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? As the poem says, I cleaned out the car our son used, after his death, and saved the premiumroot beer cap I found in the cupholder. In real life I put it on a tray on my dresser,not in the car.
Where were you when you started to actually write the poem? And please describe the place in great detail. One afternoon, here in our new home in North Carolina (we lived in VA when Joey died) I saw the cap and I was overcome by one of those waves of sadness that pop up unexpectedly for anyone who has suffered a similar loss–out of nowhere it came, prompted by that bottle cap. I picked it up, handled it, trying to feel or our son through the metal cap–even smelling, or imagining I did, the sassafras scent of the craft root beer.
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?) Much of the work was done on computer–no rough drafts to show you, but I can tell you that for this poem, part of the process was finding that sweet spot between stating my sorrow and finding comfort in having rescued and kept this tiny talisman of Joe’s love for craft root beer. The first drafts stuck slavishly to the details and was way too long.
Copyright by Joan Leotta
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 have specifics, but I can tell you that less is more for me and I knew I needed to compress the action and find a snappier way to express the feeling I have about keeping it–that Joe rides with me, whether or not in real life the cap is in my current car (I’m afraid of losing it) or only mentally rides in my car cup holder and is literally still on my dresser. Poetry can take liberties, I think.
Credit and Copyright by Joan Leotta
What do you want readers of this poem to take from this poem? I want readers to know how much I value my son, and for their sake and mine, how much a small momento can bring us a feeling of closeness with our beloved dead. I try to strike a positive note at the end, that I know that Joe is with me–and that is what I believe, that we are never truly separated from our loved ones, even by death, as long as we hold them in our hearts.
Which part of the poem was the most emotional of you to write and why? all of it–describing the finding of the bottle cap since that was absolute–was the hardest. I felt the heat of the car as I was cleaning it out, my tears when I came across the cap and how I gasped for breath and had to stop a moment and sit down. How I sat in the driver’s seat, where Joe spent so many happy hours)put my head on the steering wheel and cried.
Has this poem been published before? And if so where? Snapdragon 2017 and Ponder Savant in 2020
https://www.snapdragonjournal.com/
Joan Leotta
Author, Story Performer
“Encouraging words through Pen and Performance”
Books in Print
Languid Lusciousness with Lemon, Finishing Line Press
Morning by Morning and Dancing Under the Moon, two free mini-chapbooks
https://www.origamipoems.com/poets/257-joan-leotta
Gifts of Nature, free chapbook
http://stanzaicstylings.blogspot.com/p/gifts-of-nature-twenty-poems-by-joan.html
https://joanleotta.blogspot.com/
https://www.facebook.com/joanleotta
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
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