Tuesday, October 23, 2018

#35 Backstory of the Poem "Sobriety" by Timothy Gager . . .



*The images in this specific piece are granted copyright privilege by:  Public Domain, CCSAL, GNU Free Documentation Licenses, Fair Use Under The United States Copyright Law, or given copyright privilege by the copyright holder which is identified beneath the individual photo.

**Some of the links will have to be copied and then posted in your search engine in order to pull up properly

***This is the thirty-fifth 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. 

#35 Backstory of the Poem
“Sobriety”
by Timothy Gager
ctgager37@yahoo.com

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?  This is a short poem, and like most of what I write, was formed from a visual element from a place I was at. It was conceived while sitting, waiting for a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous to begin, a fellowship I don’t hide the fact that I belong to. This particular meeting was at a location which had comfortable sofas, and art on the wall. There was a newcomer sitting there, just starting at this Piccaso reprint, and also, the other art---so,  I wanted to tell this person that sobriety can exist, be comfortable, take it in small steps, one day, one hour at a time, just like that painting you were staring at, was made—one brush stroke at a time, and it took a lot of brush strokes. (Title Photo-Timothy Gager on 10-14-2018 and Above Right Timothy Gager on January 3, 2014.  Copyright permission for both photos granted by Timothy Gager for this CRC Blog Post Only) 

I also wanted to say that to her that coffee is a mainstay at meetings, so drink it, and not anything else. (Left:  Timothy Gager drinking a cup of coffee in July of 2015.  Copyright permission granted by Timothy Gager for this CRC Blog Post Only) 

I don’t know if I had a specific process with this particular poem. It probably began with the first two lines, followed by free writing. Then, I balanced the lines, the stanzas, tossed out what didn’t work---made sure the beginning and ending of the poem worked to my liking. 
When I fine tune I like double meanings, for example “Sit on the sofa, legs curled under…” as one line it’s the person’s legs, but if you take it a line at a time, it’s the sofa…not making the person comfortable, the physical wooden legs curling under, or “view the oil paintings, hung boats and fields” The paintings are hung, the boats are hung, the fields are hung. It’s general, and it’s specific to the art. (Image I Told Him:  A Complete Portrait of Picassa, 1932.  Gertrude Stein sitting on a sofa in front of a painting of herself by Picassa at her residence at 27 Rue de Fleurus.)
Where were you when you started to actually write the poem? And please describe the place in great detail?  I went home and started the poem. My work space is a desk with a laptop on it, in the corner of my living room, faced away from the television. The desk area is full of papers, and they surround the laptop on three of the four sides
What month and year did you start writing this poem?   I have absolutely no idea. Anywhere after 2014 and before 2017 (Timothy in July of 2014. Copyright permission granted by Timothy Gager 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?)  This poem took 8-10 drafts. I edit on the computer so there are no pen marked papers.  I work with a lot of musicality and after some time I fairly aware of my poetic voice. I’m fond of the delete button for the final draft if things don’t work out. (Left:  Timothy Gager in March of 2015.  Copyright permission granted by Timothy Gager 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?   Heck, I’m getting old. I have no idea what was edited out.  (Right:  Timothy Gager in December of 2016.  Copyright permission granted by Timothy Gager for this CRC Blog Post Only) 

What do you want readers of this poem to take from this poem?  That there is hope after surrendering.

Which part of the poem was the most emotional of you to write and why?  The ending. It’s the awe of a journey’s beginning and a journey, in general.  I’ve very grateful from where I’ve come from, and I can get emotional about it (Left:  Timothy Gager in March of 2017.  Copyright permission granted by Timothy Gager for this CRC Blog Post Only) 

Has this poem been published before? And if so where?  published in the book, Chief Jay Strongbow is Real, 2017, Big Table Publishing

Anything you would like to add?  Keep writing people. There’s a lot of very important things going on.



Sobriety

It can exist
drink coffee

milk, three sugars,
stirred with a straw.

Sit on the sofa,
legs curled under

view the oil paintings
hung boats and fields

thousands of brush strokes
thousands


HEAR IT on Doug Holder's podcast at 25.25

Timothy Gager is the author of fourteen books of short fiction and poetry. Every Day There Is Something About Elephants, a book of 108 flash fictions, selected by over fifty-five editors, was released by Big Table Publishing in 2018. 


He's hosted the successful Dire Literary Series in Cambridge, Massachusetts since 2001 and was the co-founder of The Somerville News Writers Festival. He has had over 500 works of fiction and poetry published and of which thirteen have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. His work has been read on National Public Radio.



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”


Saturday, October 20, 2018

CRC Blog Analysis on BECOMING MRS LEWIS: The Improbable Love Story of Joy Davidman and C.S. Lewis by Patti Callahan



*The images in this specific piece are granted copyright privilege by:  Public Domain, CCSAL, GNU Free Documentation Licenses, Fair Use Under The United States Copyright Law, or given copyright privilege by the copyright holder which is identified beneath the individual photo.

**Some of the links will have to be copied and then posted in your search engine in order to pull up properly

Becoming Mrs. Lewis:
The Improbable Love Story of Joy Davidman and C.S. Lewis
By Patti Callahan
“The Christian Conversion of A Woman In Love”

Thomas Nelson (https://www.thomas
nelson.com) published Patti Callahan’s historical novel Becoming MRS. LEWIS:  The Improbable Love Story of Joy Davidman and C.S. Lewis on October 2, 2018.
      
