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***This is the thirty-ninth 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.
#39 Backstory of the Poem
“Poe” by Gordon Hilgers
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? First of all,
some background to the longish process in regard to how this poem came into
being: Many people today tend to both venerate and laugh about Edgar Allan Poe’s “The
Raven”. https://poestories.com/read/raven We
have many takes on the poem, some of them sincere, others ranging into parody
and even ridicule, and I am certain almost all who have been introduced to the
poem have musty and dark images in their minds of a poor, grieving man in his
study finding an almost physical manifestation of his grief mocking him from a
bookshelf.
But if we look into some of the poem’s symbols, we find all
sorts of concepts that point to everything from how love is blackened by death,
to how crows are attracted to shiny objects, even to the Native American
(homogenized version) of Spirit Crow drowning in a pond where his own image
shines—practically a warning against narcissism. Then there is the word, “rave”, hidden in the name of the
bird. Its etymology indicates that, to
our best understanding, that “rave” means to “wander”, to “rove”, particularly
in madness and delirium. See? The perfect bird for a man going mad with
grief. (Above Right: Edgar Allen Poe in 1845 the year he wrote "The Raven." Attributed to Samuel Stillman Osgood.)
I was grieving when I wrote the original draft of
the poem June, 2016. I wanted to speak
to what I then did not understand was grief, and as usual, I stumbled through a
first draft, much of which embodied multiple emotional confliction; you know,
this guy, slapping at goblins with too much time on his hands. (Left: Gordon Hilgers in June of 2015. Copyright permission granted by Gordon Hilgers for this CRC Blog Post Only)
At the time, I had no idea that all this crammed-down “stuff”
had much to do with an experience with real homelessness many years ago—the
paranoia, the fear, the insecurity, the sense of vulnerability, the feeling
people were trying to hurt me, alienation, the feeling of being dislikes. Only naturally, caught-up in all that, I had
no way to write a poem with any fairness to it.
That first draft was a little angry, and once done, I let it sit. And sit.
And then practically rot in a pile of other unsung drafts.
When inspiration isn’t forthcoming, I reach into that pile and get
cracking. I enjoy repairing old poems
from the position of more knowledge of what was with me when I first wrote
them. I have always written and revised
as such. I want those first stabs as
cold and forgotten as possible. In this
case, new knowledge (and a lot of psychotherapy) taught me all about what was
happening to so load my then-present life with outrageous static that the new
angle made for an easy reconnoiter with an old “friend”.
I’m not much for the now “pop” grief broadcasts I read in many poetry
magazines. It’s all like, “I fell down
and need to make a documentary about it” or something. So I went just a bit wry here, taking both
sincere and mocking stances along the lines of what friends and I used to joke
about in college: he went from bed to verse.
Back then, we were all expert philosophers, so intense as to embarrass
the sunlight, and quite rebellious about all of this, little Chairman Maos
partying all over people’s lives simply for the sake of a half-baked idea. (Right: Gordon Hilgers (front) during his college days. Copyright permission granted by Gordon Hilgers for this CRC Blog Post Only)
Where
were you when you started to actually write the poem? And please describe the place in great
detail. That was one of
the “triggers” of that backed-up PTSD to be honest. I’d recently moved to a neighborhood here in
Dallas that was all-too-similar to the nightmare of homelessness I desperately
needed to escape. The street life. Prostitutes.
Offers for good dope. Muggers. Loud rap music. Hopelessness everywhere. (Left: Attributed and permission granted by Gordon Hilgers for this CRC Blog Post Only)
I could not go outside this apartment here in
North Dallas without getting a full set of what I’d left behind. Who knows? Maybe situations occur for a reason,
right? What we make of what is left to
us makes all the difference in who we become.
In fact, I was sitting right here, in a one-bedroom apartment
lined with books and my CD collection, right next to a big window where I could
see pretty trees blooming all that summer long.
I play music when I write—that’s odd, right?—because the music relaxes
me and keeps me from locking-up. I
almost never am blocked anyway. At that
time, magical thinking—the idea that everything means “something” about what we
are confronting or think we are confronting, nothing but the everywhere noise
sometimes too much to bear—pervaded, tainted and tinted my ability to perceive
current events. Compounded with my sense
of being pitched backwards into scenes I’d left nearly 20 years before, and I
was like some Viet vet under the idea that the Cong were outside ready to kill
me. I was afraid, afraid and angry about
being afraid. (Left: Gordon Hilgers in his 20s. Copyright permission granted by Gordon Hilgers for this CRC Blog Post Only)
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?) Do I revise? Yes, I revise as I write a draft. I used to suffer paper with enough marks that
it was almost impossible to read the original.
No longer. I am lazy. I use my word processing program, and now I
simply erase the old, then save the outcome.
