award for the personal essay. Her poetry books include <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Going-Perivale-Poetry-Chapbooks-Number/dp/0912288299/ref=la_B001K8DJPY_1_9/190-6861812-4488702?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1456781176&sr=1-9" target="_blank">Going Home</a>, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/mask-Medusa-Women-writers-chapbook/dp/0893044334/ref=la_B001K8DJPY_1_6?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1456781213&sr=1-6" target="_blank">The Mask of Medusa</a>, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Making-Bread-Midnight-Sheryl-Germain/dp/094172087X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1456781256&sr=1-1&keywords=making+bread+at+midnight" target="_blank">Making Breadat Midnight</a>, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/How-Heavy-Breath-Texas-Poets/dp/0929398688/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1456781291&sr=1-1&keywords=how+heavy+the+breath+of+god" target="_blank">How Heavy the Breath of God</a>, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Journals-Scheherazade-Sheryl-St-Germain/dp/1574410105/ref=la_B001K8DJPY_1_8?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1456781347&sr=1-8" target="_blank">The Journals of Scheherazade</a></i>, and
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Let-Be-Dark-Roux-Selected/dp/1932870164/ref=la_B001K8DJPY_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1456781347&sr=1-2" target="_blank"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Let it Be a Dark Roux: New and SelectedPoems</i></a>. A native of New Orleans, she has also published one memoir and a
collection of essays about growing up in Louisiana, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Swamp-Songs-Sheryl-St-Germain/dp/0874807433/ref=la_B001K8DJPY_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1456781347&sr=1-4" target="_blank"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Swamp Songs: the Making of an Unruly Woman</i></a>, and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Navigating-Disaster-Sixteen-Essays-Despair/dp/0945083343/ref=la_B001K8DJPY_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1456781347&sr=1-3" target="_blank"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Navigating Disaster:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sixteen Essays of Love and a Poem of Despair</i></a>,
as well as a chapbook of translations of the Cajun poet Jean Arceneaux,<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Je-Suis-Cadien-Jean-Arceneaux/dp/0893042161/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8" target="_blank">Je Suis Cadien</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i>She
co-edited, with Margaret Whitford <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Between-Song-Story-Twenty-first-Century/dp/1932870504/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8" target="_blank">BetweenSong and Story: Essays for the Twenty-First Century</a>, </i>and most recently,
with Sarah Shotland, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Words-without-Walls-Addiction-Incarceration/dp/1595342559/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1456781535&sr=1-1&keywords=words+without+walls" target="_blank">Words WithoutWalls: Writers on Addiction, Violenceand Incarceration </a>(Trinity University Press, April 2015). She directs the
MFA program in Creative Writing at Chatham University.</div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">ADDICTION</span><span style="font-family: "times"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">—In
memory of my brother, Jay St. Germain, 1958-1981</span></i><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"> </span></div>
</blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">The truth
is I loved it,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">the whole
ritual of it,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">the way
he would fist up his arm, then</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">hold it
out so trusting and bare,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">the vein
pushed up all blue and throbbing</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">and
wanting to be pierced,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">his
opposite hand gripped tight as death</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">around
the upper arm, </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">the way I
would try to enter the vein,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">almost
parallel to the arm,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">push
lightly but firmly, not</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">too deep,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">you don't
want to go through</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">the vein,
just in,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">then pull
back until you see</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">blood,
then </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">hold the
needle very still, slowly</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">shoot him
with it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">Like that
I would enter him,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">slowly,
slowly, very still,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">don't
move,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">then he
would let the fist out,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">loosen
his grip on the upper arm—</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">and oh,
the movement of his lips</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">when he
asked that I open my arms.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">How
careful,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">how good
he was, sliding </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">the
needle silver and slender</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">so easily
into me, as though</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">my skin
and veins were made for it,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">and when
he had finished, pulled</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">it out, I
would be coming</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">in my
fingers, hands, my ear lobes</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">were
coming, heart, thighs,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">tongue,
eyes and brain were coming,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">thick and
brilliant as the last thin match</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">against a
homeless bitter cold. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">I even
loved the pin-sized bruises,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">I would
finger them alone in my room</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">like
marks of passion;</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">by the
time they turned yellow,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">my dreams
were full of needles. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">We both
took lovers who loved</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">this
entering and being entered,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">but when
he brought over the</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">pale-faced
girl so full of needle holes</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">he had to
lay her on her back</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">like a
corpse and stick the needle</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">over and
over in her ankle veins</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">to find
one that wasn't weary</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">of all
that joy, I became sick</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">with it,
but </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">you know,
it still stalks my dreams,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">and
deaths make no difference:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">there is
only the body's huge wanting. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">When I
think of my brother</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">all
spilled out on the floor</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">I say
nothing to anyone.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">I know
what it's like to want joy</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">at any
cost.</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<i><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">When was
this poem composed? How did it start? </span></b></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">The poem
was composed around 1987.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was in <a href="http://howapoemhappens.blogspot.com/2009/10/galway-kinnell.html" target="_blank">GalwayKinnell’s</a><a href="http://howapoemhappens.blogspot.com/2009/10/galway-kinnell.html" target="_blank"> </a>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He listened patiently to my question, then
