#399 Backstory of the Poem “Offering For a Princess” from the poetry/flash collection THE COLOR OF DIRT by Giulio Magrini

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 written for my wife Barbara on her birthday 9/11/2002, one year after the 9/11/2001 terrorist attacks in New York City. She was watching television, as they revisited the explosions and crumbling Twin Towers 9/11/2001. I had been cooking her a dinner of my home-made pasta with pesto, with a glass of white wine. I was very proud of myself as I entered the living room and offered my smiling birthday wishes with a tray, which elicited weeping. I never considered that the dissonance and sadness of this act was alive and well on her birthday. Her day had been made into a recurring tragedy that would never stop in history. Her birthday had deteriorated to nothingness and a subject for historians or the grist for political infighting in a world of death. The day of her birth had become a black mark and political discussion, interrupted by drug company commercials. Her birthday trauma was covered by the media in splashes of patriotism. I was struck numb. I gently put the tray down and went upstairs to my typewriter, and wrote Offering for a Princess. The poem was written extemporaneously. I wrote it without pauses and there was no editing. I ALWAYS work on my poetry through drafts and edits. This was the first, and has so far been the only poem I wrote in this way. I firmly thought as I wrote, that this could not be a love poem, like some others written for Barbara. It needed to be a poem that exemplified life.

Where were you when you started to actually write the poem? And please describe the place in great detail. I was in my den at the time. It was a small room, with a chair and desk, surrounded by pictures of our families and pictures of our past. (BELOW)

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? Oddly enough the version today is the version I wrote in 2002. It is difficult for me to understand the process, as the impromptu nature of the poem was new at the time and has not happened since.

What do you want readers to take from this poem? I intended this to be a gift of the celebration of life to my wife. We have been together now for 57 years. I realize now (and through the insistence of others) that this is not only life-affirming, but love-affirming. I had always presented the poem at readings, stating that this was NOT a love poem. I was wrong.

Which part of the poem was the most emotional of you to write and why? Every word of the poem equally carries emotion with it. However, in performance the last stanza becomes most difficult for me to read without becoming very emotional.

Has this poem been published? And if so where? The only place this poem has been published is in my book of poetry and flash fiction, The Color of Dirt. (Word Association Press 2022)

Anything you would like to add? The book is available through Amazon and B & N, but I prefer to fill orders personally. giulio27@verizon.net