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***This is the seventy-ninth 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.
#79 Backstory of the Poem
“Paddling” by Chera Hammons Miller
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? Usually, when I experience something of note (whether traumatic or
otherwise), it takes time before I am able to process it enough to write about
it.
Sometimes I just don’t know how to approach it at first. Maybe it’s silly,
but I think of the poetic mind as a sort of rock tumbler; it has to live with
and consider the event until the true character of it comes through. This poem
is about euthanizing my gentle old riding horse, a well-behaved and willing
gelding I’d had for about ten years.
He never once refused when I asked
something of him. I had gotten him as a bag of bones from a horse trader for
something like $200. Once he was healthy, he was one of the best horses I ever
had. And then he got cancer. I had tried to write
about this experience several times before, but none of those poems were worth
keeping; none of them were right.
This one finally did what I wanted it to do. Though
I sometimes combine or shift particulars to make a poem work better, the
details in this poem are exactly as they happened. The same event sometimes
shows up in my other work, as well, because it is something that still bothers
me. For example, it is an important part of my more recently written poem “The
Capacity for Malignancy is Ancient,” which is available to read online at Rust + Moth.
Here’s what happened. Once
the cancer was diagnosed, the horse’s condition worsened quickly. We hired a neighbor
with a backhoe to dig a grave with a dirt ramp in my parents’ pasture, where we
were keeping our horses at the time. I led the horse down the ramp into this
grave. My husband, my dad, the neighbor, and the vet joined us at the bottom,
and the vet euthanized the horse with two injections: the first, a standard
tranquilizer, and the second, the overdose that would stop his heart.
I remember that with
every step approaching the grave, with the horse walking softly beside me, I
felt like I was betraying the horse. I wanted to yell at him to run away, to
save himself. He hesitated at the top of the ramp, but he followed me down
because he was so obedient. He was suffering, he was in his mid-twenties by
that point, and I knew I did the right thing by him, but I still couldn’t shake
the feeling that I had used his trust in me to destroy him. I was able to do
that because he followed me so willingly. He still had enough instinct or
presence of mind to not want to die, but to let him keep living in his
condition would have been cruel on my part. I wish I could have explained to
him what was happening.
This happened in
November of 2011. Soon afterwards, I think within a week, I received the call
from Paul Selig telling me I had gotten into the MFAW program at Goddard
College.
Goddard
was difficult for me both physically and emotionally, though I loved being
there; now I know that I was battling Lyme disease without knowing what was
wrong, and I was also still dealing with the residue left by my previous
marriage to a gaslighter and abuser. I was so exhausted I spent much of the
time in a haze.
I didn’t get to socialize much because my energy was so low; most
of the time not spent in workshops or at meals, I was alone in my dorm room,
thinking of what had brought me to this point, how important it was not to
waste such an opportunity, and thinking of what to write about, what I was
carrying around with me that made me feel so heavy. It was easier to write
about losing a horse than losing faith. I thought about his death, and then getting the call that I would be going to Vermont to work on my writing, something I had always wanted to do.
I started to think how surprised I had
been when the vet had called the horse’s kicking upon death “paddling.” Such an
odd way to say that the horse’s nervous system kept firing. I knew I wanted to
write a poem that started with paddling
(the sort of euphemism) and ended with kicking
(what you actually see happen). Once I figured out how to do that, I filled
in the middle with the details. Then I revised it to make it less emotionally
focused and more succinct.
Where
were you when you started to actually write the poem? And please describe the
place in great detail. My memory is a bit
unreliable because I suffer from cognitive dysfunction. I sometimes wrote in
different places at Goddard, the cafeteria or a seating area by the computer
lab. I am almost certain this piece was written in my dorm room, though,
because that’s the feeling I get from it (and I know I would have fought tears while
writing it, which is something I prefer not to do with others around).
I had a
single room, always kept quite pleasantly warm, with a twin bed under a big window,
a chest of drawers, a trash bin, and a doorless closet with a bright mural
painted over the doorway. There was a dusty off-white linoleum(?) tile floor. I
could always hear other people’s voices and Netflix episodes through the walls,
and someone in the dorms wore patchouli, so the scent was always in the air. 
There
may have been a desk, but I often sat on the bed to write. The bareness of the
room would have aided the feel of the poem, since I wanted it to have the
essentials of the experience.
What month and year did you start writing this poem? I’m guessing it was written in maybe June 2012 or January 2013.
What month and year did you start writing this poem? I’m guessing it was written in maybe June 2012 or January 2013.
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 remember that
I over-wrote it without worrying too much about that and then cut some it out,
went back and forth on some word choices, but it didn’t completely change shape
as poems sometimes do between rough and final drafts. I would say there were maybe four versions total between the rough draft and the one in the book, with increasingly minor changes. There would have been the initial draft, the one I took to my advising group, the one I had revised after incorporating to their feedback, and the one that ended up in the book and that I sent around to journals.
I
had already started doing my writing via computer at that point instead of pen
and paper (I had a little Toshiba netbook I used for grad school), as my hands
can be arthritic, and a word processor is less stressful for me in general—if I
mess up, I can hit the backspace key, and it isn’t messy. Unfortunately, this convenience
has come at the expense of my rough drafts. Once I am certain of a change, I
save the new version over the old one.
