Can you go through the step-by-step process of writing these poems from the moment the idea was first conceived in your brain until final form? Probably around 1996 an opportunity (which fell through) arose that might have had us move to Eugene, Oregon. That possibility sparked a poem about driving through Portland, OR, and got me to thinking that I should write about the time I lived in the Pacific Northwest in the 1970s. I liked the idea of writing a sequence of poems about this period of my life, so over the next few years I worked on and off on these poems, which finally became my chapbook Northport, published in 2010 by Finishing Line Press. “Clear Cut” and “Potato Farming Near George, Washington, 1975” are two of the poems that came out of this endeavor. Bothe were published in the chapbook.
Where were you when you started to actually write the poems? And please describe the place in great detail. We had a screen-in porch in the apartment we were renting at the time, and I would often sit out there to write. Otherwise, I would write inside. I did not have a specific writing place other than this porch, and that I could only use when the weather was good. I had an old folding card table out there, and the lot faced east.
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 am including early drafts as well as the finished poems with this email as attachments. “Clear Cut” was initially named “Worley, Idaho, 1974,” and when I wrote it I broke it into eight-line stanzas with a two-line coda at the end.
“Potato Farming” was originally called “Harvest” and in its earlier drafts was written in syllabics or near syllabics of six syllables per line.
Behind these poems are hints of the “out west” narrative poems of Kenneth Rexroth; at the time I was teaching a class on Rexroth’s life in Chicago in the 1920s, so his work imbued my consciousness somewhat during that period.
Click on the link below to read about Kenneth Rexroth and his life
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Rexroth
Anyway, the process of writing for me often involves disorganizing original schemes, so neither poem survived its original formal conceptions. “Worley, Idaho” reshaped itself into “Clear Cut.” With “Harvest” I got some suggestions from one of the editors of Rhino, probably Helen Degen Cohen, who like the poem but suggested revisions. I followed her suggestions, and the poem ended up in Rhino.
Click on link below to visit Rhino’s website
Click on the link below to read Helen Degen Cohen’s biography
https://www.pw.org/directory/writers/helen_degen_cohen
What do you want readers of this poem to take from this poem? Mostly I want readers to have a sense of the life and the times. Also, I want them to think about how life illuminates itself, and how our actions are damaging or even destroying this beautiful planet we live on.
Which part of the poem was the most emotional of you to write and why? In “Clear Cut” one rhyme echo I always liked was the play on sounds in “chaw stains” … “big saw,” with the missing “chain” of “chain saw” lingering in the background.
Has this poem been published? And if so where?
“Clear Cut” appeared in Art and Academe. “Potato Farming” appeared in Rhino. Both poems are included in my chapbook Northport, published by Finishing Line Press.
https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/northport-by-allan-johnston/
Originally from southern California, Allan Johnston earned his M.A. in Creative Writing and his Ph.D. in English from the University of California, Davis. His poems have appeared in over sixty journals, including Poetry, Poetry East, Rattle, and Rhino. He has published three full-length poetry collections (Tasks of Survival, 1996; In a Window, 2018; Sable and Selected Poems, forthcoming) and three chapbooks (Northport, 2010; Departures, 2013; Contingencies, 2015), and received an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship, Pushcart Prize nomination (2009 and 2016), and First Prize in Poetry in the Outrider Press Literary Anthology competition (2010), as well as placing as a finalist or honorable mention in competitions sponsored by New Letters, Roberts Writing Awards, and Salute to the Arts, among others. His translations and co-translations of poems from the French and German have appeared in Ezra, Metamorphosis, and Transference. He teaches writing and literature at Columbia College and DePaul University in Chicago. He reads or has read for Word River, r.kv.r.y, and the Illinois Emerging Poets competition, and is co-editor of JPSE: Journal for the Philosophical Study of Education. His scholarly articles have appeared in Twentieth Century Literature, College Literature, and several other journals.