Where were you when you started to actually write the poem “Subdural Hematoma”? And please describe the place in great detail. I was in Cleveland Clinic’s neuro surgical waiting room during my oldest child’s emergency brain surgery. It featured bland institutional furniture, tables scattered with wrinkled magazines, and a closed door we all watched in hopes someone might arrive with updates. People around us ate fast food, put puzzles together, talked on the phone. I sat with several family members. We chatted quietly, none of us betraying our terror. I didn’t write anything down then, but the poem began to form in my mind as I silently held myself together by recalling miraculous recovery stories I’d read over the years.
What month and year did you start writing this poem? May 2016
How many drafts of this poem did you write before going to the final? (And can you share a photograph of your rough drafts with pen markings on it?) The original was a much longer poem, but I very quickly saw how to cut it down to the core. I don’t keep drafts once a poem is published. Most of my rough draft corrections feature strikeouts and frustrated notes to myself like “What are you trying to say here?” and “Yeesh,” and “Find some fricking nuance!”
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 don’t have any rough drafts to share, but know I deleted words and phrases that told the reader how to feel. I always worry that final versions do this too
What do you want readers of this poem to take from this poem? I want them to feel it. What they feel is up to them.
Which part of the poem was the most emotional of you to write and why? There’s a stanza that begins “I want to….” and continues with repeated uses of the word “before.” This stanza is the hardest for me to get through in public readings. My voice wavers and I feel as I did while writing it. I sometimes think I ended up on the wrong planet because I simply don’t get this linear time thing. Reversible time, especially in a crisis, makes more sense. I’m guessing other planets offer greater flexibility on this time thing.
Has this poem been published before? And if so where? It was important to me to have this piece appear in a medical journal. (I asked for my son’s permission before submitting it.) The only place I submitted it was Neurology: Journal of the American Academy of Neurology
https://n.neurology.org/content/neurology/90/18/855.full.pdf
For this journal, a poet must answer the same questions researchers are asked, such as who is funding them and whether they’ve been paid to testify as expert witnesses. Here’s my disclosure form summary:
It was a long process, but editors accepted the poem. I’ve had four books published, but the day this journal issue was released was one of the most meaningful in my writing life. It felt like a completion of sorts, a way of coming around the other side of a crisis to gratitude. I dedicated this poem to my son’s neurosurgeon. It didn’t matter, really, if the doctor ever knew about the poem but when my son went for one of his follow-up appointments the surgeon asked if his mother was a poet. He had read it!
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/staff/19891-gandhivarma-subramaniam
Appears in the collection, Portals (Middle Creek, 2021)
https://www.middlecreekpublishing.com/portals
The Incredible Teenage Girl Who Survived a 10,000 Foot Plane Crash Freefall
https://www.thevintagenews.com/2018/06/25/juliane-koepcke/
Laura Grace Weldon works as an editor and leads workshops on memoir, poetry, and creative thinking. She’s the author of four books. The poetry collections Portals (Middle Creek, 2021), Blackbird(Grayson Books, 2019), and Tending (Aldrich, 2013), along with a handbook of natural education titled Free Range Learning (Hohm Press, 2010). Laura was the 2019 Ohio Poet of the Year. One of her favorite current gigs is serving as editor of Braided Way magazine. Laura’s background includes teaching nonviolence, writing collaborative poetry, with nursing home residents, facilitating support groups for abuse survivors, and writing sardonic greeting cards. She lives on a small Ohio Homestead where she and her husband host the occasional house concert.
All Backstory of the Poem LIVE 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
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