said, “Just say what the truth is, Sheryl.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I began the poem that night with “The truth is I loved it.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><i><b>How many
revisions did this poem undergo? How much time elapsed between the first and
final drafts?</b></i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think I eliminated a few lines from the
beginning as well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s extremely
rare—in my writing practice—for a poem to come out almost fully formed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But this one did.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think that’s because I had been thinking
about the issues for so long.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<i><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">Do you
believe in inspiration? How much of this poem was “received” and how much was
the result of sweat and tears? </span></b></i></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">I do
believe in inspiration, and in this case the poem felt like a gift.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<i><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">How did
this poem arrive at its final form? Did you consciously employ any principles
of technique?</span></b></i></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">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. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<i><b><span style="font-family: "times"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Was there anything unusual about the way in which
you wrote this poem?</span></b></i></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">I wrote it, almost as if in a fever, during the
space of a few hours.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><i><b>How long
after you finished this poem did it first appear in print?</b></i> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">The poem
first appeared in 1990 in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Taos Review</i>.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<i><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">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? </span></b></i></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<i><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">Could you
talk about fact and fiction and how this poem negotiates the two? </span></b></i></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">My
younger brother and I did shoot up drugs—cocaine—while in the same room.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My lover at the time had actually sold him
the drugs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He did actually bring a young
woman with him who lay on my bed and
whose (workable) veins he had horrific trouble finding.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So that part is true.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">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.”</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<i><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">Is this a
narrative poem?</span></b></i></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">I would
call it a narrative lyric.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<i><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">Do you
remember who you were reading when you wrote this poem? Any influences you’d
care to disclose? </span></b></i></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">I was
reading Galway, <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/sharon-olds" target="_blank">Sharon Olds</a>, <a href="http://howapoemhappens.blogspot.com/2010/01/robert-hass.html" target="_blank">Robert Hass</a> and <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/brenda-hillman" target="_blank">Brenda Hillman</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was inspired by their bravery and
unflinching explorations of the human condition.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<i><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">Do you
have any particular audience in mind when you write, an ideal reader? </span></b></i></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I didn’t want to glorify drug use, but I
wanted to empathize, to say “I understand.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not to demonize addicts, who are our brothers and sisters, our sons and
daughters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I also wrote for readers in
recovery, who might find solace in a poem that traces that descent. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">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.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">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?</span></i></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">I shared
a draft with the poets in my workshop at Squaw Valley.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I do not, now, regularly share drafts with a
specific group of people, although I sometimes will share a draft with poet
friends.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<i><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">How does
this poem differ from other poems of yours? </span></b></i></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">I have to
work very hard on most poems, revising over months and sometimes years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Other than that, the craft and
the darker themes it explores are very much in tune with the rest of my work.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<i><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">What is
American about this poem? </span></b></i></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">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). </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<i><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">Was this
poem finished or abandoned? </span></b></i></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">Finished.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Definitely.</span></div>
Brian Brodeurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18306752905070477332noreply@blogger.com383tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4112204366956454376.post-23333332809229130792015-11-20T15:29:00.000-05:002015-11-20T15:31:19.216-05:00George David Clark <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-I9z0ahKdg6sYaJKk6cc6097Q7J_Y0MQbE6mjeWI15pK-TciALhk2grHODWHnlaOU1XyP6jn4jh9IVXr_ts0u8Tl_MtoKfwrY0jrmp_TL4o8YKw9bk5YbIrX7AU6NKhiAEV90xYd5DIGS/s1600/IMG_5209-300x20011.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-I9z0ahKdg6sYaJKk6cc6097Q7J_Y0MQbE6mjeWI15pK-TciALhk2grHODWHnlaOU1XyP6jn4jh9IVXr_ts0u8Tl_MtoKfwrY0jrmp_TL4o8YKw9bk5YbIrX7AU6NKhiAEV90xYd5DIGS/s1600/IMG_5209-300x20011.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><a href="http://www.georgedavidclark.com/" target="_blank">George David Clark</a> was born in Savannah and raised
in Chattanooga and Little Rock. The author of <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Reveille-Poems-George-David-Clark/dp/1557286744/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1417021612&sr=1-1&keywords=Reveille+poems" target="_blank">Reveille</a> </i>(winner of the Miller Williams Poetry Prize from the University of Arkansas Press), his
recent poems can be found in the<i> <a href="http://www.believermag.com/" target="_blank">The Believer</a>, <a href="http://www.blackbird.vcu.edu/v13n2/poetry/clark_g/past_page.shtml" target="_blank">Blackbird</a>, <a href="http://www.cincinnatireview.com/blog/" target="_blank">Cincinnati Review</a>,
<a href="http://www.measurepress.com/measure/index.php/the-journal/" target="_blank">Measure</a>, <a href="http://www.smu.edu/southwestreview" target="_blank">Southwest Review</a> </i>and elsewhere and his work appears reprinted
at <a href="http://www.versedaily.org/2015/heimlichforheavenly.shtml" target="_blank"><i>Verse Daily</i>,</a> <i><a href="http://poems.com/" target="_blank">Poetry Daily</a></i>, and in a variety of
anthologies and special series. The editor of <i><a href="http://www.32poems.com/" target="_blank">32 Poems</a></i>, he is an
Assistant Professor at Washington & Jefferson College and lives in Washington,
PA with his wife and their three young children.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">beside her and a
thin clear line of perspiration<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">seems to quiver on
the white guitar<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">that is her belly,
she sighs and says,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<i><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Oh, now I wish I had a cigarette</span></i><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">He’s been thinking
