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***This is the thirty-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.
#34 Backstory of the Poem
“Paper Mâché Peaches of Heaven”
by David Sullivan
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 spent a year teaching as a Fulbright lecturer in Xi’an, China, (Left) where I
lived with my family. Part of being a
Where were
you when you started to actually write the poem? And please describe the place in great
detail. I knelt at the altar, amazed and the moving images
blustering around me, both crude and powerful. I pulled out my cell phone and
began to describe the images before me. Outside I could hear wind chimes and
the voices of the workers getting back to their jobs. We were half-way up a
mountain, and the air was crisp and my breath fogged my view. (Left: attributed and copyright permission granted by David Sullivan for this CRC Blog Post Only)
What month
and year did you start writing this poem?
That was in 2012, in
November, because I remember there was some snow on the ground. (Right: Copyright permission granted by David Sullivan 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?) When I began to the poem is was simply a description of the amazing
plaster statues. Bit by bit, I began to explore the ideas of faith and doubt
that permeated my thinking. I probably wrote twenty drafts as I refined the
words and discovered the core of the poem. The earlier version of the poem I
found (I never did have a hard copy to mark up, simply worked on it on phone,
and then laptop), doesn’t have the dropped lines, which help a reader feel the
turns in the poems. (Left: Copyright permission granted by David Sullivan for this CRC Blog Post Only)
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?
The line: “to bat the paper-mâché peach /
that wears a red blush.” Was dropped. It was too active, non-meditative, and
forced the color images too far. (Right: Copyright permission granted by David Sullivan for this CRC Blog Post Only)
What do
you want readers of this poem to take from this poem? I’d like them to feel what I felt, both the
attraction to a religious tradition that grants one a sense of security and
comfort, and a suspicion of any system that claims to provide such comfort. (Left: Guanyin. Public Domain)
Which part
of the poem was the most emotional of you to write and why? The last line, which only
came after multiple drafts, expresses the desire for faith—using the direct
address to the goddess depicted, and acknowledges the way that faith is dangled
beyond our reach—like that immoral peach from ancient Chinese mythology. (Above Right: Chinese ceramic teapot in the form of two peaches - a symbol of immorality or wish for a long life. Public Domain)
Oh
Guanyin,
loan
me an arm to pluck down
what
none of us will ever taste.
Has this
poem been published before? And if so
where? No, but it will be in my
next book, “Seed Shell Ash,” which is forthcoming from Salmon Press.
Paper Mâché Peaches of Heaven
At the tea plantation temple’s side
altar I stumble upon Guanyin,
crudely but affectionately carved
out of rough-hewn plaster.
Garishly painted, surrounded
by a horde of minions clambering
over ill-sculpted rocks: acrobats
and tiger tamers, yoga adepts,
twins fighting over a top, a pair
yanking on a reluctant ox, and
behind, a figure with a hugely
extended arm, as if he’d stretched
one of Guanyin’s thousands
to bat the paper-mâché peach
that wears a red blush. Oh Guanyin,
loan me an arm to pluck down
what I will never, in this life, taste.
My books include: Strong-Armed
Angels, Every Seed of the Pomegranate, a book of co-translation with
Abbas Kadhim from the Arabic of Iraqi Adnan Al-Sayegh, Bombs Have Not
Breakfasted Yet, and Black Ice. I won the Mary Ballard Chapbook
poetry prize for Take Wing, and my book of poems about the year I spent
as a Fulbright lecturer in China, Seed Shell Ash, is forthcoming from
Salmon Press. I teach at Cabrillo College, where I edit the Porter Gulch
Review with my students, and live in Santa Cruz with my family. My poetry
website is: https://dasulliv1.wixsite.com/website-1,
a modern Chinese
co-translation project is at: https://dasulliv1.wixsite.com/website-trans, and a call for poetry about the paintings of
Bosch and Bruegel for an anthology I’m editing with my art historian mother is
at: https://dasulliv1.wixsite.com/website
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”
https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/10/34-backstory-of-poem-paper-mache.html
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