#006 Inside the Emotion of Fiction - Robin Jansen's "Ruby the Indomitable"

Chris Rice Cooper 

caccoop@aol.com

https://www.facebook.com/car.cooper.7

*The images in this specific piece are granted copyright privilege by:  Public Domain, CCSAL, GNU Free Documentation Licenses, Fair Use Under The United States Copyright Law, or given copyright privilege by the copyright holder which is identified beneath the individual photo.

**Some of the links will have to be copied and then posted in your search engine in order to pull up properly

    

**Robin Jansen’s Ruby the Indomitable  is the sixth in a never-ending series called INSIDE THE EMOTION OF FICTION where the Chris Rice Cooper Blog (CRC) focuses on one specific excerpt from a fiction genre and how that fiction writer wrote that specific excerpt.  All INSIDE THE EMOTION OF FICTION links are at the end of this piece. 
     The CRC Blog welcomes submissions from published and unpublished fiction genre writers for INSIDE THE EMOTION OF FICTION.  Contact CRC Blog via email at caccoop@aol.com or personal Facebook messaging at https://www.facebook.com/car.cooper.7

Name of fiction work? And were there other names you considered that you would like to share with us?   Ruby the Indomitable

Fiction genre?  Ex science fiction, short story, fantasy novella, romance, drama, crime, plays, flash fiction, historical, comedy,  etc.  And how many pages long?   Ruby Red is a fictional character. The setting is based on a true historical event. It’s the end of the Orphan Train run in the mid-1920s. This fictional story is told through Ruby’s eleven-year-old eyes. After Ruby is taken in as a maid and finds little hope of being anything more. Soon she makes a risky move by faking insanity. After being expelled from the household, she sneaks onto a train heading west where she meets adventure, encounters peril, and discovers new hope.

Has this been published? And it is totally fine if the answer is no.   If yes, what publisher and what publication date?   The publisher is Manor Publishing LLC   October, 2016  https://manor-house-publishing.com/jml/

What is the date you began writing this piece of fiction and the date when you completely finished the piece of fiction?   Normally, my books take 6 weeks to 6 months to complete before they are ready for my publisher. After that, there are edits and rewrites, the design of the book cover, which is always thrilling to see. If you stick to deadlines, the complete process can take a year. However, Ruby the Indomitable took years. The historical aspects needed to be spot on. The result is a sound book with historical details and accurate information. It all began in a middle school reading when I took my class for our weekly visit to the library. Perusing the shelves, I saw a book titled, The Orphan Train (by Christina Baker-Kline). (http://christinabakerkline.com/) I checked out all the books that had to do with it, which were not many.  I learned that “homeless children roamed the streets of New York City from the late 1800s through the 1930s. Death and disease were heaped upon poverty and overcrowding, causing thousands of children to be abandoned and left to fend for themselves. 

Adding to the malaise, boatloads of European immigrants flooded the American shores and soon succumbed to the same adversities, leaving thousands of children parentless. Few accounts are found of the Orphan Train that carried white skinned children out into the heartland of America to find new families. History hints that the dark skinned children were placed into wealthy households for servants.

One of my beloved children is African American. I thought about Kimberly and wondered what might have happened to her had she lived in those days. This book is based upon history but I put my daughter into the shoes of Ruby and watched what happened as I told the tale. (Robin with daughter Kimberly.  Copyright permission granted by Robin Jansen for this CRC Blog Post Only)

Where did you do most of your writing for this fiction work?  And please describe in detail.  And can you please include a photo?   I did most of my writing for this book while I lived in a tiny apartment in Denton, Texas and then finished it when I moved into my home. (Left:  Robin building her new home in March 0f 2013.  Copyright permission granted by Robin Jansen for this CRC Blog Post Only) 

What were your writing habits while writing this work- did you drink something as you wrote, listen to music, write in pen and paper, directly on laptop; specific time of day?   I wrote directly on my laptop whenever I found the time: midnight, daybreak, after work, on weekends.  I also carried a paper and pen in case a new idea or inspiration came along. I drank a lot of tea. (Right:  Robin writing in April of 2017.  Copyright permission granted by Robin Jansen for this CRC Blog Post Only) 

