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***This is the fifty-seventh
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.
Bottom Left: Camille T Dungy in front of a Indie Bookstore with her poem "Nulipara" in the window. April 23, 2018. Copyright permission granted by Camille T Dungy for this CRC Blog Post Only.
#57 Backstory of the Poem
“Natural History”
by Camille T. Dungy
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? There is a lot of writing that happens for me in an
unarticulated way—that’s not written down as I work through the poem. That’s
where the leaps happen that take me to what I recognize as poetic thinking.
Something seems to change in the music of the language and the vividness of the
images in this progress, though I can’t always clearly articulate the precise
steps that get me through the changes.
The Rufus Hummingbird is a migratory bird (Below), and I started
thinking about the ways I understood my need to move, but also my need to
return to various places I call home. At one point in the production of the
poem that’s more of what I was focusing on, the question of migration. Somehow,
in this process, Mrs. Jeffers came into my mind. And then the poem took off and
I left most of that other stuff behind.
Winter had been especially
what it is expected to be
in those parts. A thick misery
of blizzards punctuated by
school closures. Unmitigated
melt turned upper campus
walkways
to spring beds.
I haven't lived there for
thirty
years now, but in the place I
grew
up we drove to snow then drove
back
home when we wanted. I think
this
means something about who I am
capable of becoming. Not
The Rufous hummingbird builds
her nest
of moss and spider webs and
lichen.
I held one once—smaller than my
palm
and sturdy in its fragility.
Stop
moving so much, an old woman
I knew back in Virginia told
me.
Why her words come to me, the
woman
dead for the better part of
this new
century, while I think of that
nest
of web and lichen, I cannot
say,
but she had known my mother's
parents.
I also thought that maybe, I am
more like the hummingbirds
who pass through my new
Colorado home town on their way
to and from the mountains than
I am like the woman
whose body I saw last year at
the British Museum.
When she died, they threw her
body in a pit and everything
liquid inside her leeched into
her native sand. She is always,
then, somewhere besides where
her body resides. I like it
right
here where I am, said the old woman I used to know
in Virginia.
The whole lot of them, even
then,
in their twenties, must already
have been old as God—that daily
election called between safety
and sanity too often tore
them down. The woman's husband
had been a laborer, what sort
I regret I don't remember.
He sat on their front porch all
day,
near his oxygen tank, waving
to the occasional passing
Buicks and Fords, praising the
black
walnut tree that shaded the
yard.
She left the porch sometimes to
cook.
Mostly, the Virginia breeze
passed
through the porch eaves and we
listened
to the swing chains. No one talked much
when I visited.
Natural History
The Rufous hummingbird builds her nest
of moss and spider webs and lichen.
I held one once—smaller than my palm,
but sturdy. I would have told Mrs. Jeffers,
from Court Street, if in those days of constant flights
between Virginia and the West I’d happened
on that particular museum. Any chance
I could, I’d leave my rented house in Lynchburg.
I hated the feeling of stuckness that old city’s humidity
implied. You need to stop running away so much,
Mrs. Jeffers would say when my visits were over
and I leaned down to hug her. Why her words
come to me, the woman dead for the better part
of this new century, while I think of that
nest of web and lichen, I cannot rightly say.
She had once known my mother’s parents.
The whole lot of them, even then, in their twenties,
must already have been as old as God. They were
black—the kind name for them in those days
would have been Negroes—and the daily elections
called for between their safety and their sanity
must have torn even the strongest of them down.
Mr. Jeffers had been a laborer. The sort, I regret,
I don’t remember. He sat on their front porch
all day, near his oxygen tank, waving occasionally
to passing Buicks and Fords, praising the black
walnut that shaded their yard. She would leave
the porch sometimes to prepare their meals.
I still have her yeast roll recipe. The best
I’ve ever tried. Mostly, though, the same Virginian
breeze that encouraged Thomas Jefferson’s
tomatoes passed warmly through their porch eaves
while we listened to the swing chains, and no one
talked or moved too much at all. Little had changed
in that house since 1952. I guess it’s no surprise
they’d come to mind when I think of that cup
of spider webs and moss, made softer by the feathers
of some long-gone bird. She used to say, I like it
right here where I am. In my little house. Here,
with him. I thought her small-minded. In the winter,
I didn’t visit very often. Their house was closed up
and overheated. Everything smelled of chemical
mothballs. She had plastic wrappers on the sofas
and chairs. Everyone must have once
held someone as old and small and precious as this.
of moss and spider webs and lichen.
I held one once—smaller than my palm,
but sturdy. I would have told Mrs. Jeffers,
from Court Street, if in those days of constant flights
between Virginia and the West I’d happened
on that particular museum. Any chance
I could, I’d leave my rented house in Lynchburg.
I hated the feeling of stuckness that old city’s humidity
implied. You need to stop running away so much,
Mrs. Jeffers would say when my visits were over
and I leaned down to hug her. Why her words
come to me, the woman dead for the better part
of this new century, while I think of that
nest of web and lichen, I cannot rightly say.
She had once known my mother’s parents.
The whole lot of them, even then, in their twenties,
must already have been as old as God. They were
black—the kind name for them in those days
would have been Negroes—and the daily elections
called for between their safety and their sanity
must have torn even the strongest of them down.
Mr. Jeffers had been a laborer. The sort, I regret,
I don’t remember. He sat on their front porch
all day, near his oxygen tank, waving occasionally
to passing Buicks and Fords, praising the black
walnut that shaded their yard. She would leave
the porch sometimes to prepare their meals.
I still have her yeast roll recipe. The best
I’ve ever tried. Mostly, though, the same Virginian
breeze that encouraged Thomas Jefferson’s
tomatoes passed warmly through their porch eaves
while we listened to the swing chains, and no one
talked or moved too much at all. Little had changed
in that house since 1952. I guess it’s no surprise
they’d come to mind when I think of that cup
of spider webs and moss, made softer by the feathers
of some long-gone bird. She used to say, I like it
right here where I am. In my little house. Here,
with him. I thought her small-minded. In the winter,
I didn’t visit very often. Their house was closed up
and overheated. Everything smelled of chemical
mothballs. She had plastic wrappers on the sofas
and chairs. Everyone must have once
held someone as old and small and precious as this.
www.camilledungy.com
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”
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”
051 December 23, 2018
“The Persistence of
Music”
by Anatoly Molotkov
052 December 27, 2018
“Under Surveillance”
by Michael Farry
053 December 28, 2018
“Grand Finale”
by Renuka Raghavan
054 December 29, 2018
“Aftermath”
by Gene Barry
055 January 2, 2019
“&”
by Larissa Shmailo
056 January 7, 2019
“The Seamstress:
by Len Kuntz
057 January 10, 2019
“Natural History”
by Camille T Dungy
