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***This is the eighth 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.
Backstory of the Poem
“June Fairchild Isn’t Dead”
“June Fairchild Isn’t Dead”
by Alexis
Rhone Fancher
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 met June Fairchild less than a year before she
died on Feb. 17th, 2015. My husband and I, then living in downtown Los Angeles,
were at lunch. We were seated next to June at the Nickel Diner, the iconic DTLA
eatery on Main St.
I picked up my phone
to check my messages - a photo I’d shot of my husband was the screen saver.
June saw it, and struck up a conversation. She needed headshots, she said. She
was “making a comeback.”
At first I had no idea
who she was, although of course I’d seen “Up In Smoke,” back in the day. The
down and out woman sitting next to me bore no resemblance to the sparkling girl
on the screen. It was only when Kristen, the
Before we left the
diner, June asked me for my card. She wanted to hire me to shoot her new
headshots. When I couldn’t find one, I told June if she gave me her phone
number, I would give her a call. She wrote it down in red pen on a napkin, and
told me to call her “in a month or so,” when she “had it more together.”
Where were
you when you started to actually write the poem? And please describe the
place in great detail. I began the poem where I begin (and end) almost all my poems, at my
desktop Mac computer, in my studio workspace. Big desk. Big computer. Big
screen. My workspace is ordered but to the casual eye, it looks rather chaotic.
Stacks of unread books, copious post-it notes. The ever-present gardenia
candle. Plenty of French Roast coffee.
What month
and year did you start writing this poem?
Howmany 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?) I began writing “June Fairchild Isn’t Dead” on
April 22nd of 2015. “June Fairchild
Isn’t Dead” went through 6 separate drafts, as well as several pages of notes
and research. I write only on the computer, so there are no drafts with pen
markings. The final poem was completed on July 20th, 2015.
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? “June Fairchild isn’t really dead, she is asking a
psychic if she’ll have a kid, a come-back.”
“June Fairchild isn’t
really dead, she’s being raped inside her cardboard box on 5th and Wall.”
“June Fairchild isn’t
really dead, she’s mugging again, her ravaged face an Ajax-snorting grin.”
“June Fairchild isn’t
really dead, she’s sitting by the phone, waiting for me to call her.
And I will. I will.”
What do
you want readers of this poem to take from this poem? Compassion. We see homeless, defeated people on the street, and give them
wide berth. Cross the street to avoid them. We forget that each of them has a
story to tell, that each of them, was once some mother’s child.
Which part
of the poem was the most emotional of you to write and why? June Fairchild asked me to call her but I never did. I kept that napkin
pinned to my bulletin board, a reminder. But I didn’t call. I told myself a
homeless woman would have no need for headshots. I didn’t want to get involved
in her tragedy.
Has this
poem been published before? And if so where? It was first published in CLEAVER Magazine
in June of 2016.
It is also published
in my latest collection, ENTER HERE, (KYSO Flash Press, 2017).
It was also published
in SERVING HOUSE JOURNAL in 2017.
Anything
you would like to add? When I read this poem at Library Girl, here in
L.A., a woman came up afterward and told me that she had been a friend of
June’s, and that she thought June would have loved the poem, that it “told her
story with kindness.”
“June Fairchild Isn’t
Dead” is about seizing the moment. It’s about compassion. I often wonder what
would have happened if I had made that call…
JUNE FAIRCHILD ISN’T DEAD
she’s planning a comeback.
she’s snorting Ajax for the camera.
she’s landing a role on “I Spy.”
she’s writing her number on a napkin and
handing it to me at King Eddy’s Saloon.
June Fairchild isn’t dead
she’s just been voted Mardi Gras Girl at
Aviation High.
she’s acting in a movie with Roger
Vadim.
she’s gyrating at Gazarri’s, doing the
Watusi with Sam The Sham.
she’s mainlining heroin in a cardboard
box.
June Fairchild isn’t dead
I saw her tying one on at King Eddy’s
Saloon.
she’s making “Drive, He Said,” with Jack
Nicholson.
she’s selling the Daily News in front of
the courthouse.
she’s snorting Ajax for the camera.
June Fairchild isn’t dead
she’s relapsing in front of the
Alexandria Hotel.
she’s working as a taxi dancer, making
$200 a shift.
I saw her vamping with Hefner, frugging
on YouTube.
she’s naming Danny Hutton’s band 3 Dog
Night.
June Fairchild isn’t dead
she’s living at the Roslyn SRO on Main.
she’s giving up her daughter to her ex.
she’s snorting Ajax for the camera.
she’s planning a comeback, needs new
headshots.
June Fairchild isn’t dead
she’s Up In Smoke, getting clean.
she’s sitting by the phone.
she’s falling asleep in Laurel Canyon
with a lit cigarette in her hand,
waiting for me to call.
Alexis Rhone Fancher is the author of How I Lost My Virginity
To Michael Cohen and other heart stab poems, (2014), State of Grace: The
Joshua Elegies, (2015), Enter Here (2017), and Junkie Wife (March,
2018). Find Alexis’ work in Best American Poetry 2016, Rattle, Verse Daily,
Slipstream, Plume, Nashville Review, Diode, Glass, Tinderbox,
Hobart, Pirene’s Fountain, The MacGuffin, Anomaly, Public
Pool, Cleaver, Anti-Heroin Chic, and elsewhere. Her photos are published
worldwide, including the covers of Nerve Cowboy, Heyday, Witness, and The
Chiron Review. Since first submitting her poems for publication in late
2012, Alexis has been nominated multiple times for the Pushcart Prize and Best
of the Net. She is poetry editor of Cultural Weekly. She lives in Los
Angeles.
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”
https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/02/8-backstory-of-poem-june-fairchild-isnt.html
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”
https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/03/chris-ricecooper-caccoopaol.html
011 March 10, 2018
Arya F. Jenkins “After Diane Beatty’s Photograph, “History Abandoned" https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/03/11-backstory-of-poem-after-diane.html
Arya F. Jenkins “After Diane Beatty’s Photograph, “History Abandoned" https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/03/11-backstory-of-poem-after-diane.html
012 March 17, 2018
Angela Narciso Torres’s “What I Learned This Week”
https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/03/12-backstory-of-poem-series-angela.html
https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/03/12-backstory-of-poem-series-angela.html
013 March 24, 2018
Jan
Steckel’s “Holiday On ICE”
https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/03/13-backstory-of-poem-jan-steckels.html
014 March 31, 2018
Ibrahim
Honjo’s “Colors”
https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/03/14-backstory-of-poem-ibrahim-honjos.html
015 April 14, 2018
Marilyn
Kallett’s “Ode to Disappointment”
https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/04/15-backstory-of-poem-ode-to_14.html
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”
https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/05/18-backstory-of-poem-arterial.html
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”
https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/06/20-backstory-of-poem-at-least-i-can.html
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”
https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/07/23-backstory-of-poem-jesus-zombie-by.html
024 July 27, 2018
Telaina Eriksen’s “Brag
2016”
https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/07/24-backstory-of-poem-brag-2016-by.html
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”
