Chris Rice Cooper
*The images in this specific piece are granted copyright
privilege by: Public Domain, CCSAL, GNU Free Documentation Licenses, Fair
Use Under The United States Copyright Law, or given copyright privilege by the
copyright holder which is identified beneath the individual photo.
**Some of the links will have to be copied and then posted in
your search engine in order to pull up properly
Chris Rice Cooper’s Scripted Interview with Alexis Rhone Fancher
Enter
Here “For Lynnie in the Dark”
In May of 2017 KYSO Flash Press
published Enter Here by Alexis Rhone Fancher http://www.alexisrhonefancher.com with
cover design by Clare MacQueen https://www.facebook.com/clare.macqueen in
collaboration with Alexis Rhone Fancher https://www.facebook.com/alexis.fancher.
In this scripted interview Fancher talks
about her experience of writing the poem “For Lynnie in the Dark” which is one
of the many elegy poems in her poetry collection Enter Here.
1.
Can
you go into great detail about the writing of “For Lynnie in the Dark” from the
moment the idea was first conceived in your brain until final form on the page? –
2.
Where
were you when you learned that Lynn Cutolo had been murdered?
I’d gone to lunch with a friend. When I
returned, there was an urgent email on my computer, from Marilyn, Lynn’s best
friend since elementary school. The subject line said: “Call Me Now! Something
Terrible Has Happened To Lynnie.” My mind went crazy. I imagined a horrible car
crash, an armed robbery at a gas station, a freak accident on a plane. Never in
a million years did I imagine she had been murdered. It was unthinkable. Above Right: Home in Daper, Utah where Lynn Cutolo was murdered.
3.
Did
you know Lynn personally? If so can you
describe your friendship with her?
4.
Can
you describe the physical form of the poem?
“For Lynnie in the Dark” is written in sixteen,
3-line stanzas, and one, stand alone line at the end. It didn’t start off that
way, but resolved itself into that form. It made the most sense to me that way.
5.
Where
were you when you wrote the poem? Can
you describe the environment you inhabited when you wrote the poem?
6.
I
am a bit confused – I remember when Ted Bundy was executed that Friday in
January of 1989 in Florida. (I stayed up all night that Thursday well into
Friday watching the news reports.) And that Daniel murdered his wife Lynn in
Draper, Utah in 2007. I took it that in
your eighth stanza the last line “He Heard Ted Bundy was imprisoned nearby”
suggests Ted Bundy was living when they moved to Utah?
7.
Enter
Here
has been described as literary erotic book but I liked to describe it as
psychological poetry. I especially
thought the elegies to individuals both living and dead were compelling. How would you describe Enter Here? How would you like your readers to describe Enter
Here?
8.
Can
you share with me some factual/ backstory about the poem?
9.
Anything
you would like to add?
I wrote “For Lynnie in the Dark” to honor Lynn.
She was a shining star, gone far too soon. I miss her. I took this photo of Lynn Cutolo on Sept. 1st,
2007. She died a little over a month later.
For Lynnie in the Dark
She married him in
Vegas.
She’d already paid
for the chapel.
She did it to
please her dying mom.
She fingered his
photo in her pocket.
He gave her his
adored mom’s ruby ring.
She didn’t know
what synthetic meant.
She walked down the
aisle in a panic.
He didn’t tell her
he’d always been an orphan.
She had forgotten
her bouquet.
He liked aimless
drives in the desert.
He liked how she
mated his socks.
He kissed her
senseless.
Their bedroom was
an illusion.
He stepped into his
pants like a fireman.
He was in cahoots
with the Lord.
She had an Italian
complexion.
She’d recenlty lost
her keys.
He had exceptional
footwork.
She sold her condo near
the beach.
She sold her Santa
Fe-style furniture.
He allowed her to
take both cats.
He paid for
everything on her Visa.
He moved her to a
small town in Utah.
He heard Ted Bundy
was imprisoned nearby.
She got knee-deep
into religion .
She got her real
estate license.
He got a pink slip
on Friday.
He blamed it on her and the meds.
He dreamed of red
meat and hawks, circling.
She made more money
than God.
She danced ino his
head like a migraine.
He had his second
stepfather’s temper.
She called Dial-A-Prayer,
then hung up.
He followed the tele-novellas.
He was headed for a
cliff when the car stalled.
She put Revlon
concealer on her bruises.
He fell off the
couch.
She was in L.A.
when it hit her.
She opened a secret
bank account and drove back to Utah.
He shot her the first
time in the leg.
She didn’t move.
He watched her not
moving.
She remembered she
forgot to feed the cats.
She curled up.
She squeezed her
eyes shut.
He squeezed the
trigger.
He squeezed it
again.
She knew her
dancing days were done.
He shot himself in
the head.
--for
Lynn Cutolo, murdered on October 3, 2007.
RIP
No comments:
Post a Comment