he should pull the sheet <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">from where it’s
bunched along the floor<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">and it takes him a
moment to understand <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">that
cigarettes—which both of them detest<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">and she has never
tried—are not her point. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">She phrases it
that way because pleasure <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">is complicated,
more so perhaps than suffering.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">It will augment
and diminish, both,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">not unlike the
ancient priests who’d purge<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">the humid entrails
of the pharaohs <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">and then bathe the
bodies’ cavities <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">with myrrh and
frankincense and palm wine,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">freights of fragrance
in the hollows after.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">She means that
monuments to rapture<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">should be light to
carry and combustible,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">toxic in small
quantities even secondhand,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">and with an odor
that darkens one’s clothes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Somehow he
comprehends this vaguely. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">It reminds him of
a concert he attended <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">in high school,
the massive outdoor stage <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">where the band
played one encore, a second, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">then mangled their
guitars across the amps <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">and footlights:
sparks, debris, electric howling. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Stoned and riding
home with his ears fuzzing <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">in the back of a
friend’s Topaz, he felt <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">invincible and
fantasized a car crash. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">He’d passed out
then, and later, coming to <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">sore-throated and
coughing on his parent’s porch <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">where the guys had
left him, it was as though <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">some breakneck
song—all glass and metal <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">in his mind—had
wrecked around him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">He rose there
slowly and limped out of it <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">the way a man
emerges from a shattered <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">windshield, the
live adrenaline already <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">funneling off, but
with a few stray echoes <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">still looping
through his chest like feedback.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Tonight on the far
side of the room <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">the infinite lungs
of the wall clock exhale <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">long gray minutes.
Eyes shut, motionless, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">his wife leans
toward sleep. Her teeth <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">are tingling
faintly, white but crooked <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">on the bottom row.
She has clenched <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">and ground them
during sex again <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">and now she
guesses at the likelihood <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">of braces in her
future when there’s money. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">It is her habit to
sweep the tender downside <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">of her tongue
across the misalignments <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">where the frets of
wire might someday run, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">and for a moment
her mouth becomes <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">the smoky back
room in a downtown bar <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">where a struggling
band from out-of-state <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">is just about to
plug in their Les Pauls. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Nascent music
crackles in the outlets, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">jittering, almost
perceptibly, the ashtrays. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">A breeze
sleepwalks the curtains back<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">into the room and
out again. Back and out.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Her husband slides
his heel along her calf<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">and starts to tell
her they should set his legs<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">on fire (she could
inhale while they kiss),<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">but no, she’s gone
unconscious. Instead, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">he pulls the sheet
to their shoulders<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">and thinks, as he
dissolves beside her, how <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">from a distance
they would look like two <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">thin cylinders
wrapped in white, their minds <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">these grainy
filters in their heads. Asleep<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">before he gets to
who might smoke them <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">and why, his
breathing slows and deepens.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The room cools
slightly. The traffic <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">till only the air
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><i>When was
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<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">I must have started working on this poem in the fall of 2011
while my family and I were living in Upstate New York. I can remember pretty
clearly wrestling with this one in my little office on the 3<sup>rd</sup> floor
of Colgate’s Lawrence Hall—an incredible place to spend a year writing. My
window looked out on one of the loveliest campuses I’ve encountered, complete
with swans sailing back and forth on a little lake.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">The seed of the poem was the line that I give the wife at
the end of the first stanza. My own wife had said this (“I wish I had a
cigarette”) a couple of times, though she too has never smoked, and I wanted to
try to think through some of what that comment expressed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><i>How many
revisions did this poem undergo? How much time elapsed between the first and
final drafts? </i><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">I save and number my drafts, so I can see that “Cigarettes”
went through twenty-six significant revisions over the course of about eight
months before I first submitted it to a journal. The first draft of a poem is
fairly excruciating for me, but I love revision, so I sometimes get stuck
chewing my own cud. Even after “Cigarettes” was published, I continued to
fiddle with the poem. Finally, with the help of <a href="http://www.enidshomer.com/" target="_blank">Enid Shomer</a>, my editor at
Arkansas, I made a couple more important changes as I prepared the poem for publication
in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Reveille</i>. In total, that makes
about three years between the first draft and the final version, though there
were seasons where it sat untouched.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><i>Do you
believe in inspiration? How much of this poem was “received” and how much was
the result of sweat and tears? </i><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">Is it <a href="https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/w-h-auden" target="_blank">Auden</a> who wrote that by “inspired” we mean simply that
a work of art is better than we could reasonably expect it to be? I like that gesture
toward demystification, but when I say I believe in inspiration I want to avoid
suggesting that I mean simply a writer getting lucky. The workings of the mind
are just such a mystery. I wonder if inspiration isn’t like some calculus we
can’t fathom because in addition to the author’s preparation, its variables
include the subconscious, the language itself, and even a spiritual element.