What is the summary of this specific fiction work?   What is the summary of your fiction work?  Only one real memory with her mother remained: young Ruby standing in front of a bookstore, holding the hand of a woman in a red coat. After being rescued and taken in by servants, Ruby feels safe for a time. Then in 1920, during the hard winter in New York City, eleven-year-old Ruby is sent packing from the mansion where she’s been a servant since the age of six. A bleak future forces her to sneak onto a train where she discovers hope in Denton, Texas—only to have her newfound happiness shaken to the core when a poor working class section of town known as Quakertown (https://localwiki.org/denton/Quakertown) is razed, causing black families to lose their homes. Now, Ruby must choose between the new family she has come to love and the place where people say she belongs.

Can you give the reader just enough information for them to understand what is going on in the excerpt?   The excerpt is from the end of the book. It shows the close knit relationship that developed between the woman and the young woman. Love is colorblind.  

Please include the excerpt and include page numbers as reference.  The excerpt can be as short or as long as you prefer.   Page 240 “Okay. I will ask you right now. What do you want, Ruby?”

“I want to hear Mr. Frank’s stories when he gets back home from his trips. While he’s gone, I want to walk barefoot along dusty roads with you. It’s okay if I limp down them. I want to sit in between you and Mr. Frank at church and look up into the balcony where the negroes like me sit and wave at them. And maybe one day, some will be brave enough to come down from that balcony and sit with us on the main floor of the church. I want to say my prayers each night in my own room, not in someone’s left over room. This Christmas, I want to see an ornamented tree in the front parlor and call it the Christmas Room just for that occasion. Come spring, I want us to plant seeds on Andy’s special place. That’s what I want.”

“Oh, Ruby, that’s exactly what I want, too!” Marie sat forward and opened her arms up. Ruby went to Marie, tripping over her heart on the way. “Am I really home?”

“Yes. You’re really home for good.”

Marie looked at Ruby’s beaming face. Ruby’s skin didn’t need to be like the pale breath of winter’s snow, nor Marie’s skin the color of coffee for everything to be fine. Ruby made everything fine. Marie reached out and lovingly gave Ruby’s hair a tug. “I wish I could put the gold from your heart onto your

skin so everyone could see your worth. While you were gone, Ruby, my heart ached so badly. Now I know God was only digging new wells inside of me to hold all the overflowing joy I’ve found with your return to me.”

“I love you, Mrs. Marie.”

“And I love you, Ruby.”

“But I hear a problem in your voice.”

Marie looked down and twisted a loose knot on the bedspread.

“I’m afraid for you. See, I have these awful spells at times that pull me so far down that I think I can’t climb back out.” Marie’s arms went limp.

“Mrs. Marie, when you start to slide, I’ll pull you back

Why is this excerpt so emotional for you?  And can you describe your own emotional experience of writing this specific excerpt?   My daughter and son came to me by way of adoption. I love them as much as if I carried them beneath my heart. They are my precious jewels. (Right: Daughter Kimberly with mother Robin.  Copyright permission granted by Robin Jansen for this CRC Blog Post Only) 

Other works you have published?   It is important to note that I write under two names Robin Jansen and Robin Shope.

A trilogy:  The Chase    The Replacement   The Candidate

A trilogy:   Journey to Paradise,  A Christmas Edition,   The Valentine Edition, The Easter Edition

Wildcard;   Passages;   Wynn in the Willows;   Secrets;  The Debutante Murder

Below:  Robin Jansen in November of 2018.  Copyright permission granted by Robin Jansen for this CRC Blog Post Only

My residence is Denton, Texas, but I grew up in Chicago and Delavan, Wisconsin.  A 1974 graduate of UW Whitewater, I taught high school in Ottawa, Illinois. After I married, we traveled the world as missionaries for several years before settling in Texas. I have two grown children, two fabulous grandsons, and three naughty rescue dogs. After being in education for forty years, I look forward to retirement. What is next?

