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***This is the sixteenth 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.
Backstory
of the Poem
“Reliquary”
by
Beth Copeland
poetreeline@gmail.com
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? When my mother died five years ago, I inherited a cedar
chest my grandfather made for her. At the time, women were supposed to fill a
“hope chest” with linens and other household things they would need when they
married and set up housekeeping. I wanted to write a poem about the cedar chest
because it was a familiar object that I associated with my mother’s life. This
may sound morbid, but its shape reminded me of a coffin, and I thought about
how it contained—not her physical body—but a body of memories.
As I was
pondering all that, I recalled reading Fred Chappell’s poetry book Shadowbox. (Left)The book includes poems that are nested within poems. The reliquary poems
contain quotations from other poets; Chappell creates poems that are shrines to
honor the poets he quotes. I wanted to write a reliquary poem to honor my
mother.
My mother’s favorite poet was Emily Dickinson, (Right) so I looked for
passages from Dickinson's poems and found this one: “Hope is the thing with
feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tune without the words and
never stops at all.” That passage is embedded within my poem. You can find it
if you read vertically beginning with the word “hope” in the middle of the
first line. The second line has “the,” the third has “thing,” and so forth.
Each line of my poem includes a word from Dickinson’s poem.
Originally, I
italicized Dickinson’s words to highlight the passage that's enclosed within my
poem. Jamie Brown, (Left) my editor at The Broadkill River Press, suggested that I
remove the italics because the poem stands on its own without drawing attention
to the embedded portion. Without the italics, the Dickinson passage is still
there, but it’s hidden in the poem as a secret.
The poem is written as one
long stanza. Usually, I write in couplets or tercets, but I wanted the shape of
the poem to resemble its subject, the cedar chest.
Where
were you when you started to actually write the poem? And please describe
the place in great detail.
I started writing the poem at my home, a log cabin in rural North
Carolina. I draft poems slowly, and this poem took longer than most because of
its challenging structure. I had to put it aside for a while to take care of
teaching demands. In the summer, I spent a week as writer in residence at
Weymouth Center for the Arts and Humanities, a beautiful mansion in Southern
Pines, North Carolina, surrounded by gardens, a koi pond, and long leaf pines.
I stayed in a cozy blue room where I sat at an antique desk and finished the
poem.
What
month and year did you start writing this poem? I don’t remember. I’m often working on several different
poems simultaneously. (Right Beth Copeland at Weymouth Gardens. Copyright granted by Beth Copeland)
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?) I don’t keep records of how many drafts I write. First, I
write on paper, sometimes on the backs of envelopes and other scraps of paper
if I’m on the run. Once I have a working draft on paper, I type it on my laptop
and continue making revisions. I throw away my drafts. If I didn’t, I’d be
buried in paper! (Above
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’m sure there were, but I don’t recall them.
What
do you want readers of this poem to take from this poem?
I want people to know that love remains
even after our loved ones die. (Right: Beth Copeland in March of 2016. Copyright granted by Beth Copeland.)
Which
part of the poem was the most emotional of you to write and why? At the beginning of the poem, I describe the cedar chest and its
contents and imagine my mother daydreaming about the man she will eventually
marry, my father. The most emotional lines are when I list what I’ve lost: I
will live without her scent, her / lips on my cheek, the hesitant catch of her
voice….” (Left: Beth Copeland's parents on their wedding day. Copyright granted by Beth Copeland.)
Has
this poem been published before? And if so where?
Yes, it was first published in Kakalak
2017, an annual publication featuring the work of poets from North and
South Carolina. It’s also included in my new book Blue Honey, which received the 2017 Dogfish Head Poetry
Prize and was published by the Broadkill River Press. 
Anything
you would like to add? Thank you for inviting me to
participate!
Reliquary
Her
father made a cedar hope chest for her trousseau.
Battered,
scarred, now it is mine, a box to hold crazy
quilts,
doilies, duvets, the tablecloth
Great-Aunt
Gertrude
crocheted—a thing too fancy for everyday:
pillowcases
dotted with French knots, lazy
daisies,
appliqués, and featherstitching on white
cotton,
linen hand towels that say HIS or
HERS.
A
removable shelf perches on the rim, a tray
where
she kept buttons in brown paper bags, pins,
needles,
& thread to fix the fraying satin borders of
blankets.
Do her soul and girlish dreams of
that
tall man she’d meet and marry still float
on
wind as a waxwing sings from the cedar’s
branch?
When I open the lid, fragrance of old
wood
is like a lost tune I can’t remember the
words
to. I will live without her scent, her
lips
on my cheek, the hesitant catch of her voice
when
she can’t recall words and I fill them in as if
we’re
identical twins and I’m finishing her sentences.
A
mother’s love never vanishes, fixed as
the
North Star with no stops in a midnight sky.
Long
ago, she gazed at the burled, aromatic
grain
and vowed to keep all that survived its flames.
Beth Copeland (Right: Beth Copeland in December of 2017) is the author of three
full-length poetry books: Blue Honey, recipient of the 2017 Dogfish Head
Poetry Prize (The Broadkill River Press 2017); Transcendental Telemarketer (BlazeVOX
books 2012); and Traveling through Glass, recipient of the 1999 Bright
Hill Press Poetry Book Award (Bright Hill Press 2000). Her poems have been
published in numerous literary magazines and anthologies and have been
featured on international poetry websites. She has been profiled as poet of the
week on the PBS NewsHour website. Beth teaches creative writing at St. Andrews
University. 
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 Kallet’s “Ode to
Disappointment”
016 April 27, 2018
Beth
Copeland’s “Reliquary”
https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/04/16-backstory-of-poem-reliquary-by-beth.html
https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/04/16-backstory-of-poem-reliquary-by-beth.html
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”
https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/06/19-backstory-of-poem-stiletto-killer.html
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”
025 August 01, 2018
Seth Berg’s (It is only
Yourself that Bends – so Wake up!”
https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/08/25-backstory-of-poem-it-is-only.html
026 August 07, 2018
David Herrle’s “Devil In
the Details”
