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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.
#84 Backstory of the Poem
“A Tune To Remember”
by Anna Evans
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 was in the process of creating a manuscript with the
design of examining my mother’s death through the lens of the Titanic disaster.
My mom was christened Rosemary but everyone called her Rosie. 
My primary research was to read “A Night to
Remember,” Walter Lord’s 1955 classic book about the sinking. I had made notes
of various stories that I wanted to write about in the book, which knits
together the accounts of many survivors.
I was particularly drawn to anything
that was unusual or went against the cliches we believe to be true. Everyone
knows that the band went down with the ship, and everyone THINKS they know that
the band was playing “Nearer My God to Thee.” However, survivors’ accounts
differ greatly. Some think that “Nearer My God to Thee” was the last tune they
heard; others named another tune, “Autumn,” (which became the working title of
my poem); and some said it was a song they’d never heard before. This
idea gave me the title, “A Tune to Remember,” which is ironic because people
DIDN’T really remember, and of course it plays off the title of Lord’s book. 
The poem is also the second in the book about the band. The first poem is
called “And the Band Was Playing Ragtime” and it’s a sonnet, so this one needed
to be a sonnet too, for symmetry. I don’t remember much about composing the
poem, because I tend to write them in a “sonnet trance.” I think it sprang
pretty much fully-formed from the keyboard.
Where were you when you started to
actually write the poem? And please describe the place in great detail.
I
was at one of my favorite places in the world, the Virginia Center for the
Creative Arts. Specifically, I was in my studio, which I loved, sitting at the
main desk.
One of the walls was covered with a cork board, and I had pinned
printouts of all the other poems in the manuscript to it in a rough order. I
could see the hole where this one would fit, next to “And the Band Was Playing
Ragtime.”
What month and year did you start
writing this poem? July 2016
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?) Maybe 2 max, and the second wouldn’t have been much different than the first.
Maybe a word or two. I type the poems,
so there’s nothing available to show the workings.
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? Nope. I probably added the epigraph, for clarification.
What do you want readers of this poem to
take from this poem? Two things. Firstly, that our
memories play tricks on us and that two people may remember the same event very
differently, particularly when it’s a traumatic event.
This was true of my
mother’s death also. When my father and I compared notes after, it was
disconcerting how many details we disagreed upon. Secondly, that once in
a lifetime events provoke unique and sometimes unreplicable responses.
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?) Maybe 2 max, and the second wouldn’t have been much different than the first.
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? Nope. I probably added the epigraph, for clarification.
What do you want readers of this poem to
take from this poem? Two things. Firstly, that our
memories play tricks on us and that two people may remember the same event very
differently, particularly when it’s a traumatic event. 
Which part of the poem was the most
emotional of you to write and why? The seventh line talks
about the “last song.” My mother’s illness and death was full of “lasts’ for
her and for me. The emotional power of that word “last” can be quite raw.
Has this poem been published before? And if so where? Yes! It’s been well-received. It was a finalist for the Howard Nemerov sonnet contest.
It was published in one of
the last issues of Measure http://www.measurepress.com/measure/
Then my book came out in April, and this was the poem from it that was picked up by Verse Daily.
A
Tune to Remember Has this poem been published before? And if so where? Yes! It’s been well-received. It was a finalist for the Howard Nemerov sonnet contest.
Then my book came out in April, and this was the poem from it that was picked up by Verse Daily.
The Legend is, of course, that the band went down
playing "Nearer My God to Thee."
— Walter Lord, A Night to Remember
Now that the boats have been lowered to the sea,
now that the lights have failed, and a deeper chill
sets in among those remaining, the melody
starts to sound frivolous in a night so still,
so full of portent. Song sheets lit by stars,
Hartley flips through, finds nothing with the power
to be the last song, the one listed in memoirs
by the exclusive survivors of this hour.
And so he plays—by instinct or by ear—
something that sounds a little like a hymn
that he doesn't quite recall. The bandsmen hear
and by some miracle they all join in,
a tune never played before or heard again—
that unique night's unnamable refrain.
Her new collection, Under Dark Waters: Surviving the Titanic, is out now from Able Muse Press, and her sonnet collection, Sisters & Courtesans, is available from White Violet Press.
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
058 January 11, 2019
“BLOCKADE”
by Brian Burmeister
059 January 12, 2019
“Lost”
by Clint Margrave
060 January 14, 2019
“Menopause”
by Pat Durmon
061 January 19, 2019
“Neptune’s Choir”
by Linda Imbler
062 January 22, 2019
“Views From the
Driveway”
by Amy Barone
063 January 25, 2019
“The heron leaves her
haunts in the marsh”
by Gail Wronsky
064 January 30, 2019
“Shiprock”
by Terry Lucas
065 February 02, 2019
“Summer 1970, The
University of Virginia Opens to Women in the Fall”
by Alarie Tennille
066 February 05, 2019
“At School They Learn
Nouns”
by Patrick Bizzaro
067 February 06, 2019
“I Must Not Breathe”
by Angela Jackson-Brown
068 February 11, 2019
“Lunch on City Island,
Early June”
by Christine Potter
069 February 12, 2019
“Singing”
by Andrew McFadyen-Ketchum
070 February 14, 2019
“Daily Commute”
by Christopher P. Locke
071 February 18, 2019
“How Silent The Trees”
by Wyn Cooper
072 February 20, 2019
“A New Psalm
of Montreal”
by Sheenagh Pugh
073 February 23, 2019
“Make Me A
Butterfly”
by Amy Barbera
074 February 26, 2019
“Anthem”
by Sandy Coomer
075 March 4, 2019
“Shape of a Violin”
by Kelly Powell
076 March 5, 2019
“Inward Oracle”
by J.P. Dancing Bear
077 March 7, 2019
“I Broke
My Bust Of Jesus”
by Susan Sundwall
078 March 9, 2019
“My Mother
at 19”
by John Guzlowski
079 March 10, 2019
“Paddling”
by Chera Hammons Miller
080 March 12, 2019
“Of Water
and Echo”
by Gillian Cummings
081 082
083 March 14, 2019
“Little
Political Sense” “Crossing Kansas with
Jim
Morrison” “The Land of Sky and Blue Waters”
by Dr. Lindsey
Martin-Bowen
084 March 15, 2019
“A Tune To
Remember”
by Anna Evans
by Anna Evans