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Robin+jansen+

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_fb_1_11?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=robin+shope&sprefix=Robin+shope%2Cstripbooks%2C177&crid=2H0V9LJJFC3ER&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Arobin+shope

https://www.facebook.com/robin.shope.Jansen

INSIDE THE EMOTION OF FICTION links

001   11 15 2018 Nathaniel Kaine’s

Thriller Novel

John Hunter – The Veteran

http://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/11/001-inside-emotion-of-fiction-nathaniel.html

002   11 18 2018 Ed Protzzel’s

Futuristic/Mystery/Thriller

The Antiquities Dealer 

https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/11/002-inside-emotion-of-fiction-ed.html

003   11 23 2018 Janice Seagraves’s

Science Fiction Romance

Exodus Arcon

https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/11/003-inside-emotion-of-fiction-exodus.html

004   11 29 2018 Christian Fennell’s

Literary Fiction Novel

The Fiddler in the Night

https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/11/004-inside-emotion-of-fiction-christian.html

005  12 02 2018 Jessica Mathews’s

Adult Paranormal Romance

Death Adjacent

https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/12/5-inside-emotion-of-fiction-jessica.html

006  12 04 2018 Robin Jansen’s

Literary Fiction Novel

Ruby the Indomitable

https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/12/006-inside-emotion-of-fiction-robin.html

#045 Backstory of the Poem "Sungmyo for Our Dead Father-in-Law" by Ian Haight

Chris Rice Cooper 

caccoop@aol.com

https://www.facebook.com/car.cooper.7

*The images in this specific piece are granted copyright privilege by:  Public Domain, CCSAL, GNU Free Documentation Licenses, Fair Use Under The United States Copyright Law, or given copyright privilege by the copyright holder which is identified beneath the individual photo.

**Some of the links will have to be copied and then posted in your search engine in order to pull up properly

***This is the forty-fifth  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. 

#45 Backstory of the Poem
“Sungmyo”

by Ian Haight

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?  To be fair to the process of “Sungmyo,” I have to start at the very beginning, which was the decision to take poetry and writing seriously, and to that end I enrolled in Goddard College’s MFA program. I was reading a lot of different material at the time, trying to understand all the incredible possibilities there are in poetry and how those possibilities are realized. I had been reading the poetry of Gary Snyder, and as a reader, had been experiencing a love-hate relationship with him. On the one hand, his poems felt technically and thematically simplistic compared to what I thought poetry should be; on the other, when I closed the last page of his book, The Back Country, I had a jolt, which I have never experienced with any other poet. The jolt was feeling like I had lived his life—or a life. I realized the power of Snyder’s poetry for me wasn’t in any single poem, but the tonal evocation of a united collection. For the record, after reading many of Snyder’s books and more fully appreciating his range, precedent, and lineage in poetry—which I think goes back to Wordsworth (below, left), at least—I believe he is one of the truly great American poets of the 20th Century.

I was thinking about how Snyder made a collection live, which for me came down to the question of how he made a poem invoke life. There was nothing necessarily extraordinary about the incidents Snyder was writing about. The topics felt common and everyday (walking in a forest, walking in a city, working on a house, attending a meeting), but the attention to detail and the reflective perspective in that detail is what created a point of view that I as a reader could engage with. Ok, so if I admired this approach to writing so much, what if anything could I use in my own writing?

At the time of all this poetry exploration I was living in Pusan, Korea, and I was and still am married to a Korean woman. Traditionally in Korea, males of a family are supposed to visit the graves of their deceased parents or grandparents during Chusok, which is a kind of Korean Thanksgiving. My wife’s parents had no sons—only daughters, five daughters—and so this custom fell to the husbands of the daughters. My mother-in-law was still alive but my father-in-law had died soon after my wife was born, so there was a need to go to his grave and perform a ceremony. Because I was American I had no hometown in Korea to visit during Chusok. It fell to me and one of my elder brothers-in-law to carry out the ceremony. (Right: Ian and wife in Pusan, Korea in 2004.  Copyright permission granted by Ian Haight for this CRC Blog Post Only) 

We lived at the base of a very small hill-enclosed valley, and my father-in-law’s tomb was near the top of the valley. I felt like this ceremony, in the spirit of Snyder, might be a piece of life worth writing about. The process of the poem is straightforward: I wrote about going to the gravesite, conducting the ceremony, and a noteworthy incident on the way back. (Left:  Ian's father-in-law's burial mound with three daughters and one nephew present.  Copyright permission granted by Ian Haight for this CRC Blog Post Only)

