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? Like many of my pieces, my prose poems are assembled from short fragments and images strung together to fit a theme. I rarely write an entire poem in one sitting. Most of the time, I jot down my thoughts in a notebook I always carry in my purse, and when I feel I have enough, I assemble the poem from those thoughts or images.
I always write the poem first by hand and edit/cross out/rewrite by hand. My notebooks are very messy. If I’m not sure, I write it by hand a second time to clean it up a little, before typing it in Word. I usually work on or think about a poem during week, and by Sunday I am ready to type it in Word. Then I read it again on Mondays to see if I still like it. If it’s good enough, I bring it to the red Wheelbarrow Poets workshop on Tuesdays.
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https://redwheelbarrowpoets.org/
After the workshop, I change anything that needs to change based on the feedback I receive and add the poem to the outgoing submissions. I like to be done and don’t make other edits until much later when I read the poem again with fresh eyes.
Where were you when you started to actually write the poem? And please describe the place in great detail. I don’t remember. My poems usually start with an image that pops into my head triggered by a memory, a dream or a nightmare, something I read in the news, or a scene I see on the street in New York City. Many of my poems are inspired by my childhood in Romania behind the Iron Curtain, my family who still lives there, and the sense that I live two parallel lives, here and there. There is a permanent dialogue between these two lives in my poems.
What month and year did you start writing this poem? I don’t keep records that precise, but most poems in this collection are about 10 years old. Since I work in fragments, it takes a while to accumulate enough snippets to fill a book.
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? I don’t keep multiple drafts, unless they are the lines I wrote in my notebook, covered in scribbles and revisions. It’s impossible to know, unless I dig through those notebooks, and I’ll leave that for a rainy day when there is nothing else to do.
What do you want readers of this poem to take from this poem? Playfulness and a sense of wonder. I love writing prose poems because they allow for even more surrealism, dark humor to seep through, and surprises. I love to surprise and confuse my readers, to be a mischievous spirit. Who is also mesmerized by the world.
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Which part of the poem was the most emotional for you to write and why? I love incorporating personal little stories in my prose poems. You know, little nuggets that feel true because they are. All my poems are autobiographical to some extent. Sometimes I hide behind a little girl, my alter ego from my childhood. Instead of always saying I, I, I let the little girl tell her story. I think it’s more compelling that way.
Has this poem been published? And if so, where?I don’t think this poem was published anywhere before being included in my latest book Writing on the Walls at Night, (Unsolicited Press, 2022). Grateful to them for offering my collection a lovely home, and to all my readers for spending time with my poems. The collection is available on the publisher’s site, on Amazon, in all the usual places.
Click on the below link to purchase WRITING ON THE WALLS AT NIGHT from Unsolicited Press
https://www.unsolicitedpress.com/store/p358/Writing_on_the_Walls_at_Night_by_Claudia_Serea.html
Click on the below link to purchase WRITING ON THE WALLS AT NIGHT from Amazon
Claudia Serea is a Romanian-born poet with poems and translations published in Field, New Letters, Prairie Schooner, The Puritan, Oxford Poetry, and elsewhere. She is the author of seven poetry collections, most recently In Those Years, No One Slept (forthcoming from Broadstone Books, February 2023) and Writing on the Walls at Night (Unsolicited Press, 2022). Serea won the Joanne Scott Kennedy Memorial Prize from the Poetry Society of Virginia, the New Letters Readers Award, and the Franklin-Christoph Merit Award. Her poems have been translated in French, Italian, Russian, Arabic, and Farsi and featured on The Writer’s Almanac. She is a founding editor of National Translation Month, serves on the board of The Red Wheelbarrow Poets, and co-hosts their monthly readings.
Click on the below link to read about Claudia Serea
https://www.pw.org/directory/writers/claudia_serea
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