Before I begin writing I like to spend a little time reading something that
excites me. I also pray. I tell my students that in my experience the muse is
most likely to respond when I court her with good writing and reading habits. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">This poem certainly wasn’t “received”, but its “labor”
involved more play than sweat and tears. You know how when you’re shooting
“HORSE” with a friend on a driveway goal, you try all these ridiculous tricks
(behind the back, off the windshield, nothing but net)? Every once in a while
something implausibly goes in. Particularly with lyrics, poems have the
advantages of highlight reels—all one’s best shots edited together with none of
the air balls. Under such conditions a seemingly inspired performance really
isn’t so impossible. The pleasure of revision is cutting away all of the
uninspired mistakes, or at least as many as one can.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><i>How did
this poem arrive at its final form? Did you consciously employ any principles
of technique?</i><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">I’m trying to dramatize parallel thought processes in time,
so one of the poem’s “formal” challenges was moving back and forth between
consciousnesses. Perhaps the more difficult technical work in this poem however,
was rhythmic. I wrote the first draft in blank verse, but eventually I wanted a
bit more rhythmic flexibility. I think this poem wants to hide its blank verse
roots without forfeiting the potency of that cadence altogether. A great deal
of my energy in revision was spent trying to hear and hone that balance.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><i>How long
after you finished this poem did it first appear in print? </i><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">This poem appeared in<i> </i><a href="http://yalereview.yale.edu/" target="_blank"><i>TheYale Review</i> </a>in January 2013, so almost a year after I first submitted it.
It wasn’t truly “finished” though (in the form it takes above) for another good
year and a half.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><i>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? </i><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">I’ll revise a poem every day until I can’t see the flaws
anymore, but then I tend to fire it off pretty quickly. I don’t recommend this
bad habit though, and it’s meant that I sometimes have to ask editors if I can
make changes after things are accepted. These days I’m trying to wait longer.
If I’m satisfied with a poem after I’ve left it completely untouched for six
months, I can let it go without qualms. It’s just hard for me to set something
I like aside for that long. On the other hand, I know that if I keep fiddling too
long I can do real damage.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><i>Could you
talk about fact and fiction and how this poem negotiates the two? </i><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">There’s not a lot of fact in this poem, but, as I mentioned
above, at least one line of dialogue is borrowed from my wife. I drove a Topaz
in high school like this character’s friend, and I suppose the details
concerning how the pharaohs bodies were prepared for mummification are factual.
The rest is a fantasy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><i>Is this a
narrative poem</i>?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">It’s narrative in the sense that time progresses (albeit
slightly) and there is a sequence of events related by causation, but those “events”
are really only thoughts and memories, and the poem actually seems more driven
by the lyric impulse to depart from time and meditate on experience, rather
than a thrust toward climax and conclusion.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><i>Do you
remember who you were reading when you wrote this poem? Any influences you’d
care to disclose? </i><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">This poem owes its most direct debts to <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/robert-hass" target="_blank">Robert Hass</a>. As I
struggled with the shape or “plot” of this poem, I remember studying the way
Hass will leap away from his triggering subject for lyric texture and
perspective. I think there’s also a rhythmic debt to Hass here, but I wasn’t as
conscious of that influence while I was composing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><i>Do you have
any particular audience in mind when you write, an ideal reader? </i><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">I would love it if a fan of <a href="https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/wallace-stevens" target="_blank">Stevens</a>, <a href="https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/t-s-eliot" target="_blank">Eliot</a>, and <a href="https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/marianne-moore" target="_blank">Moore</a>
enjoyed what I wrote. My ideal reader is probably pretty sensitive to a poem’s
sound and has an affinity for the surreal.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><i>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><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">No. In the last couple years my first readers have been the
editors to whom I submit my work for publication.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><i>How does
this poem differ from other poems of yours? </i><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">This is among the more narrative poems in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Reveille</i>, but I’ve written several
others in this style recently. I try not to repeat myself any more than I have
to, but the metaphysical subject matter here really represents an abiding
interest.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><i>What is
American about this poem? </i><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">It certainly references American places and culture (though
not exclusively), but I suspect the most American thing about this poem is its idiom.
