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***This is
the sixty-fourth 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.
“Shiprock”
by Terry Lucas
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?
The idea for “Shiprock” technically began while I
was a student at New Mexico State University taking a creative writing (poetry)
class under Keith Wilson. However, the poem had actually begun in my
subconscious as a nine-year-old boy in 1959. My family moved from southern
Illinois to northwestern New Mexico. I could see the actual peak of Shiprock
from my backyard, even though it was 35 miles away. It rose some 1600 feet above
the desert floor, tinged in the blue that affects all geological features in
the distance. This peak, however, had gotten its name in English because it
appeared to be a ship shrouded in fog, sailing across the high desert sands.
Also, one time my father borrowed his friend’s MGA, and drove my mother and I
across the desert (off-road) to the base of the rock. I’ll never forget that
experience either, how it kept growing in our field of vision until it loomed
above us, reminding me of pictures I’d seen of Mt. Sinai, where God appeared to
Moses. Shiprock (Tsé Bit ’a’i in Navajo) was a sacred mountain and had several creation
and apocalyptic oral traditions about it—the most popular that the rock was the
tail of a giant bird that had brought “the people” down from the north, and would return at the end of the world. All of that background was in my subconscious when I picked up my pen to write the poem's first draft.
Where were you when you started to actually write the poem? And please describe the place in great detail. I wrote the first draft of the poem entitled "Shiprock" while seated at my desk (a library table I purchased for $2 at a school auction), in my apartment in Deming, New Mexico in the early 1970s. I was newly married and the only apartment we could afford was a service station that had been converted into an apartment. The former grease pit became the living room, a storage room the bedroom. The pumps and the island separating the two lanes where cars had pulled in to fill up were still out front. The office of the filling station remained intact and was where I studied for classes as I worked on my bachelor's degree in Philosophy and English Literature. We had to keep our doors locked or tourists would walk into our house looking for an attendant to pump gas. With coyotes yipping outside (we were at the edge of town), one night I conjured an image that my best buddy in high school took of Shiprock at dusk with the full moon rising, and I began writing the opening lines to the first draft. 
How many drafts of this poem did you write before going to the final? (And can you share a photograph of your rough draft with pen markings on it?) I can only estimate the number of drafts - somewhere between 50-100. I began submitting it to journals over 40 years ago. The first draft is gone, as well as most of the early drafts.
What do you want readers of this poem to take from this poem? Among other things, the poem is about the intersection of cultures and their stories, and how new ones do not have to drown out the older ones. Also, for writers, this poem is a success story of how never to give up on a poem or to quit sending it out into the world. It took over 40 years for the poem to be published after its first draft was written. 
SHIPROCK
Tsé Bit ’a’i
Cutting your way through dust
storms, waves
Of sand blow over your prow,
settle on foils of stone,
Wash down the ribs of your
hull to crystal sea.
The Navajos say you
sailed from the north,
A great
bird saving their people from the flood,
Crashing
into the desert, burying all
But your
wings and tail: sole cremains of salvation.
What is it that makes a man
or woman
Set out on foot for you? Your
jagged masts that reach
For gibbous moon? Ancient
lens of atmosphere?
The old ones still
believe the blood
Will
return to petrified feathers,
Carry them
away when the flood returns.
Grasses and sedges with no
names, abandoned
Frames of cars and trucks, a
valley of dried bones
That will never rest, that
will never rise again?
Shiprock! Cry out from
beneath the desert;
Call your
brothers and sisters from the flood.
The overwhelming flood of
sand
Is all that will mark their
graves.
Sand enough to stem the
flood.
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
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
https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2019/01/64-backstory-of-poem-shiprock-by-terry_29.html
https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2019/01/64-backstory-of-poem-shiprock-by-terry_29.html