Were
there any lines in any of your rough drafts of this poemthat were not in the
final version? And can you share them with us? The main thing
I remember revising is related to the duck image at the beginning of the poem.
I
don’t remember what the lines were, just some unnecessary details. I didn’t
need to carry the image for several lines, as I had originally done, when only
a couple were needed. The duck image wasn’t important except as comparison and progression,
and focusing on it too heavily was confusing for the reader. I think I had
originally dwelt on that outside image too heavily in order to delay getting to
the more painful material.
What
do you want readers of this poem to take from this poem? I wrote this
poem largely to help process some of the guilt I felt about the horse’s death and
to release some of the images that were still so clear. I imagine most people
have, at some point, experienced the loss of a companion animal. They are such
a large part of our lives, we shouldn’t feel embarrassed about grieving them,
or feel that one’s grief is more consuming than it “should” be.
I’ve had closer
relationships with my horses than I have had with most people; a person and
horse can really get to know each other, to the point their interactions are downright
telepathic. Owning an animal also comes with a great deal of responsibility,
including that of deciding life or death, because we have created a world in
which they cannot care for themselves—and that means we must do it.
Their
lifespans are generally shorter than ours; maybe we’re there at the beginning
of their lives, as well as the end, and we’re all they ever know. I knew it was
ridiculous for me to carry guilt over doing what my vet had advised me was the
kindest and most responsible thing to do for my horse. I could see it myself.
It was the perceived betrayal of trust that hit me so hard, and that was
because I was imagining it from the horse’s perspective and reading my own
interpretations into the horse’s viewpoint. The horse himself likely didn’t
have any such concerns. I want the reader to see that, by the end of the poem,
there isn’t anything else to be done. It’s not good or bad. The poem does not
embellish or try to teach a lesson. All it does is tell what happened. And that
is also how an animal would likely experience it, too—with practicality, a view
of the moment itself, not its implications.
Which
part of the poem was the most emotional of you to write and why? “It
was his first step into the ground, / and he would not look me in the eye /
with so much else on his mind.” I vividly remember
kneeling beside the horse, wanting to comfort him, with everyone else standing silently
around me, and clouds floating through the square of blue sky over the grave, but
he was preoccupied with dying and seemed completely indifferent to my presence
there; I felt helpless and inadequate. Those lines remind me of that feeling.
Their
lifespans are generally shorter than ours; maybe we’re there at the beginning
of their lives, as well as the end, and we’re all they ever know. I knew it was
ridiculous for me to carry guilt over doing what my vet had advised me was the
kindest and most responsible thing to do for my horse. I could see it myself.
It was the perceived betrayal of trust that hit me so hard, and that was
because I was imagining it from the horse’s perspective and reading my own
interpretations into the horse’s viewpoint. The horse himself likely didn’t
have any such concerns. I want the reader to see that, by the end of the poem,
there isn’t anything else to be done. It’s not good or bad. The poem does not
embellish or try to teach a lesson. All it does is tell what happened. And that
is also how an animal would likely experience it, too—with practicality, a view
of the moment itself, not its implications.
Paddling
—that's what the vet called it
when she told us what to expect,
as if the horse could choose
to bob like a duck in the middle of its
cool
world, a buoy of unconcern.
Not that a horse's body tried so hard
not to lose its running that it couldn't
stop.
There's no good word for that, I guess.
Still, an old horse must be put down
when it gets to a certain point more
quickly than it should.
Muddy bay furry with hay and cold
weather,
warm, the coat twitched under the needle,
thinking it had found some new kind of
barn fly.
While the first sleep coursed through
we watched him splay as he tried to keep
standing,
and we muscled him onto his left side,
the side you mount from.
Four of us held him down
(it takes four people to kill a horse
like that,
a horse that has other ideas)
while the vet tried to find the vein
again.
As I stroked a cool nose she said,
This one he's not coming back from.
It was his first step into the ground,
and he would not look me in the eye
with so much else on his mind.
She stood as the neck pushed the nose
into the dirt
and we waited to know what we should do.
Stand up and stand back, she said.
Stay away from the kicking.
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
065 February 02, 2019
“Summer 1970, The
University of Virginia Opens to Women in the Fall”
by Alarie Tennille
066 February 05, 2019
“At School They Learn
Nouns”
by Patrick Bizzaro
067 February 06, 2019
“I Must Not Breathe”
by Angela Jackson-Brown
068 February 11, 2019
“Lunch on City Island,
Early June”
by Christine Potter
069 February 12, 2019
“Singing”
by Andrew McFadyen-Ketchum
070 February 14, 2019
“Daily Commute”
by Christopher P. Locke
071 February 18, 2019
“How Silent The Trees”
by Wyn Cooper
072 February 20, 2019
“A New Psalm
of Montreal”
by Sheenagh Pugh
073 February 23, 2019
“Make Me A
Butterfly”
by Amy Barbera
074 February 26, 2019
“Anthem”
by Sandy Coomer
075 March 4, 2019
“Shape of a Violin”
by Kelly Powell
076 March 5, 2019
“Inward Oracle”
by J.P. Dancing Bear
077 March 7, 2019
“I Broke
My Bust Of Jesus”
by Susan Sundwall
078 March 9, 2019
“My Mother
at 19”
by John Guzlowski
079 March 10, 2019
“Paddling”
by Chera Hammons Miller
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