Can you go through the step-by-step process of writing this poem from the moment the idea was first conceived in your brain until final form? I have 23 drafts of the poem, some with significant changes. The first draft nailed down the subject you see in this version but included other directions. Those no longer fit as I moved through the shaping of the poem. In fact, some of the language got moved to another poem. I’m notorious for this: swerving poems together and splitting them apart like firewood. Nothing in a poem is precious to me until it’s finished. Keeping things fluid teaches me to be nonjudgmental about how long it takes to find the true poem, and that patience has flowed into other areas of my life
In the midst of the drafts, the poem expanded. I poured new wording and elements into it. I felt the need to devote space to showing how daytime contrasted with night. I also switched the title a few times. Sometimes, that gives me a new way to see a poem (though it complicates my ability to find the poem when I—often months later—return to work on it.)
Where were you when you started to actually write the poem? And please describe the place in great detail. I was home when I started the poem, but I had just returned from a residency in Montana. The imagery that connected the poem to that landscape later got cut. Aside from concentrated time at residencies, I write on small scraps of paper and on my phone. To create fuller drafts, I collide these elemental bits together and see what sparks arise.
What month and year did you start writing this poem? September 2019
Were there any lines in any of your rough drafts of this poem that were not in the final version? And can you share them with us? A great many lines were not in the final version! I’m not one of those writers that just barely tweaks a poem. I am perfectly satisfied to turn it around every which way. To maximally layer more into it, then wring it out. Throughout, I’m looking to surprise myself, to ruin my perfect draft. I like the challenge of not knowing where I’m going.
The original draft began with “As a child my sleep was ravenous dark and nothing” and ended with the line, “All the years I’d never wanted to see anything so clear.” That ending was getting to what I wanted, but was, ironically, too clear.
What do you want readers of this poem to take from this poem? I had night terrors as a child, but even so, I’ve always appreciated the dream state, the surreality that happens as residual elements of the day and the wacky worries of the mind meet in strange dark spaces. I hope the reader can see—as I do—that night is a trip we can only take when the lights are out, a place we can’t get to any other way. For me, the unknown is as satisfying as it is unnerving, and that’s preferable to the harsh, steadiness of day.
Which part of the poem was the most emotional of you to write and why? I bury truths in my words, not because I want to hide them but because I need them to come at me fresh and unusual. All of these lines hold years of meaning, but I get a little choked up by this section and the many emotional states it holds: “I deranged many actions / from my simple-nickeled life. / Everything I knew swooped / those dark mental corridors.”
Has this poem been published before? And if so where? The poem was published in Heavy Feather Review
Lauren Camp’s poems have appeared in many journals and anthologies, including Prairie Schooner,The Los Angeles Review, Poet Lore, Beloit Poetry Journal, Witness and The Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day. Her work has been translated into Turkish, Mandarin, Arabic and Spanish.
Lauren Camp is the author of five poetry collections, most recently Took House (Tupelo Press, 2020), Distinguished Favorite for the Independent Press Award and Semi-Finalist for the North American Book Award.
One Hundred Hungers(Tupelo Press, 2016) won the Dorset Prize and was a finalist for the Arab American Book Award, the Housatonic Book Award and the Sheila Margaret Motton Prize.
Turquoise Door: Finding Mabel Dodge Luhan in New Mexico(3: A Taos Press, 2018) was a finalist for the New Mexico-Arizona Book Award.
Honors include a Black Earth Institute Fellowship and a visiting writer position at the Mayo Clinic (MN). She has been awarded residencies at The Taft-Nicholson Center, Storyknife Writers Retreat, Willapa Bay AiR and other places. In 2020, she was selected to be one of 100 international artists for 100 Offerings of Peace and one of 101 women storytellers for The Scheherezade Project.
Lauren was guest editor for Malpaís Review (poetry of Iraq), World Literature Today (two issues: international jazz poetry, and the intersection of contemporary visual art and poetry), and About Place Journal (“Roots and Resistance”).
She has pivoted from a successful career as a visual artist (1996-2008). Her portrait series, “The Fabric of Jazz,” traveled to museums in ten cities. More artwork can be found in cultural centers, hospitals, museums, U.S. embassies and other organizations around the world. For 15 years, she was a producer and host for Santa Fe Public Radio.
Lauren lives in New Mexico, where she teaches through the state’s Poetry Out Loud program, The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum’s Art and Leadership program, Santa Fe Community College, and her own community workshops.
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