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? My husband was in Washington, D.C.—traveling for his work—when he had a massive heart attack in his hotel room. He had the presence of mind to call the front-desk clerk to ask for an ambulance, but remembers little else. While he was being transported to George Washington University Hospital (2.5 miles), he had two cardiac arrests; he had three more cardiac arrests in the emergency room. It was the swift and capable work of everyone involved that saved his life.
I also was traveling for work on that day, so getting to DC involved some fancy footwork (and a one-way flight). I did not know what I would find at the end of my daylong journey, but I had a little journal with me and began to write my thoughts while I made my way from point to point. Eventually, those random thoughts became a collection of poems called Widow Maker (published by Finishing Line Press).
https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/widow-maker-by-pamela-r-anderson-bartholet/
There is a story behind the cover art for my poetry chapbook WIDOW MAKER (Finishing Line Press). It ties into the poem “What Color are the Blue Ridge Mountains?” In brief, my daughter (R.E. Anderson) and niece (Meredith Balogh) co-created the cover, which shows two hands holding a heart and nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains.
https://www.pamelaranderson.org/widow-maker-cover-art
Where were you when you started to actually write the poem? And please describe the place in great detail. At the time of his heart attack, my husband and I lived in Virginia in the Blue Ridge Mountains. After he was released from the hospital, I remember driving us down Route 33 and back to our home in the mountains. We weren’t talking because, at that point, talking was exhausting—so many of our conversations revolved around “what ifs”—so we were just listening to one of our favorite musicians through the sound system. The musician we listened to is John Martyn…the song “Solid Air”. We were headed directly toward the mountains—layers and layers of blue—and I asked him to describe the colors he saw. It was sort of like a game—something to take our minds away from his near miss.
When we arrived home, I sketched out these ideas of colors, but I didn’t really have a complete poem. I started tinkering with my visual images of that specific moment—replaying the scene over and over in my mind—and adding in conversations with friends and family members. A couple of weeks later—with the first part of the poem almost complete, I dreamed that a dog attacked me. It felt like that dream was a part of this poem—a part of me trying to make sense of what happened and trying to gain some sort of control over an uncontrollable situation.
What month and year did you start writing this poem? My husband’s heart attack was June 4, 2015. It was June 25 when I wrote about the dream of the dog attack in my journal. My journal entry for June 26 mentions that the poem was finished. It was the first poem written in my collection Widow Maker.
That said, I always tinker with my poems for a long, long time—adding and deleting words, phrases, etc. I wrote for about two years before I felt that I was finished writing about the heart attack/cardiac arrests.
How many drafts of this poem did you write before going to the final? (And can you share a photograph of your rough drafts with pen markings on it?) Typically, I rough out my poems on paper (I write them in shorthand) and then type them up. I then edit over and over again—sometimes printing out the poem and making edits directly on the page and sometimes on the computer. Also, as someone who likes to walk, I repeat and refine phrases in my head as I’m walking and then incorporate those ideas into the poems. I don’t keep rough drafts in any form.
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? Given my process, it would be impossible for me to remember specific lines that now are “lost.” That said, when I write, if I love a particular phrase that does not “make it” into a poem, I save those words and images and sometimes use them later.
What do you want readers of this poem to take from this poem? The progression of color goes from soft to harder to very hard, symbolizing my personal journey of being very naive about sudden cardiac arrest and then, as I learned more as he went through recovery, I became much tougher. The dog also symbolized my work to try to control what I could of my own fears as well as my husband’s brush with death—looking it right in the eye and, essentially, telling fear/death “Not now.”
Which part of the poem was the most emotional of you to write and why? When I read this poem out loud for people/at readings (Below), I demonstrate the heart in just the way I portray it in the poem. Left hand a fist—right hand stretched over top—place where the rogue plaque landed. That rather crude visual of what happened chokes me up every time. He came so very close to dying.
Has this poem been published before? And if so where?
It was published in Whurk Magazine (out of Fredericksburg, Virginia). I love the image they included with the poem.
http://whurk.org/46/what-color-are-the-blue-ridge-mountains
Anything you would like to add? The Summa Hospital (Akron, Ohio) has purchased copies of the book to be given–for free–to people going through cardiac rehab (so wonderful of them!)!
All Backstory of the Poem LIVE LINKS can be found at the very end of the below feature:
http://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2021/02/will-justice-drakes-intercession-is-251.html
The images in this specific piece are granted copyright: Public Domain, GNU Free Documentation Licenses, Fair Use Under The United States Copyright Law.
The other images are granted copyright permission by the copyright holder, which is identified beneath each photo.
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