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’m not sure I recall the exact moment this poem took root, but I do know that this loving habit of my mother’s was something I always noted. And so I must have been sitting at my morning writing table with my cup of black coffee beside me, and that memory started to become lines in my notebook. . . It happened very fast. There was not a lot of revision to this poem.
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? The title originally was “Another Thing I Miss About My Mother” but I changed it to “her” so that the reader would come to the understanding as the poem progressed.
What do you want readers of this poem to take from this poem? That love and cherishing are so often found in the simplest of acts and repetitions. That these actions can sustain us through the most difficult of times and still be a source of love for us.
Which part of the poem was the most emotional of you to write and why? All of it. I felt the rush of the lines, and I felt almost a tangible sense of my mother there with me.
Has this poem been published? And if so where? This poem appears in my brand new book from Fernwood Press: Her Joy Becomes.
Click on the below link to purchase HER JOY BECOMES from Amazon
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