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***This is the fortieth in
a never-ending series called BACKSTORY OF THE POEM where the Chris
Rice Cooper Blog (CRC) focuses on one specific poem and how the poet wrote
that specific poem. All BACKSTORY OF THE POEM links are at the end
of this piece.
#40 Backstory of the
Poems
“My Children Question Me About Poetry”
and
“Deathbed Dreams”
“Deathbed Dreams”
by Rita Quillen
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
wrote the poem “My Children Question Me About Poetry” sometime around 1985 or
’86 in response to a prompt from one of my major influences, east Tennessee
poet Jeff Daniel Marion. (with Rita right. Copyright permission granted by Rita Quillen for this CRC Blog Post Only) 
The instructions for the assignment were to write a series of logical
questions about something on the left side of the page, and then answer each
question to the right. The answers to the question were to be such that the
right side of the page could be read as a poem.
Here is that poem:
MY CHILDREN QUESTION ME ABOUT
POETRY
What are you making? A child who answers
How will you make it? Thoughtfully,
thoughtfully-
What will you use? A quickening
ingredient
Some
tears with fine gravel
Nighthawk’s
wings
The
stillness beyond memory
When will you finish? At dawn on the last
morning. (OCTOBER DUSK, Seven Buffaloes Press, 1987)
On the surface it makes no sense, in that
my grandmother had no compelling desire, as far as I knew, to return to the
community of her childhood or make any other such pilgrimage. But she did have
a very challenging life, in many ways, and at the end of her life struggled
with dementia and amputation among other things. I felt a sadness at her
passing that was not just the expected type of grief from loss we all feel at
such a time, but also a grief that her life couldn’t have been easier, happier,
less stressful.
DEATHBED DREAMS
(for Carrie Freeman 1904-1986)
In the willows and vines along the river
where white stone and heat glow
the fairest child of morning stands
her heart drumming like nighthawk’s wings.
Where white stone and heat glow
bees hover and die by the hundreds
her heart drumming like nighthawk’s wings,
the child who answers waits.
Bees hover and die by the hundreds
in the stillness just beyond memory
the child who answers waits
suffering in the heat and day drone.
In the stillness just beyond memory
the daughter of daughters feels the past
suffering in the heat and day drone
like a musty blanket of wish and wait.
The daughter of daughters feels the past
knowing the dawn of her very last morning
like a musty blanket of wish and wait
listening to winds, warnings, and foreign tongues.
Knowing the dawn of her last morning
down the long dark well of stopped time
listening to winds, warnings, and foreign tongues
in the willows and vines along the river.
This
experience taught me that I was very drawn to this type of call and response
and echoing quality. My years in church growing up merged with my writing to
find a commonality and a perspective that I had not previously thought
about. I did something new with my
writing and discovered a direction I wanted to explore more. A big part of the
challenge and the fun of writing poetry is the journey itself from the
conception to the execution of the idea of the poem, watching the sometimes
strange and unexpected path the work travels as it makes its way on to the
page. (Left: Rita Quillen. Copyright permission granted by Rita Quillen for this CRC Blog Post only)
Where were you when you started to actually write the poems? And please describe the place in great detail. I wrote the initial draft of the poem – the
list of questions and answers – at the Hindman Settlement School (https://www.hindmansettlement.org/) in Hindman KY where the annual
Appalachian Writer’s Workshop is held every August. Specifically, sitting on the steps outside
the old library building on campus where most of the classes were held. It was an assignment due the next day for the
poetry workshop led by noted Appalachian poet Jeff Daniel Marion. (Right).
What month and year did you start writing these poems? I am not sure
of the year, but it should have been between 1985-87.
How many drafts of these poems did you write before going to the final?
(And can you share a photograph of your rough drafts with pen markings on
it?) SORRY – just can’t remember – and can not find the original. Ugh. I have most of them saved away, but
couldn’t find this one.
What do you want readers of these poems to take from this poems? I think, aside from the
obvious tribute to my grandmother (right. Copyright permission granted by Rita Quillen for this CRC Blog Post Only), to the acknowledgement of her life passing,
as a poet I hope people will note the lyrical language, the figurative elements
of it, and to appreciate how the repetition of the pantoum form holds the sound
and meaning so beautifully together. I
think modern poetry with its emphasis on free and blank verse sometimes misses
out on the advantages and strengths that form can bring to a work.
Which part of the poems was the most emotional of you to write and why?
All of it, really, thinking about my grandmother in
her final moments, imagining her, though I was not there, seeing all of us in
her final moments, in her mind’s eye, and all those who had gone before.
Have these poems been published before?
And if so where?