English speakers outside the States, and even Americans outside the Southeast
wouldn’t write quite like this. Or I don’t think they would. Maybe another way
of saying this is that I hope there is something of my place’s color in my
words. I’ve lived outside the region for some time now, but I think of Georgia and
Arkansas as home. I want a versatile tongue with many tones, but I also don’t
want to completely lose my drawl, in my speech or on the page.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><i>Was this
poem finished or abandoned? </i><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">It’s finished. I think.</span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Brian Brodeurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18306752905070477332noreply@blogger.com27tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4112204366956454376.post-86450624571209181502015-06-25T14:55:00.002-04:002015-06-25T14:56:27.461-04:00Robin Becker<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgs9Q92kDmUve1O5VjvBUuD9waT-cfY7bIfZmyrhbBCLOa7gfPRhFo-_RuwA1iuAxFvJ0NFUtinv8KSzPmLZcFaPiEZnCn8lviC81OGQYaRncPitu4x5MNPxf6AewidNYIFeXBER_JRKrMy/s1600/becker.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgs9Q92kDmUve1O5VjvBUuD9waT-cfY7bIfZmyrhbBCLOa7gfPRhFo-_RuwA1iuAxFvJ0NFUtinv8KSzPmLZcFaPiEZnCn8lviC81OGQYaRncPitu4x5MNPxf6AewidNYIFeXBER_JRKrMy/s320/becker.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Robin Becker’s collections of poetry include <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Tiger-Heron-Pitt-Poetry-Series/dp/0822962985" target="_blank">Tiger Heron</a></i>,<i> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Domain-Perfect-Affection-Pitt-Poetry/dp/0822959313/ref=sr_1_6?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1435257673&sr=1-6" target="_blank">Domain of Perfect Affection</a>,</i> <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Horse-Fair-Pitt-Poetry/dp/0822957205/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1435257705&sr=1-1&keywords=becker+the+horse+fair" target="_blank">The Horse Fair</a></i>,<b> </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/All-American-Girl-Pitt-Poetry/dp/0822955806/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1435257729&sr=1-1&keywords=becker+all-american+girl" target="_blank"><i>All-American Gir</i>l</a> and <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Giacomettis-Pitt-Poetry-Robin-Becker/dp/0822954281/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1435257755&sr=1-1&keywords=becker+giacometti%27s+dog" target="_blank">Giacometti’s Dog</a></i>, all in the Pitt Poetry Series. Becker has received fellowships from the Bunting Institute at Harvard, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Liberal Arts Research Professor of English at Penn State, Becker served as the Penn State Laureate during the 2010-2011 academic year. A column, “Field Notes,” appears in <i><a href="http://www.wcwonline.org/Women-s-Review-of-Books/Women-=-Books-Blog/" target="_blank">The Women’s Review of Books</a></i>, where she serves as Poetry Editor. </div>
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HOSPICE </div>
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I wanted to believe in it, the word</div>
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softer than <i>hospital </i>but still not <i>home</i>—</div>
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Like any other frame house on the street,</div>
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it had a lawn, a door, a bell—</div>
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Inside, our friend lay, a view</div>
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of the garden from her room but no lift</div>
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to raise her from the bed. A sword, the sun</div>
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plunged across the cotton blankets.</div>
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I wanted dying to be Mediterranean,</div>
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curated, a villa, like the Greek sanatoria</div>
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where the ancients cared for their sick</div>
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on airy porticos and verandas</div>
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with stone paths that led to libraries.</div>
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A nurse entered her room and closed the door.</div>
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For the alleviation of pain, I praise</div>
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Morpheus, god of dreams unlocking</div>
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the medicine drawer with a simple key,</div>
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narcotic placed beneath the tongue.</div>
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In the hall, the volunteer offered us coffee.</div>
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How could I think the Mozart we played</div>
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to distract her could distract her? Or olive groves,</div>
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or marble sculpture in the atrium?</div>
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<b><i>When was this poem composed? How did it start? </i></b></div>
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In the middle of my 2008 residency at the <a href="http://www.wurlitzerfoundation.org/" target="_blank">Wurlitzer Foundation</a> in New Mexico, I learned that a beloved friend was dying. To see her, I traveled to Massachusetts where she had moved to a hospice. After her death and funeral, I returned to New Mexico wrote the first drafts of this poem.</div>
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<b><i>How many revisions did this poem undergo? How much time elapsed between the first and final drafts? </i></b></div>
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This poem had several endings before I settled on this one. In that sense, it took a long time to complete. I had researched ancient Greek practices for caring for the dying and I had settled on <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morpheus_(mythology)" target="_blank">Morpheus</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfgang_Amadeus_Mozart" target="_blank">Mozart</a>, but I couldn’t find a way to bring it to a close.</div>
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<b><i>Do you believe in inspiration? How much of this poem was “received” and how much was the result of sweat and tears?</i></b></div>
