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?I wanted my second full-length poetry collection, Defying Extinction, to have a nature/animal theme. At the time I started working on it, I happened to come across extremely interesting articles on many endangered species, some of which overcame the risk of extinction. I amassed a file of these pieces, including endangered places, and found the poem practically wrote itself. As to a key edit for the final draft, I moved the description of cahows in Bermuda from the third to first stanza to kick off the poem.
Click on the link below to preorder purchase Defying Extinction (available on June 20, 2022)from Broadstone Books
https://www.broadstonebooks.com/shop/p/defying-extinction-poetry-by-amy-barone
Where were you when you started to actually write the poem? And please describe the place in great detail. I started to write the piece from my New York City apartment, perched on my sofa or at my computer on the big kitchen counter, and at my part time office job. It came together effortlessly.
Click on the below link to preorder Defying Extinction from Amazon.
What month and year did you start writing this poem? I started writing “Survivors” on September 11, 2018 and made major edits on October 8 and November 6, 2018.
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? In a rough draft of the poem, I had the line “Home to four-hundred-sixty residents” in describing Tangier Island, but rethought its significance and pulled it.
Click on the link below to read about Tangier Island
https://www.tangierisland-va.com/
What do you want readers of this poem to take from this poem? I’d like readers to think of themselves as survivors who can defy extinction through a mix of channels, i.e. by planting trees or writing poetry and prose. I’d also like readers to learn about animals and places that have defied extinction.
Which part of the poem was the most emotional of you to write and why? The last stanza was the most emotional part of the poem to write because the focus is on me. It highlights that I’m a nature lover with large stretches of time between serious relationships and who feels that time is speeding by as I work to defy extinction through writing and trying to make a difference in some way/s. I mention a 12th life because I’ve worked in many different professions—journalism, government, corporate world—and feel I’ve had more than nine lives.
Has this poem been published? And if so where? “Survivors” appeared in Sensitive Skin magazine during Poetry Month 2019 and in Northeast Narrative literary journal. The poem appears in my new poetry collection, Defying Extinction, from Broadstone Books, which will be released on June 30.
Click on below link to read “Survivors” from Sensitive Skin Magazine
Click on the below link to read “Survivors” from Northeast Narrative literary journal
Amy Barone’s new poetry collection, Defying Extinction, was published by Broadstone Books in 2022. New York Quarterly Books published her book, We Became Summer, in 2018. Her chapbook, Kamikaze Dance,was published by Finishing Line Press, which recognized her as a finalist in the publisher’s 2014 New Women’s Voices Chapbook Competition. Foothills Publishing released her first chapbook, Views from the Driveway, in 2008. Her poetry has appeared in Local Knowledge, Muddy River Poetry Review,New Verse News, Paterson Literary Review, Sensitive Skin and Standpoint (UK), among other publications and anthologies.
Barone spent five years as Italian correspondent in Milan for Women’s Wear Daily and Advertising Age. She is a former board member of the Italian American Writers Association where she co-organized and promoted their monthly readings in New York City. Barone participates at spoken-word events in New York City, New Jersey and Philadelphia. She belongs to the Poetry Society of America and the brevitas online poetry community that celebrates the short poem. A native of Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, Barone lives in New York City.
Amy Barone’s Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/amy.barone.98
Amy Barone’s Poets and Writers:
https://www.pw.org/content/amy_barone
Amy Barone’s Twitter:
Amy Barone’s YouTube Channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCd6vCdxovWAqy1fB7NUuuSQ?view_as=subscriber
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