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***This is the forty-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. All BACKSTORY OF THE POEM links are at the end
of this piece.
(Title Photo of Frank Paino given copyright permission by Frank Paino for this CRC Blog Post Only)
#48 Backstory of the Poem
“Laika”
by Frank Paino
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 suppose the moment I first learned about Laika (Right. Public Domain),
who was the first dog to be launched into low earth orbit, I knew I’d write
about her one day. That being said, I
honestly don’t remember when I first read about her, so I can’t say how long it
was between that first encounter and the poem’s creation.
Where were you when you started to actually
write the poem? And please describe the place in great detail. I’d taken the day off work to try and write. It was a Friday and I was in my writing room,
which is a rather large space (14 x 12) on the second floor of my house. It’s carpeted (though I would much prefer
hardwood). It’s somewhat sparsely furnished with my desk and chair, a wingback
chair, bookcase, lamp table and large cabinet/dresser. Three walls are painted a
colour called “Sensational Sand” and there is an accent wall in “Reddened
Earth.” The room has two windows, one of
which is to my left and behind me as I sit at my desk. The other window is to my right as I sit at
my desk—it allows me to look out onto green space, tree branches, and a
neighbouring house a little distance off. (Below: Frank's office. Copyright permission granted by Frank Paino for this CRC Blog Post Only)
· I also have a framed, shadowboxed, flying lizard
from Indonesia and, next to him, a framed, shadowboxed, set of three beetles,
also from Indonesia
· I’ve got my framed diploma from Norwich University’s,Vermont College (where I earned my MFA in 1990) (Right)
· Draped on the side of the frame is the medal I was
given when I was awarded the Cleveland Arts Prize in Literature in 1994 (Right)
· Then there’s a wall niche with a reproduction of
Mucha’s sculpture, “Nature” (Below)
· Behind my desk is a large framed print of the Haserot
Angel (a famous bronze memorial sculpture by Herman Matzen at Cleveland’s Lake View Cemetery) (Below)
· I also have a set of Asian-themed wind chimes
· Next to that is a large, signed and framed print
of “Blind Narcissus” by the artist, Jeff Jones (Below)
· I also have a near life-size stuffed Rottweiler
named “Damien"
· On top of the dresser/armoire is a reproduction of
a 9th or 10th century sculpture of the Hindu goddess, Uma
· On top of my bookcase is a polystone reproduction
of a mourning Victorian angel cemetery sculpture (Below)
· On my bookcase itself is a white polystone Buddha
in a pose conveying protection and overcoming fear (Below)
· There’s also a skull in a shadowbox frame. I regard him as both my muse and a memento mori (below)
· Finally, I have two small pewter phoenix
birds. I think of the phoenix as a
personal totem/symbol that reminds me to be resilient and to never, ever
surrender
· On my lamp table is:
· A lamp (what a surprise) (Left)
· A figurative, aluminum horse sculpture my twin sister
gave me decades ago (Left)
· A box with a hedgehog design which was packaging
for a coffee mug my sister also gave me (Left)
·
On my desk is:
· A bronze sculpture by Heather Johnson Beary
(“Eternal Flame”)
http://hjohnsonbronze.com/ (Below)
· A tiny silver piece depicting a human figure in the
“child” yoga pose. This was given to me
by a dear friend
· A tiny bronze snail given to me by another friend (Below)
· Speakers
· A high-intensity light
· A snowman snow globe (below)
· A pin featuring the death mask of the unidentified
woman whose face was used as the model for the first CPR doll (given to me by a
dear friend)
· Last, but certainly not least, my 27” iMac
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 really can’t say how many drafts I wrote. Once I have a solid start, I move to working on my computer and I don’t keep track of versions but, rather, simply keep revising the one so that it transforms as I work.
As for lines I do know I had - most are too embarrassing to even admit to...but I'll humiliate myself by giving you one that is on the page I photographed: (Above Left) "In the pale wash of moonlight," which is so trite and cliched. Sheesh! But you can almost see most (all?) of the writing is bad - scattered, uninventive, lost - but searching! 
Revising is largely a very fun endeavor for me, though, after a few days of working on a single poem nearly non-stop, I can relate to a quote that is (perhaps apocryphally) attributed to Oscar Wilde (Right): "I spent all morning putting in a comma and all afternoon taking it out."