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For me, “inspiration” can mean any number of things: the “trigger” image that starts the process of composition; the phrase that arrives in the breath (and brain) as if unbidden; the bit of research that sends the poem off in an unexpected direction. I would say that this poem combined all of the above and then required considerable revision to find its final form.</div>
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<b><i>How did this poem arrive at its final form? Did you consciously employ any principles of technique?</i></b></div>
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The opening blank-verse couplet establishes a balanced, semi-stately tone which drops off, in line four, to become an iambic tetrameter line. After that, the lines vary from seven to fourteen syllables, returning to blank verse in lines seven, fourteen, and twenty two. Stanza shapes have always interested me. I don’t know--until somewhere in the poem’s development--what kind of stanza will suit the poem. In this case, I chose couplets to emphasize the relationship between the speaker and her dying friend.</div>
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<b><i>Was there anything unusual about the way in which you wrote this poem?</i></b></div>
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The word “hospice” generated the journey of this poem. I can’t think of another poem I began with a single word I didn’t ditch before the poem’s completion! Often, I let go of the catalyzing word or phase as the poem develops. In this case, it remained central.</div>
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<b><i>How long after you finished this poem did it first appear in print?</i></b></div>
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I think <i><a href="http://prairieschooner.unl.edu/" target="_blank">Prairie Schooner</a> </i>published it the following year.</div>
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<b><i>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?</i></b></div>
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I show my poems to a few trusted readers before sending them to editors. The time from completion to submission varies with each poem.</div>
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<b><i>Could you talk about fact and fiction and how this poem negotiates the two?</i></b></div>
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This poem combines visual detail culled from memory (always questionably reliable) with the creation of a “speaker” whose perceptions, desires, and praise originate with me but then move out and away from me. </div>
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<b><i>Is this a narrative poem?</i></b></div>
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Yes, I consider this a narrative poem in that it tells a first-person story of an encounter with a friend dying in hospice.</div>
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<b><i>Do you remember who you were reading when you wrote this poem? Any influences you’d care to disclose?</i></b></div>
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<a href="http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/maxine-kumin" target="_blank">Maxine Kumin</a> has had and continues to have an impact on my writing and thinking about poems. Her poems contain an accountability and specificity which I admire--especially when the poem enters mysterious terrain.</div>
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<b><i>Do you have any particular audience in mind when you write, an ideal reader? </i></b></div>
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Having spent my life in universities, I like to imagine poetry students--undergraduates and grad students--reading my books. My “ideal” readers include other poets, feminists, animal lovers, and poetry lovers.</div>
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<b><i>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></b></div>
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Yes, I shared this poem with a few trusted readers with whom I regularly share new work.</div>
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<b><i>How does this poem differ from other poems of yours?</i></b></div>
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In that this poem becomes a meditation on a single word, it bears a close relation to another poem called “Dyke.” </div>
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<b><i>What is American about this poem?</i></b></div>
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An American anxiety about death informs this poem.</div>
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<b><i>Was this poem finished or abandoned?</i></b></div>
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When I finally decided to end the poem with a question, I felt I had found the poem’s route to closure and considered it finished.</div>
Brian Brodeurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18306752905070477332noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4112204366956454376.post-4210036081631699112015-04-04T12:30:00.000-04:002015-04-04T13:14:42.674-04:00Matthew Pennock<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEdmlbcqsGTFqIvVUiYWOwwSUyMak-soCKwN2-mJskPGEtEnQ9pm-yWTDnwQEmjDx8AcNmI5d-SQUcT5aNimYajS3ZEBc22M7oTSx4ILAanOHkGlHbJW6WBJcgZSjF3oXSliXp4eEr2o3N/s1600/matthew-pennock.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEdmlbcqsGTFqIvVUiYWOwwSUyMak-soCKwN2-mJskPGEtEnQ9pm-yWTDnwQEmjDx8AcNmI5d-SQUcT5aNimYajS3ZEBc22M7oTSx4ILAanOHkGlHbJW6WBJcgZSjF3oXSliXp4eEr2o3N/s1600/matthew-pennock.jpg" /></a></div>
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Matthew Pennock is the author of <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Sudden-Dog-Matthew-Pennock/dp/1882295927" target="_blank">Sudden Dog</a></i> (Alice James Books, 2012), winner of the 2011 Kinereth-Gensler Award. His poems have been widely published in such journals as <i><a href="http://gulfcoastmag.org/" target="_blank">Gulf Coast</a>, <a href="http://www.du.edu/denverquarterly/" target="_blank">Denver Quarterly</a>, <a href="http://ourworld.info/whrweb/" target="_blank">Western Humanities Review</a>, <a href="https://www.guernicamag.com/" target="_blank">Guernica: A Magazine of Art and Politics</a>, <a href="http://nyq.org/issues/current.html" target="_blank">New York Quarterly</a>, <a href="http://www.litmagazine.org/" target="_blank">LIT</a>, </i>and elsewhere. He’s also a regular contributor of criticism to the <i><a href="http://philareview.com/" target="_blank">Philadelphia Review of Books</a></i>.<i> </i></div>
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THE QUEER OCCURRENCE OF MATTHEW PENNOCK </div>
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AND THE GARGANTUAN MOTH</div>