In terms of craft I breath-broke the lines to make them reflective of life. Looking at the initial draft of the poem I am surprised by how much it resembles the final draft, even though I went through more than twenty versions. Expansion of details and the title were the chief revision issues. I particularly struggled with the title because I couldn’t figure out how to succinctly inform a non-Korean reader regarding the what and the why of the poem. (Right: Copyright permission granted by Ian Haight for this CRC Blog Post Only) 

Where were you when you started to actually write the poem? And please describe the place in great detail.   At the time of the poem’s writing, we lived in one of a collection of four-unit condos. My family was a bit young then. My two sons had been born but they were both under the age of eight, so although our three-bedroom unit was small by the American standards I was familiar with (about 1,200 square feet), it was livable for our family size. Because I was doing graduate work half of one of the rooms was my own. There was space for a bookcase or two of books and my computer desk—that was it. I did all of my writing on the computer. The walls of the room, like all the walls of all the units, were concrete, but papered with some standard flower print on a white background. The floors had a plastic surface, which emulated a shade of wood. The sliding wood-framed windows were barred, large and opaque, but opened to a view of the forested hill. I could hear birds; I was happy for that. (Right: Ian Haight family photo - wife is pregnant with their daughter.  Copyright permission granted by Ian Haight for this CRC Blog Post Only) 

What month and year did you start writing this poem?  Looking at the file dates that are still intact, I had to have written the first draft around September-October 2002. Chusok is annually held in September. (Left: Ian in October of 2002.  Copyright permission granted by Ian Haight for this CRC Blog Post Only) 
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 may have drafts with markings on them, but if I do they are in storage, so I will attach the earliest draft of the poem and the most recent draft for comparison.

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?   There’s only one line that got cut. In the fifth stanza, line 3: “and red berries” (Right, Korean berries) was deleted because I felt like it was too much detail and made the poem clunk. To me it felt like a detail that was not entirely necessary in comparison with what was rhythmically gained by losing it. The first line lost the phrase “Yellow fin” to describe the kind of fish for the same reason, and because it wasn’t authentically true. People laid out all sorts of different fish.

What do you want readers of this poem to take from this poem?   That we are all capable of entering and being received by different cultures and communities no matter what we look like or what skills we may/may not possess. It doesn’t always happen but it can happen to anybody and everybody regardless of identity. This gives me hope for humanity. Maybe also that there’s a lot of love in this world. It’s not always easy to see and it might be different from what I am used to experiencing but that does not mean the love is not there. (Ian Haight's father in law is wearing the necktie.  Copyright permission granted by Ian Haight for this CRC Blog Post Only) 

Which part of the poem was the most emotional of you to write and  why?    

The ending, for sure. To see that pheasant rise and then to place it in context of the poem…I got what that meant when it happened but I didn’t really feel it until I re-read it in the finished poem. It’s spiritual—and very Korean. I love that I can  deeply feel what that moment means even though I am an  American white male. I also love that Korean people understand and respect my authentic experience.

Has this poem been published before? And if so where?  Quarterly West and Barrow Street both published it in 2003. I think Quarterly West accepted it first and when I notified Barrow Street they said they were going to publish it anyway, regardless. The publications came out pretty quick after that so there wasn’t much more to be said to either journal. Funny how that worked—I wish I experienced poetry publishing that way more frequently.

Contact info?

All my contact information can be found here:  https://www.ianhaight.com/contact

 
Anything you would like to add? 

Thank you again for inviting me to participate in this.  It was fun to look back and revisit not only the poem, but where I was at as a writer and the life I was living at the time.

Sungmyo for Our Dead Father-in-Law

By the doors of houses,

fish heads on newspapers

with oranges

and deep-fried sweet potatoes

for the street gods. 

The outhouses smell

like farm fields.

