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***This is the twentieth
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.
At Last I
Can Start Suffering
by Charles Rammelkamp
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 must have watched SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN (Top Right. Fair Use.) with my children
a hundred times. So linking the quotation
from Cosmo Brown (Donald O’Connor) (Bottom Right. Fair Use) with my family was intuitive. 
Where were you when you
started to actually write the poem? And please describe the place in great detail. I was probably in my dining room, because
that’s where the actual writing takes place, scribbling in notebook at the
dining table, one of those marbled kind.
But I have no actual memory of writing the draft. 
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? I couldn’t say with certainty which lines,
but looking at the photograph of the first draft, some comparisons can be made.
Which part of the poem was the most emotional of you to write and why? I wrote a series of poems on the same subject. Some were more emotional than others. I like this one for the lighthearted touch it provides. (Left: Granddaughter Paloma today. Copyright granted by Charles Rammelkamp)
Anything you would like to add? A lot of this is guesswork,
really, the number of drafts where I was writing , since I’m usually working on
various things at the same time. But to
the best of my memory, this is an honest response, and thank you for the
opportunity! (Right Charles Rammelkamp's Facebook Logo Photo Fair Use)
At
Last I Can Start Suffering
by Charles
Rammelkamp
“At last I can start suffering,” I joked,
channeling Cosmo Brown in Singin in the Rain,
when he thinks he’s lost his job,
“and write that symphony.”
My daughter had just broken the news:
our granddaughter, whom we’d been babysitting
for the last nine months,
was going to start attending daycare
so she could learn to be with other children.
I hadn’t really noticed until then,
but I’d become quite attached to her
baby’s sunny wonderment, her delight,
reaching her arms out to be lifted,
falling asleep on my lap, like a cat.
Not since my daughters left home for college,
more than a decade a go,
had I had such a sense of wistful loss,
not even when my mother and twin brother died.
But I’d adjusted, hadn’t I?
This, too, would become “normal”
My writing had taken a hit, it’s true,
not that I particularly minded,
but now at least I can write that symphony.
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”
https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/06/20-backstory-of-poem-at-least-i-can.html
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”
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”