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But first, at work there was a moth.</div>
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Loping flight, low-pitch wave,</div>
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the size of a finch or small robin. </div>
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Customers screamed and ducked.</div>
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I pursued and cornered. </div>
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Slow turn, a charge, </div>
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diamond-grid ellipses </div>
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bluish gray and wild,</div>
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I looked the beast dead in the eye,</div>
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caught it mid-flight in my hands,</div>
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and ran to the balcony to release it</div>
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because, like all just conquerors, </div>
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I am merciful, </div>
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but I must have clipped a wing</div>
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because it descended to the sidewalk</div>
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in a flat spin. </div>
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Men approach the prospect of impotence</div>
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with a desperation dwindling</div>
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into the habitual.</div>
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I’m sorry, amateur butterfly. </div>
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I shouldn’t have plucked you from the atmosphere,</div>
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shouldn’t have stolen you like the hard kiss </div>
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Mary gave me at her front door,</div>
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the one with our entire bodies.</div>
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And when it ended, I swear I tasted blood.</div>
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<b><i>When was this poem composed? How did it start?</i></b> </div>
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This poem’s origins actually go back pretty far. Its skeleton was excised from a much longer piece that I wrote back in either late 2003, or early 2004. I was just out of undergrad, and much more discursive and verbose, so the poem this sprung out of was four pages long, and we’re talking solid pages, long lines, no stanza breaks. It was inspired by what exists as the poem’s relatively simple action: One time at work, there was this giant moth … Hence, I’ve always called it since then “that moth poem.” </div>
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<b><i>How many revisions did this poem undergo? How much time elapsed between the first and final drafts?</i></b></div>
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The moth poem’s strange adolescence begins when I brought the initial gigantic version to my first session with <a href="http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/richard-howard" target="_blank">Richard Howard</a> during my first semester at the MFA program at Columbia. I was proud of it too. I thought it was epic and universal and that I was going to blow him away. Needless to say, he read it, and when he finished he looked at me with an expression of what can only be described as a mix between revulsion and concern. Then he immediately began to question me about my other work trying to figure out how I had managed to get there in front of him wasting his time in his studio apartment with his French bulldog staring expectantly into my crotch. Then as he held my unclean poem with two fingers as far away from him as possible, he closed with his gentlest voice, saying “Please, don’t do this. You do not want to do this.” I left destroyed, but it turned out to be a good destroyed. So I abandoned the poem for a while. Then near the end of my MFA, when I had regained my shattered confidence, I revisited it. I carved out a much smaller, meaner poem that sort of distilled the original. Even then, though, I wasn’t done, it still went through many different incarnations. Stanzas were rearranged then returned to their original places and rearranged again. This poem existed in constant flux for years. </div>
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<b><i>Do you believe in inspiration? How much of this poem was “received” and how much was the result of sweat and tears? </i></b></div>
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Despite the fact an event happened that “inspired” this poem, this is a sweaty and teary piece. I don’t really believe in “receiving” poems. I’ve only had a poem spring forth into my mind close to form, a few times, and then I still worked hard on those poems and tinkered endlessly until I got them as close to right as I could. Frankly, this idea of receiving poems annoys me. Poems are not magic lightning bolts extending from the finger of God, destined only for your pretty little brain. No matter how your process works, you are laboring in some way and revising, even if it’s all done in your head before you set pen to page. Nothing comes out perfect the first time, and to claim otherwise damages young writers. I’m of the opinion that poets who talk about receiving poems fall into one of three categories: the fibbers trying to cultivate a false poetic mystique; the delusional; and the lazy, who do not want to put in the effort good poetry demands. The two formers can still be excellent poets, the latter not so much. </div>
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<b><i>How did this poem arrive at its final form? Did you consciously employ any principles of technique?</i></b></div>
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Eventually I just stopped tinkering and learned to accept it for the weird little animal that it was.</div>
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<b><i>Was there anything unusual about the way in which you wrote this poem?</i></b></div>
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In that different pieces of it are written years apart, yes, I would say that is unusual for me.</div>
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<b><i>How long after you finished this poem did it first appear in print? </i></b></div>
