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***This is the fiftieth 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.
#50 Backstory of the Poem "For Gilberto Ramos, 15, Who Died in the Texas Desert, June 2014."
By Joseph Ross
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? In July of 2014, I was visiting
relatives in Southern California and spending a few vacation days in Palm
Springs. While there, I read an article about Gilberto Ramos (Above Right), a fifteen
year-old Guatemalan boy who recently 
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 recall that there were three or four drafts of this poem
but it came out initially in basically the same form it ended in. I made a few
changes to the initial draft, but, unusual for me, my first draft nearly became
the final draft, very few edits.
What do you want
readers of this poem to take from this poem?
I am struck by the
fear and anger at immigrants all over the world. Whether people are fleeing war
in Syria to get to Europe, or whether they are fleeing from Sub-Saharan Africa
trying to cross the Mediterranean, or whether they 
For Gilberto Ramos, 15, Who Died in the
Texas Desert, June 2014
By Joseph Ross
Before you
left, your mother
draped you
with 50 Hail Marys,
a rosary of
white wood,
a
constellation she hoped might
guide you. But
Texas does not
know these
prayers. It knows
that desert
air is thirsty
and you are
made of water.
It drank you
slowly. Your name
only linked
to your body by the string
of aves still around your neck,
the small
cross pressing against your
wooden skin,
the color of another cross.
You left
home on May 17
with one
change of clothes and two
countries
ahead of you, your brother's
phone number
hidden on the back
of your belt
buckle so the coyote
couldn't
find it. The coyotes pray
in the
language of extortion.
The phone
number was eventually
found by a
Texas official whose name
your brother
couldn't remember. She called
and spoke in
the language of bones. He translated
her news
into "pray for us, sinners,
now and at
the hour of our death."
His prayer
meant "brother," a word
he kept moist, just beneath his
tongue.
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”
049 December 15, 2018
Jennifer Martelli’s “Anniversary”
O50 December 19, 2018
Joseph Ross’s “For Gilberto Ramos, 15, Who Died in the Texas Desert, June 2014
https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/12/50-backstory-of-poem-for-gilberto-ramos.html
https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/12/50-backstory-of-poem-for-gilberto-ramos.html