The poem was published in THE MOSSY CREED READER in about 1992, I
believe, and then appeared in my first full-length collection COUNTING THE
SUMS, from Sow’s Ear Press in 1995.
Contact Information: www.ritasimsquillen.com is my website. People can follow me
on Twitter @hillbillypoet and on Facebook. (Rita's web log photo right)
Rita
Quillen’s new full-length poetry collection, THE MAD FARMER’S WIFE, was
published in 2016 by Texas Review Press, a Texas A & M affiliation and was
a finalist for the prestigious Weatherford Award in Appalachian Literature from
Berea College. Her novel HIDING EZRA, released by Little Creek Books, was a
finalist for the 2005 DANA Awards, and a chapter of the novel is included in TALKING
APPALACHIAN , a scholarly study of Appalachian dialect published by the
University of Kentucky Press in 2014. One of six semi- finalists for the
2012-14 Poet Laureate of Virginia, she received a Pushcart nomination in 2012
and 2015, and a Best of the Net nomination in 2012. (Left: Rita Quillen. Copyright permission granted by Rita Quillen for this CRC Blog Post Only)
BACKSTORY OF THE POEM
LINKS
001 December 29, 2017
Margo
Berdeshevksy’s “12-24”
002 January 08, 2018
Alexis
Rhone Fancher’s “82 Miles From the Beach, We Order The Lobster At Clear Lake
Café”
003 January 12, 2018
Barbara
Crooker’s “Orange”
004 January 22, 2018
Sonia
Saikaley’s “Modern Matsushima”
005 January 29, 2018
Ellen
Foos’s “Side Yard”
006 February 03, 2018
Susan
Sundwall’s “The Ringmaster”
007 February 09, 2018
Leslea
Newman’s “That Night”
008 February 17, 2018
Alexis
Rhone Fancher “June Fairchild Isn’t Dead”
009 February 24, 2018
Charles
Clifford Brooks III “The Gift of the Year With Granny”
010 March 03, 2018
Scott
Thomas Outlar’s “The Natural Reflection of Your Palms”
011 March 10, 2018
Anya
Francesca Jenkins’s “After Diane Beatty’s Photograph “History Abandoned”
012 March 17, 2018
Angela
Narciso Torres’s “What I Learned This Week”
013 March 24, 2018
Jan
Steckel’s “Holiday On ICE”
014 March 31, 2018
Ibrahim
Honjo’s “Colors”
015 April 14, 2018
Marilyn
Kallett’s “Ode to Disappointment”
016 April 27, 2018
Beth
Copeland’s “Reliquary”
017 May 12, 2018
Marlon
L Fick’s “The Swallows of Barcelona”
018 May 25, 2018
Juliet
Cook’s “ARTERIAL DISCOMBOBULATION”
019 June 09, 2018
Alexis
Rhone Fancher’s “Stiletto Killer. . . A Surmise”
020 June 16, 2018
Charles
Rammelkamp’s “At Last I Can Start Suffering”
021 July 05, 2018
Marla
Shaw O’Neill’s “Wind Chimes”
022 July 13, 2018
Julia Gordon-Bramer’s
“Studying Ariel”
023 July 20, 2018
Bill Yarrow’s “Jesus
Zombie”
024 July 27, 2018
Telaina Eriksen’s “Brag
2016”
025 August 01, 2018
Seth Berg’s “It is only
Yourself that Bends – so Wake up!”
026 August 07, 2018
David Herrle’s “Devil In
the Details”
027 August 13, 2018
Gloria Mindock’s “Carmen
Polo, Lady Necklaces, 2017”
028 August 21, 2018
Connie Post’s “Two
Deaths”
029 August 30, 2018
Mary Harwell Sayler’s
“Faces in a Crowd”
030 September 16, 2018
Larry Jaffe’s “The
Risking Point”
031 September 24,
2018
Mark Lee Webb’s “After
We Drove”
032 October 04, 2018
Melissa Studdard’s
“Astral”
033 October 13, 2018
Robert Craven’s “I Have
A Bass Guitar Called Vanessa”
034 October 17, 2018
David Sullivan’s “Paper
Mache Peaches of Heaven”
035 October 23, 2018
Timothy Gager’s
“Sobriety”
036 October 30, 2018
Gary Glauber’s “The
Second Breakfast”
037 November 04, 2018
Heather Forbes-McKeon’s
“Melania’s Deaf Tone Jacket”
038 November 11, 2018
Andrena Zawinski’s
“Women of the Fields”
039 November 00, 2018
Gordon Hilger’s “Poe”
040 November 16, 2018
Rita Quillen’s “My
Children Question Me About Poetry” and “Deathbed Dreams”
https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/11/40-backstory-of-poems-my-children.html
https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/11/40-backstory-of-poems-my-children.html
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