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***This is the forty-first 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.
#41 Backstory of the Poem
Dog Sitting
Dog Sitting
by Jonathan Kevin Rice
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? A friend of
mine asked me if I was able to watch her dogs for her over a three day weekend
while she visited family in Oklahoma. It would be later in June. She knew I had
watched dogs before for other friends. She has two terrier-mix dogs, who know
me well and like me. They’re sweet dogs, so I knew I wouldn’t have a problem
with them. I was free, so I agreed. After spending a lot of time with them and
it was time for me to leave, I began to say my goodbyes to them, reassuring
them that their mom would be home soon that night. (Right: Two terrier-mix dogs from Wikipedia)
Where
were you when you started to actually write the poem? And please describe the place in great
detail. In my
car I listened to a Santana cd on my way home, when the poem started to come to
me as I drove. The first thing I did at home was rush to my computer and
started typing. I spent a few hours writing, revising, and playing with form
and line breaks until I felt like I at least had a rough draft. I saved it and
thought I’d return to it the next day. Over the course of that week I revisited
the poem several times with the intent of keeping it simple, while trying to
capture and express something larger…relationship between dogs, their owners
and other people. In this case, the relationship is like family. I don’t even
like to use the word owner in this
context. I’m the parent of a dog and a cat. They are my children and I treat
them as such. That’s the way it should be.
What
month and year did you start writing this poem? June 2018
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?) With this poem, I didn’t have
to do that much revising. It came to me organically. It’s not like I had an
idea and I made an effort to write it. It just started coming to me and I went
with it. Of course, I needed to craft the poem and ran it by a few poet friends
in the process, so a few weeks ensued before I became more comfortable with it.
What
do you want readers of this poem to take from this poem? I think readers with animals in
their families will connect with this poem right away, while other readers may
understand it some or not at all. I think this is basically a love poem though,
and love is universal. There is always the danger of sentimentalism in a poem
that can ruin it for the critical reader. I hope this poem doesn’t cross that
line.
Has this poem been published
before? And if so where? Since it is a new poem, it
hasn’t been published and I haven’t submitted it anywhere. I do intend on
including it in my next collection though.
Dog Sitting
I listen
to a badly produced
Santana
bootleg
while you
hike a trail
somewhere
in Oklahoma.
Your dogs
climb on me
like I’m a
piece of furniture,
but they
lick my face and hands.
They love
me, or at least know,
for now,
I’m the one feeding them,
walking
them, picking up their crap,
playing
with them, giving them treats,
talking to
them like they understand me,
telling
them my problems, what I should
be doing
somewhere else, drinking your wine.
They bark
at the sounds of footsteps and
chatter of
neighbors as they pass your front door
or open
the gate out back where your tomatoes
and
cucumbers grow. I can tell they wonder where
you are.
They wonder with sad eyes as they stare
at the
front door sometimes. They know I come in
the back
door, but I don’t envision them
longing
for me as they long for you.
You are
their mom. I am a friend, an uncle.
We can’t
wait for your return.
Jonathan
K. Rice edited and published Iodine
Poetry Journal for seventeen years and served as a co-editor for Kakalak in 2016. He most recently
co-edited Of Burgers & Barrooms,
an anthology published by Main Street Rag Publishing in 2017.
He is the author of two full-length
poetry collections, Killing Time
(2015) and Ukulele and Other Poems
(2006), as well as the chapbook, Shooting
Pool with a Cellist (2003), all published by Main Street Rag Publishing. He
is the recipient of the 2012 Irene Blair Honeycutt Legacy Award for outstanding
service in support of local and regional writers, awarded by Central Piedmont
Community College. His art and poetry have appeared in numerous publications.
Jonathan lives in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Contact info:
Jonathan
K. Rice
email: jkriceartist@gmail.com
Facebook:
Jonathan Kevin Rice
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”
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