We light a cigarette,

smoke some;

lay it on dried grass

at the base

of his burial mound

pour makali into a cup,

drink some,

put it in front of the smoke

lay four paper plates, white

with holly leaves

from Christmas

place oranges

rice cakes—

some made with sticky corn syrup,

others sweetened with ginger,

squid strips

and bananas

on the plates

stand in a row

we bow like Buddhists

three times

eat and drink

ask about the names of trees,

talk about how the jays

gathered and croaked

in old villages

when someone who didn’t live there

would come

or how the children

followed GI’s

saying,

Ajashi, gum please!

Notice how the cigarette is smoked,

and remember how the old man

finished thirty a day

how he got a children’s book

in English,

though no one could read it,

and wrote his daughters’ names

in Chinese

on the first page.

At the bottom of the hill

the copper-colored body

of a green-headed pheasant

flaps to the heights

of white pines,

trailing its long

brush-stroked tail feathers

two feet behind the breast.

Ian Haight’s book, Celadon, won the 2016 Unicorn Press First Book Prize for poetry and was published in the fall of 2017. He is the editor of Zen Questions and Answers from Korea, and with T'ae-young Ho, he is the co-translator of Borderland Roads: Selected Poems of Kyun Hŏ and Magnolia and Lotus: Selected Poems of Hyesim—finalist for ALTA’s Stryk Prize.   Other awards include Ninth Letter’s Literary Award in Translation, and grants from the Daesan Foundation, the Korea Literary Translation Institute, and the Baroboin Buddhist Foundation. (Left:  Ian with his youngest son Brennan in Pusan in 2003. Copyright permission granted by Ian Haight for this CRC Blog Post Only) 

BACKSTORY OF THE POEM LINKS

001  December 29, 2017

Margo Berdeshevksy’s “12-24”

http://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2017/12/a-new-crc-blog-series-backstory-of-poem.html

002  January 08, 2018

Alexis Rhone Fancher’s “82 Miles From the Beach, We Order The Lobster At Clear Lake Café”

http://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/01/a-new-crc-blog-series-backstory-of-poem.html

003 January 12, 2018

Barbara Crooker’s “Orange”

https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/01/a-new-crc-blog-series-backstory-of-poem_12.html

004 January 22, 2018

Sonia Saikaley’s “Modern Matsushima”

https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/01/the-fourth-installment-of-new-crc-blog.html

005 January 29, 2018

Ellen Foos’s “Side Yard”

http://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/01/5-backstory-of-poem-sidewalk-by-ellen.html

006 February 03, 2018

Susan Sundwall’s “The Ringmaster”

https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/02/6-backstory-of-poem-susan-sundwalls.html

007 February 09, 2018

Leslea Newman’s “That Night”

https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/02/7-backstory-of-poem-that-night-by.html

008 February 17, 2018

Alexis Rhone Fancher “June Fairchild Isn’t Dead”

https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/02/8-backstory-of-poem-june-fairchild-isnt.html

009 February 24, 2018

Charles Clifford Brooks III “The Gift of the Year With Granny”

https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/02/9-backstory-of-poem-gift-of-year-with.html

010 March 03, 2018

Scott Thomas Outlar’s “The Natural Reflection of Your Palms”

https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/03/chris-ricecooper-caccoopaol.html

011 March 10, 2018

Anya Francesca Jenkins’s “After Diane Beatty’s Photograph “History Abandoned”

https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/03/11-backstory-of-poem-after-diane.html

012  March 17, 2018

Angela Narciso Torres’s “What I Learned This Week”

https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/03/12-backstory-of-poem-series-angela.html

013 March 24, 2018

Jan Steckel’s “Holiday On ICE”

https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/03/13-backstory-of-poem-jan-steckels.html

014 March 31, 2018

Ibrahim Honjo’s “Colors”

https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/03/14-backstory-of-poem-ibrahim-honjos.html

015 April 14, 2018

Marilyn Kallett’s “Ode to Disappointment”

https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/04/15-backstory-of-poem-ode-to_14.html

016  April 27, 2018

Beth Copeland’s “Reliquary”

https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/04/16-backstory-of-poem-reliquary-by-beth.html

017  May 12, 2018

Marlon L Fick’s “The Swallows of Barcelona”

https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/05/17-backstory-of-poem-swallows-of.html

018  May 25, 2018

Juliet Cook’s “ARTERIAL DISCOMBOBULATION”

https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/05/18-backstory-of-poem-arterial.html