What do you want readers of this poem to take from this poem? For me, the question is more properly stated as what I hope a reader will take from the poem…that being said, here’s what I‘ll say about this question.
On a larger scale, I hope the poem encourages people to avoid
quick judgments and black-and-white answers, because neither is helpful.
Which part of the poem was the most emotional of you to write and why? That’s a difficult question because the entire story is so appalling and heartbreaking. But when I really stop to think about it, it would have to be:
Which part of the poem was the most emotional of you to write and why? That’s a difficult question because the entire story is so appalling and heartbreaking. But when I really stop to think about it, it would have to be:
…no way to make right
the
trust that was betrayed—
the
muzzle and mad tongue of it—
http://www.gettysburgreview.com/
Anything you would like to add? The most important person in my life is my twin sister, Gerrie. (Below) We have a bond that is magical, irrevocable and profound. Other than that, I have a handful of dear friends who give my life another dimension and richness I cherish.
Also, Thanks to Luke Hankins (http://lukehankins.net/),
editor extraordinaire and all-around great guy, my third book, Obscura, is forthcoming from Orison Books (https://orisonbooks.com/) in late 2019 or early 2020
Other than that, I simply want to thank you for inviting me to
share my work and be a part of your “Backstory of the Poem” Series.
Laika
(First dog to be launched into low earth
orbit.
Sputnik 2, 3 November, 1957)
Laika was quiet and charming...I wanted to do
something nice for her: She had so little time left to
live."
live."
-Dr. Vladimir Yazdovsky
Because
she’d gone unbroken
by
three years on Moscow’s barren streets
she'd
proved her will to survive simply
by
surviving and so was chosen
for
a kind of brute salvation, a halfway gift
whose
bad conclusion was already written
in a
lack of funds and time and the keen
knowing
there’d be no way to bring her back.
And
so began fierce weeks of acclimation:
each
cage smaller than the last
to
accustom her to stricture tight as
an
overnight case,
the
relentless gyre of the centrifuge
to
mimic the weight of ascent,
and
crude machines to simulate
the
cacophonous dirge of ignition,
shrieking
metal, everything it would take
to
lift a thirteen-pound mongrel into history.
He
called her “Little Curly,”
“Little
Bug.” As if naming the doomed,
taking
her home one night to play
with
his two bright-eyed daughters,
could
make the great burden of her
approaching
death a lighter thing
to
bend beneath when it came time to
tighten
the harness just once again and
no
more, to hold her in waiting
while
the riddle of malfunction
was
worked through its three-day resolution
and
she watched from within that
aluminum
tomb where she could stand
or
lie but never turn and late October’s chill
settled
its silver pall around her.
Three
days and, finally, lift off—
then
three anxious hours back on Earth
before
they saw her heart’s green tracery
slow
again to nearly-calm
while
the unshed core quietly kindled
its
black wick inside the polished dome.
Listen,
there is no other way to tell a thing
that
has no mercy in it:
she
burned up from the inside.
Fevered. Frantic.
Blood-boiled.
Six-hundred
miles between herself and
solid
ground.
And
there’s no faith to be placed
in
the weary myth of sacrifice;
no
way to make right
the
trust that was betrayed—
the
muzzle and mad tongue of it—
how
she was thrust into weightlessness,
into
the useless memory of steady hands,
of
the man who spoke softly, who turned,
at
last, from the wild extravagance
of
the round and riveted window
about
which he’d been so adamant,
as
if she might somehow savor
the
breathless view, the spinning blue
that
beckoned like a ball tossed into a street
she
could only return to in flames.
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”
041 November 20, 2018
Jonathan Kevin Rice’s
“Dog Sitting”
042 November 22, 2018
Haroldo Barbosa Filho’s
“Mountain”
043 November 27, 2018
Megan Merchant’s “Grief
Flowers”
044 November 30, 2018
Jonathan P Taylor’s
“This poem is too neat”
045 December 03, 2018
Ian Haight’s “Sungmyo
for our Dead Father-in-Law”
046 December 06, 2018
Nancy Dafoe’s “Poem in
the Throat”
047 December 11, 2018
Jeffrey Pearson’s
“Memorial Day”
048 December 14, 2018
Frank Paino’s “Laika”
https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/12/48-backstory-of
Frank Paino’s “Laika”
https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/12/48-backstory-of
