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***This is the fifty-forth 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.
#54 Backstory of the
Poem
“Aftermath”
by Gene Barry
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? My mother
rejected me the moment I was born and demonstrated her hatred for me as
frequently as she could. This cult-like style of brainwashing in turn
programmed my siblings to also reject and hate me. In my post anaesthetic haze,
I received flashbacks of the numerous times friends had told me that they had
never seen such hatred as the hatred my mother had for me.
Despite the fact that I
had stepped out of the family scapegoat role my mother had welded to me, my
present vulnerable state enabled the true depth of this elective cruelly to
score a bullseye. Both consciously and unconsciously, I began to marry my
thought processes and emotions tagged to this cruelty and this poem began to
assemble itself, giving birth a few days later. When I got home I typed up draft number one
and began editing. Below: "Love" by Alexander Milov. FUSUTUSCRL
Where were you when you started to actually write the poem? And please describe
the place in great detail. The
inspiration for this poem infused itself into my marrow while I was lying in my
hospital bed recovering from surgery for cancer. (Right) The awareness that I had three
brothers and three sisters who were not going to contact me, or even enquire
about my health had finally driven the awareness of my family status to a new
reality.
What month and year did you start writing this poem? Three days after my surgery in June 2016
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 were numerous lines in
this poem that I edited in my head, this stanza was edited into the one below
it.
My narrow-minded mother
Cupped in by obedient children
Viewed ugly as interesting
The only silence emotional
cruelty
Wounds the visions she applauds
Our narrow grass-centred road
Dressed in mountain ranges
Has become ugly and uninteresting
Mute birds and silent hedgerows
Dressed in mountain ranges
Has become ugly and uninteresting
Mute birds and silent hedgerows
There is a wound in every vision
What do you want readers of this poem to take from this poem? That it is a poem of healing and
survival. We don’t have to change, we have to remove the changes and return to
ourselves. That a hug enhances safety and wellbeing and never to concentrate on
giving a hug. The emotional awareness should be focussed on the gift you are
receiving and what it can do for you.
Which part of the poem was the most emotional for you to write and why? The second stanza.
Although I have an abundance of compassion for my mother and indeed my
siblings, I have no awareness of what happened to my mother when she was a
child that saw her reject happiness and encase herself in bitterness. This blind
spot disabled me from assising her in disposing of her enormous pain.
Has this poem been published before? And if so where? Aftermath has not been published. It will be in my fourth collection Flaking the Rope which will be published in the US in January 2019.
Anything you would like to add? ‘What you
are aware of, you are in control of. What you are unaware of controls you.’
Aftermath
I sit stand lie walk
Bend carefully and slowly
The breast I need to suck
Within reach and yet too far
Bend carefully and slowly
The breast I need to suck
Within reach and yet too far
I starve for explanations as
My tears pull childhood wounds
Deliver those unappreciated images
That cycle past on three wheelers
The cyclist's tongues saluting
Deliver those unappreciated images
That cycle past on three wheelers
The cyclist's tongues saluting
Our narrow grass-centred road
Dressed in mountain ranges
Has become ugly and uninteresting
Mute birds and silent hedgerows
Dressed in mountain ranges
Has become ugly and uninteresting
Mute birds and silent hedgerows
There is a wound in every vision
Logic is a popular school teacher
The perfect stocked exchange
Correct and right without answers
Reason is unpopular and unedited
The perfect stocked exchange
Correct and right without answers
Reason is unpopular and unedited
And yet...a hug is a thesaurus
That blankets every wound
That blankets every wound
Gene Barry is an Irish Poet, Art Therapist, Counsellor, Hypnotherapist and Psychotherapist. He has published widely both at home and internationally and his poems have been translated into Arabic, Irish, Hindi, Albanian, and Italian. (Left: Barry in Malta on December 28, 2018. Copyright permission granted by Gene Barry for this CRC Blog Post Only)
genebarrypoet@mail.com
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
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