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Let’s see…It probably reached its current form circa 2008, and then it didn’t appear in print until my collection was published in 2012, so four years. It almost never made it, I considered cutting it from the manuscript several times because it always felt like it didn’t quite fit in, but there was something about it that I found charming, so I kept it. It’s a survivor. </div>
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<b><i>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? </i></b></div>
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My antipathy to submitting things usually dictates how long a poem sits rather than any sort of rules I set. Beyond that, it really varies. Some poems feel finished much faster than others. This particular poem was never sent out to magazines or anything. Probably because I never felt I truly had it right. </div>
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<b><i>Could you talk about fact and fiction and how this poem negotiates the two? </i></b></div>
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For me, it’s mainly rooted in fact, but the moth story takes on a folk-lore quality, like a big-fish story. The incident actually happened as I wrote it, only with slight exaggeration for the purposes of making it a bit more colorful. I wanted it to sound kind of like a mock epic, like a classic old-timer at a bar exaggerating about something relatively trivial. While the events may not look exactly like they would to an outside observer, in some ways this version is more true.</div>
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<b><i>Is this a narrative poem?</i></b></div>
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It’s about as narrative as I get. There’s a story there, which has a beginning, middle, and end, but the poem itself makes several lyrical/associative leaps in regards to the fear of impotence in the original story, but become related in retrospect due to the proximity of the events to each other, so ultimately I think the heart of the poem is still lyric even though it makes use of a narrative.</div>
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<b><i>Do you remember who you were reading when you wrote this poem? Any influences you’d care to disclose? </i></b></div>
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Way back in 2004, I remember I was actually reading <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iliad" target="_blank">The Iliad</a></i> and Ovid’s <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metamorphoses" target="_blank">Metamorphoses</a></i>, which is probably why I was so interested in making it epic. I really can’t remember if anything directly influenced my rewrites, I was reading so much then, thanks to my MFA. I remember being enamored with Denis Johnson's <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Incognito-Lounge-Carnegie-Classic-Contemporary/dp/0887484735" target="_blank">Incognito Lounge</a></i> around that time. Somehow that feels relevant.</div>
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<b><i>Do you have any particular audience in mind when you write, an ideal reader? </i></b></div>
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I’ve heard it said several times, and I subscribe to this as well, poems are written to someone, an actual individual the poet loves, whether they know it or not. Most of my poems have a specific someone in mind when I write them, not always the same person, but someone who shared the experience or conversation that sparked the poem. I don’t think about ideal readers or audiences so much. I think about the actual people in my life that I want to speak to, but can’t always find the words at the appropriate time. </div>
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<b><i>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></b></div>
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I was lucky enough to have a good experience in my MFA. Some of us continued to workshop long after the program ended, and still do. Two people in particular, <a href="http://www.anomalouspress.org/7/28.maldonado.layaway.php" target="_blank">Ricardo Maldonado</a> and <a href="http://ericawright.typepad.com/" target="_blank">Erica Wright</a>, have read probably almost every draft of everything I’ve written in the last ten years. That type of support is wonderful, and so necessary in the cold world of the arts, which is often competitive. </div>
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<b><i>How does this poem differ from other poems of yours? </i></b></div>
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Well, there’s the element of storytelling, which is a technique I do not employ often, but beyond that this poem feels different to me from my other work because of the voice. It doesn’t sound like the normal speaker present in most of my poems. It’s a little too assured. For example, in other poems, my speaker apologizes a lot, or experiences much guilt, but it’s genuine. In this poem, the speaker apologizes, but he’s not sorry. He’s not sorry at all. I guess this poem feels a little more stereotypically masculine to me. I’m often interested in being masculine, but not stereotypically. I think the purpose of the poem was to point to the ridiculousness of a lot of male anxiety, but I’m not sure if it ever truly comes across.</div>
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<b><i>What is American about this poem?</i></b> </div>
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Ha! Good question. I’m often obsessed with America. I’ve never thought of this poem as being particularly American, but now that you mention it, I can see it creeping in. There’s definitely a sense that the speaker has lofty intentions, but fails miserably. I guess I could have had a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_Accomplished_speech" target="_blank">“Mission Accomplished”</a> banner strung up after the moment he catches the moth, but before he releases it. Also there is this fear of impotence running through it, which parallels the sense of waning American power on the global stage, as it also parallels the waning power of the American male. I don’t think the poem makes a value judgment on these issues, but rather points to them as an inevitability.</div>
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<b><i>Was this poem finished or abandoned? </i></b></div>
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I don’t know if either of these is the right way to describe it. It definitely didn’t feel finished. I never came to a point where I sat back and said “This is done!” In that sense, I guess I abandoned working on it, but I never truly abandoned the poem. Like I mentioned before, it just hung around until it made it. So I’ll say it again. This poem survived.</div>
Brian Brodeurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18306752905070477332noreply@blogger.com14