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 started writing this poem after reading Jan T. Gross’s Neighbors, a history book about the Jedwabne, Poland pogrom.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_T._Gross
There are many aspects of the book that are horrifying, but the most horrifying to me was the fact that the majority of Jedwabne’s Jewish inhabitants had lived there at least since the last Polish census. Before the war, like many other towns in Poland, over half of Jedwabne’s population was comprised of Jews. There were roughly 1,600 Jews in the town and only a few of them survived the war. When I think of such a small town murdering close to half of their inhabitants (regardless of age or gender), I think of how they knew each other’s names, recognized each other’s faces. At some point, they probably did business together.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jedwabne_pogrom
That’s how I came up with concept of Margola. To use her voice, I had to go back in time and remember what it was like as a teenager with a crush on a boy. To write a good persona poem, regardless of the subject matter, the writer must think how the speaker of the poem thinks. That was what I tried to do throughout this poem—exude empathy.
https://poets.org/glossary/persona-poem
Where were you when you started to actually write the poem? And please describe the place in great detail. Before COVID, I wrote this poem in my best friend’s (Rebecca Stanton) mother’s condo. The condo is across the street from a brick Orthodox synagogue (BELOW) with a relatively small congregation, and it is in a quiet neighborhood. Though the occasional dog barks, it is free from car horns and sirens. As I entered the condo, I passed her neighbor’s menorah in the window. While I worked on this poem, it was easy for me to imagine what it was like for the citizens of Jedwabne to walk from morning services to their homes on quiet Saturday afternoons.
Inside the condo (BELOW), I would sometimes write on my laptop that I placed on a hand carved oak dining room table. Since the table was not made using modern manufacturing, it is possible that someone in Jedwabne ate at a similar table built by their father or brother. Since my best friend’s mother (Marian McKinney.) is an artist, I was surrounded by her artwork. It was extremely inspiring to write in that room.
What month and year did you start writing this poem? I started writing this poem in January 2019 after reading Jan T. Gross’s Neighbors.
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? The first draft of the poem was all one stanza. In the first draft, instead of “now I am crunched leaves,” there were these three lines:
I am throat.
He is teeth. I am blades
of grass.
Additionally, after “a statue, drag it in with us” were these three lines:
He locks
eyes with mine
while shutting doors.
What do you want readers of this poem to take from this poem? A lot of people say the phrase, “never again,” when referring to the Shoah. For us to truly understand the Shoah, so that mass murder on such a large scale never happens again, we must understand the level of collaboration between regular citizens and the Nazis. The Germans would not have been able to perform this massacre and ones like it in surrounding towns had it not been for Polish citizens participating and/or organizing the destruction beforehand. We simply cannot continue to believe a naïve narrative/lie that Nazi soldiers were the only perpetrators during the Shoah. It is difficult, but we must look inward at our own prejudices and ask ourselves why we think the way we do. Additionally, we must be willing, as individuals, to stand up for our neighbors that are different than we are when they are mistreated.
Which part of the poem was the most emotional of you to write and why? The last few lines were the most emotional for me to write—imagining this innocent girl’s horrific murder. I imagined her clinging to the idea that her neighbor, the boy she had a crush on, might still save her if she called out his name.
https://www.writerscenter.org/aboutshp/
Has this poem been published? And if so where? This poem was included in my chapbook, They Become Stars, which Slapering Hol Press published in 2020. Here is the link to purchase the chapbook:
https://www.writerscenter.org/product/stars/
Most of the BACKSTORY OF THE POEM 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