*This was first published on March 10, 2018
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? “History Abandoned,” is an Ekphrastic poem written after a photograph by the same name by photographer Diane Beatty. Her photograph was part of an exhibit of art by women at the local YWCA that took place on July 20, 2017 and I wrote my poems about various paintings and photographs in the exhibit while walking around the gallery and texting poems into my phone. I was fortunate to be allowed to view the work because the gallery was technically closed. It was a Monday. I was struck immediately by the drama and depth of Beatty’s image of a high-ceilinged room full of drawers that reminded me of an attic.
It recalled a poem I had written about my maternal great grandmother that was published in my second poetry chapbook, SILENCE HAS A NAME. That poem is titled, “For My Great Grandmother Singing in a Windowless Attic,” and tells the story of my descendant whose husband, out of jealousy for my great grandmother’s singing voice, imprisoned her in an attic, where she died mad while still in her 20s. This happened in the countryside of Colombia in the early 1900s when the idea of silencing women was more pervasive than it is now. It’s a troubling legacy that to some extent all women share in that we still are silenced—by government, media, sometimes even those we are close to.
And so this poem, “History Abandoned,” after Diane’s evocative photograph, was born on the spot, in a rush of energy I felt rush through me and I texted it into words on my phone.
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?) There were very few amendments to this poem, although I believe I reworked the ending a bit, but as I write online or on my phone, there are no records of drafts. I didn’t feel anything about “History Abandoned,” but inspiration and energy, an electric current running through me when I wrote the poem and perhaps a sense of cause because I was thinking of this talented woman, someone a part of me in history who had died, her talent and beauty stifled. But there was nothing premeditated, no conscious formulation, just all these realizations working together at once.
What do you want readers of this poem to take from this poem? I don’t want readers to take anything from this poem save what it evokes for them. For me it’s a call to women who have suffered long in silence and repression to rise up, speak for themselves and one another. It rose out of my own history and that of so many women who recognize they must come out of hiding and speak their truth, and speak to it via their art.
Has this poem been published before? And if so where?
Arya F. Jenkins poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction have appeared in numerous journals and zines such as Agave Magazine, Black Scat Review, Brilliant Corners, Blue Heron Review, Cider Press Review, Dying Dahlia Review, The Feminist Wire, Foliate Oak Literary Magazine, Front Porch Review, KYSO Flash, Otis Nebula, and Provincetown Arts Magazine. Her poetry has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her flash, “Elvis Too” was nominated for the 2017 Write Well Awards by Brilliant Flash Fiction. Her work has appeared in at least four anthologies. She writes jazz fiction for Jerry Jazz Musician, an online zine. Her poetry chapbooks are: Jewel Fire (AllBook Books, 2011) Silence Has A Name (Finishing Line Press, 2016). Her poetry chapbook, Autumn Rumors, has just been accepted by CW Books and is slated for publication September 2018.
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