It’s my way of torturing my imaginary posterity. (Right Gordon Hilgers in November 2009. Copyright permission granted by Gordon Hilgers for this CRC Blog Post Only)
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? Here’s a partial two verses from the original draft. Actually pretty good for a beginning
here:
Somewhere in vast libraries everywhere is
put aside, gathering dust, love for the books, foolishly
put to use to warn the kids, some mast on which
to hang should oceanic waves
go restless, insatiable, recklessly wrought to wreck
the scene altogether.
Something in each at times wills
more laudanum for the mandatory Poe, soon to be a major motion picture, sex of the raven beforehand checked . . .
What
do you want readers of this poem to take from this poem? As far as what
I’d like readers to take from this poem, let me say first I know that readers
are going to be seeing only a partial view of an entire emotional-mental
constellation, and that what symbolism strikes me in a personal way is going to
strike each reader in a different way. I
hope they find this somewhat amusing, but also with a sense of suspicious
ominousness hidden in its many oddities and seemingly ungermane shifts,
fragmentary factions that seem wish to detract, etc. I like my readers to take as many liberties
as they want when they read a poem I have written. This is the magic of a poem. Its meaning and “sheen” is going to shift
through each reading. It’s like tarot
but not quite as weird. (Gordon Hilgers in July 2010. Copyright permission granted by Gordon Hilgers for this CRC Blog Post Only)
Which
part of the poem was the most emotional of you to write and why? You know, I did
get emotional while writing this final draft.
But none of that emotionality was pure in anyway. It’s all confliction again. Sometimes sarcastic, then angry, then almost
absurd, again laugh-worthy. (Left Gordon Hilgers June of 2009. Copyright permission granted by Gordon Hilgers for this CRC Blog Post Only)
Has
this poem been published before? If yes,
where? I have not published this poem before. This is a virgin. Can’t get any more brand new than that,
right?
POE
The
vagabond mistake lived embodied in a cat
which
gathered dust in a neighbor’s shady backyard
after
choking on crow bones. You proclaim Poe
to be
mandatory, soon to be a major motion picture,
some
lonely shut-in pining over what puzzled him
left
conversing to taxidermy with ghostly powers,
the
laudanum on the fritz. Some of us are
insatiable
as
Maoists who trip over hurdles, a Great Leap
which
wrecks the scene, broken circle emblemized
in the
letter C. Nihilistic trooper abandons
ardor
for
documentation, lionesses lining every dank gutter
in
Baltimore. I know I have slapped at the
spectral
when
reduced to magical thinking, yet some get all
the
grief and crowds as those open-faced pillagers
who
never were rapacious swat into their invisibility
with a
wet sock. I listened to that suffocating
cat
half-past
a mope, fugitive comfort, a gutted grouper.
I was born in Denver, Colorado, in ancient times. I actually remember the Cuban Missile Crisis
like it was yesterday. My father worked
at The Federal Center, a huge government complex just outside of Denver, and
when I’d ride along to pick him up from work, in the dusk, out of nowhere and
everywhere, jack rabbits. My dad called
them, “Josephine the rabbit” as if they were all one rabbit. This certainly kept my young eyes wide open. (Above Right: Gordon Hilgers in October 2010. Copyright permission granted by Gordon Hilgers for this CRC Blog Post Only:
Below middle: Entrance to The Federal Cente)
I saw and heard a big meteor in second grade,
and then in third grade, I was certain I’d found it. It was big, metallic, covered with sears and
bubbled-up rock. I drug it home with
massive effort, a whole three blocks and a long “meteor trail” of scratched
concrete followed me there. (Left: Williamette Meteorite in New York City in 1906. Attributed to American Museum of Natural History)
We moved to
Dallas just in time for the Kennedy assassination, and at home I witnessed
Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech when it was happening. One of my biggest inspirations into poetry
was The Moody Blues. I was at a
friend’s, and I remember placing the big headphones over my ears to hear
“Question”, and yes, I was set for life.
I’d had other experiences that inspired me in that direction such as an
encounter with a platinum blonde beatnik girl on Larimer Street in Denver, she
and her kitty glasses, black clam-diggers and snap-fingers as she stood on a
box and recited in her groove.
In
college, I managed (somehow) to score higher than 99 percent of all entering
students that year in verbal reasoning, and the government sent reps to offer
me a full scholarship to “work for the government”. I laughed at them. (Left Gordon Hilgers in 1978. Copyright permission granted by Gordon Hilgers for this CRC Blog Post Only)
In early adulthood, I had my first manic
attack as what turned out to be Bipolar Disorder ravaged me for years. I didn’t get adequate treatment until the
discovery of Prozac, but even so it has taken me years of learning how to deal
with what I call “the mung”. (Right: attributed and copyright granted by Gordon Hilgers for this CRC Blog Post Only)
I worked as
a journalist, as a researcher in a research library where the poetry was
(natch!), as an investigator, a paralegal, and as a lackey and a flunky. I’m happy I no longer work and can now devote
my time to my poetic pursuit and a few other hobbies. I wait breathlessly for the announcement of
my Nobel Prize. (Left Edgar Allen Poe)
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”
https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/11/39-backstory-of-poem-poe-by-gordon.html