019  June 09, 2018

Alexis Rhone Fancher’s “Stiletto Killer. . . A Surmise”

https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/06/19-backstory-of-poem-stiletto-killer.html

020 June 16, 2018

Charles Rammelkamp’s “At Last I Can Start Suffering”

https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/06/20-backstory-of-poem-at-least-i-can.html

021  July 05, 2018

Marla Shaw O’Neill’s “Wind Chimes”

https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/07/21-backstory-of-poem-wind-chimes-by.html

022 July 13, 2018

Julia Gordon-Bramer’s “Studying Ariel”

https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/07/22-backstory-of-poem-studying-ariel-by.html

023 July 20, 2018

Bill Yarrow’s “Jesus Zombie”

https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/07/23-backstory-of-poem-jesus-zombie-by.html

024  July 27, 2018

Telaina Eriksen’s “Brag 2016”

https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/07/24-backstory-of-poem-brag-2016-by.html

025  August 01, 2018

Seth Berg’s “It is only Yourself that Bends – so Wake up!”

https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/08/25-backstory-of-poem-it-is-only.html

026  August 07, 2018

David Herrle’s “Devil In the Details”

https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/08/26-backstory-of-poem-devil-in-details.html

027  August 13, 2018

Gloria Mindock’s “Carmen Polo, Lady Necklaces, 2017”

https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/08/27-backstory-of-poem-carmen-polo-lady.html

028  August 21, 2018

Connie Post’s “Two Deaths”

https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/08/28-backstory-of-poem-two-deaths-by.html

029  August 30, 2018

Mary Harwell Sayler’s “Faces in a Crowd”

https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/08/29-backstory-of-poem-faces-in-crowd-by.html

030 September 16, 2018

Larry Jaffe’s “The Risking Point”

https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/09/30-backstory-of-poem-risking-point-by.html

031  September 24, 2018

Mark Lee Webb’s “After We Drove”

https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/09/31-backstory-of-poem-after-we-drove-by.html

032  October 04, 2018

Melissa Studdard’s “Astral”

https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/10/32-backstory-of-poem-astral-by-melissa.html

033 October 13, 2018

Robert Craven’s “I Have A Bass Guitar Called Vanessa”

https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/10/33-backstory-of-poem-i-have-bass-guitar.html

034  October 17, 2018

David Sullivan’s “Paper Mache Peaches of Heaven”

https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/10/34-backstory-of-poem-paper-mache.html

035 October 23, 2018

Timothy Gager’s “Sobriety”

https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/10/35-backstory-of-poem-sobriety-by.html

036  October 30, 2018

Gary Glauber’s “The Second Breakfast”

https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/10/36-backstory-of-poem-second-breakfast.html

037  November 04, 2018

Heather Forbes-McKeon’s “Melania’s Deaf Tone Jacket”

https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/11/37-backstory-of-poem-melanias-deaf-tone.html

038 November 11, 2018

Andrena Zawinski’s “Women of the Fields”

https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/11/38-backstory-of-poem-women-of-fields-by.html

039  November 00, 2018

Gordon Hilger’s “Poe”

https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/11/39-backstory-of-poem-poe-by-gordon.html

040 November 16, 2018

Rita Quillen’s “My Children Question Me About Poetry” and “Deathbed Dreams”

https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/11/40-backstory-of-poems-my-children.html

041 November 20, 2018

Jonathan Kevin Rice’s “Dog Sitting”

https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/11/41-backstory-of-poem-dog-sitting-by.html

042 November 22, 2018

Haroldo Barbosa Filho’s “Mountain”

https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/11/42-backstory-of-poem-mountain-by.html

043  November 27, 2018

Megan Merchant’s “Grief Flowers”

https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/11/43-backstory-of-poem-grief-flowers-by.html

044 November 30, 2018

Jonathan P Taylor’s “This poem is too neat”

https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/11/44-backstory-of-poem-poem-is-too-neat.html

045  December 03, 2018

Ian Haight’s “Sungmyo for our Dead Father-in-Law”

https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/12/045-backstory-of-poem-sungmyo-for-our.html