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? It was a pretty straightforward writing process. Although I wrote a lot during a visit to Japan (in residence as a writer at Kura Studio in Itoshima) there are experiences that I still wanted to describe. Itoshima, near the city of Fukuoka, was right across from Korea. My daughter and I had also visited Seoul when she was a child and I was enjoying Korean food and some visiting Korean artists. But we also felt the proximity to North Korean missiles (something I continue to feel). Maybe covid reminded me of that sense of dread. I drafted the poem loosely and then just smoothed it out. The end was unexpected—it surface spontaneously during the writing process.
Where were you when you started to actually write the poem? And please describe the place in great detail. I was in my “nest” at home. A futon covered by a beautiful pale colored Algerian rug. Lots of throw pillows. It’s like writing in bed, which I enjoy. Yes, I have a hundred square foot studio out in my back yard that is mostly writing desk, but I’ve commandeered the spare room. It’s warmer in winter, but mostly I just am drawn to the feeling of relaxation it gives me.
What month and year did you start writing this poem? March, 2020. I’m surprised I know that, as I’m not super organized. But I do keep a list! The experience in the poem was about two years previous.
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? Not really. I cut very little—just some unneeded supporting words. I pruned it down line by line but cut no more than 10% of fluff.
What do you want readers of this poem to take from this poem? I’d like readers to experience how complex perception really is. “Good” and “bad” things are happening at the same time. They have metaphoric connection, but also a bit of the random. Beauty and fear, inner and outer worlds, the surprising and the mundane…these things co-exist and inform each other.
Which part of the poem was the most emotional of you to write and why? The part about my daughter wanting to get pregnant was the most emotional. For many women that longing is intense, and sometimes hard to realize. Plus it was an observed—not a direct—experience. However, as her daughter is now 3 years old I felt it was ok to keep that part in. The last part of the poem—my own confession—is also vulnerable. Visiting the shrines was an experience of open-heartedness—I wanted to communicate that.
Has this poem been published? And if so where? It just appeared in my newest book, START AGAIN, from Red Mountain Press, 2022.
https://www.spdbooks.org/Products/9781952204241/start-again.aspx
Miriam Sagan is the author of over thirty books of poetry, fiction, and memoir. Her most recent include BLUEBEARD’S CASTLE (Red Mountain, 2019), A HUNDRED CUPS OF COFFEE (Tres Chicas Books, 2019), BEASTS (Red Mountain, 2020), and SHADOW ON THE MINOTAUR (Red Mountain Press, 2021). She is a two-time winner of the New Mexico/Arizona Book Awards as well as a recipient of the City of Santa Fe Mayor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts and a New Mexico Literary Arts Gratitude Award. She has been a writer in residence in four national parks, Yaddo, MacDowell, Gullkistan in Iceland, Kura Studio in Japan, and a dozen more remote and interesting places. She works with text and sculptural installation as part of the creative team Maternal Mitochondria in venues ranging from RV Parks to galleries. She founded and directed the creative writing program at Santa Fe Community College until her retirement. Her poetry was set to music for the Santa Fe Women’s Chorus, incised on stoneware for a haiku pathway, and projected as video inside an abandoned grain silo in rural Itoshima.
Most of the INSIDE THE EMOTION OF FICTION links can be found at the very end of the below feature: http://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2021/03/stephenson-holts-arranged-marriage-is.html