Throughout BECOMING MRS. LEWIS the reader  hears Helen Joy Davidman Gresham Lewis’s voice, describing her childhood with a superficial mother who was more worried about exterior appearances than interior and a father who demanded the most perfect behavior – and when his daughter came home with a B instead of an A -he punished her by slapping her across the face.  In the Davidman family, he said, only the utmost best and perfect was accepted.
       One could call Joy a feminist of her day – she was Jewish, atheist, communist, and progressive in her views – one of which was a woman had just as much right as a man to speak her mind and she spoke her mind.  
      We learn of Joy’s promiscuity and her reason behind her promiscuity with other men – to find love, to search for love.
When she meets fellow atheist and fellow writer William Lindsay Gresham she is truly in love and the two marry on August 24, 1942. 
The two continue to earn their living from writing, and have two boys, David “Davy” Lindsay and Douglas Howard.  
Joy is faithful to her husband, but is torn between the rules of motherhood and wifehood and the desires of being a writer -  she would rather write her poems and fiction than spend the day arranging her dining room table with the most fashionable dinnerware.
      
Her most severe heartbreak is due to her husband’s alcoholic rages and his chronic serial infidelities.  In the spring of 1946, Bill refuses to come home, claiming another one of his alcoholic binge breakdowns.  Joy, out of sheer desperation, falls on her knees, tears rolling down her cheeks, praying to God:  the Someone she never believed in until that vey moment of desperation.  (Left: Holland jacket cover of Becoming Mrs Lewis)


 (God) he entered the fissures of my heart as if he’d been waiting a long time to find an opening.  Warmth fell over me, a river of peace passed through me.  For the first time in all my life, I felt fully known and loved.  There was a solid sense that he was with me, had always been with me.
       The revelation lasted not long, less than a minute, but also forever; time didn’t exist as a moment-to-moment metronome, but as eternity.  I lost the borders between my body and the air, between my heart and my soul, between fear and peace.  Everything in me thrummed with loving presence.
       My heart sowed and the tears stopped.  I bent forward and rested my wet cheek on the floor.  “Why have you waited so long?  Why have I?”  I rested in the silence and then asked, “Now what?”
       He didn’t answer.  It wasn’t like that – there wasn’t a voice, but I did find the strength to stand, to gaze at my children with gratitude, to wait for what might come next.  Pages 10 – 11 (Timeline of Jack and Joy's life.  Copyright granted by Thomas Nelson Publishers).

      
Bill eventually returns home and the Gresham family attends the local Presbyterian Church.  Joy voraciously reads everything she can on history, philosophy and religion trying to figure out who this God is and how she is to commune with Him but she still has no answers. (Left:  September 1946 issue of Atlantic Monthly)
Then in the spring of 1949 she comes across an old issue of Atlantic Monthly from September of 1946, which contains an article called “C.S. Lewis:  Apostle to the Skeptics” by Beloit College Professor, Poet, and Episcopal Priest Chad Walsh. (Right) 

The article “C.S. Lewis: Apostle to the Skeptics” was a feature about C.S. Lewis, the author of the Chronicles Of Narnia series, who had converted from atheism to Christianity.  
Joy was inspired and read every book she could find by C.S. Lewis particularly his books on philosophy such as The Great Divorce, Pilgrim’s Regress, and The Screwtape Letters.  Over the dinner table one night Joy and her husband Bill decided to write to C.S. Lewis and question him about God.


       Joy’s spirits lift the winter of 1950 when she and her husband finally receive a letter from C.S. Lewis (Right) where he describes God the Father as the “Hound of Heaven.’  He also feels a connection with Joy because both were atheists before their conversions and both are searching to make sense of God and who He is:  I believe I have spent my heart since that moment attempting to make sense of it all. But are we to make sense of it?  I’m not quire sure that is the reason for our encounter.  Page 24
      
Joy responds to C.S. Lewis almost immediately:  my soul will not let me rest until I find answers to some of my spiritual questions – questions that will not go away, questions that have every right to nag at me until I find peace.  Page 26

       Joy also asks Jack questions about theology and mythology and Jack responds:  It was Tolkien (have you yet read his work?) who convinced me of the one true myth – Jesus Christ.  It wasn’t an easy conversion for me, but one of an all-night conversation at the river’s edge.  Page 37 (Right Tolkien)
Over the next two years the two abandon their last names and call each other Joy and Jack and write to one another about God, literature, intellectualism, philosophy, theology, mythology, the Bible, and their own writing works.  Joy also reveals her past to Jack – her being Jewish and her former communism.   She also reveals to Jack the state of her marriage to Bill – who by now has returned back to his drinking and cheating.  
       By the winter of 1952 Joy’s health is deteriorating due to an abnormal thyroid and severe fatigue, in addition to the stress and trauma of living with Bill, which now include his verbal rages.  Joy’s deteriorating health is nothing new to Joy – she’d been having health problems all of her life, but this time she feels completely depleted emotionally, physical and mentally.
The doctor warns Bill that if Joy does not get her rest she will never recover from this bout of illness.  As a result, it is agreed that Joy will take a recuperation trip to England where she will do research on her non-fiction book she is writing on King Charles II.
     Joy’s first cousin
Renee Rodriquez comes with her own two children to reside in the Gresham household (Right) and take care of Joy’s two boys while Joy is away.  Joy and her cousin Renee were reared like sisters and
Renee was the sister that Joy’s father and mother wanted her to be – beautiful, fashionable, submissive, love of domesticity, and not having the need to speak her mind. And yet she never had resentment toward Renee – and considers Renee her most trusted confident.  In fact, both woman come to a deeper intimacy of friendship when they realize both of their marriages are failing.

       In the second week of August of 1952 Joy boards the SS United States and sails to England where she resides for six months.  During her six-month stay she meets with C. S. Lewis and his brother, Warren. (Left:  C.S. and Warren)   Jack and Joy develop a friendship that is based on their love of God.  They also have deep conversations that are intellectually stimulating, allows for friendly debate, and a mutual respect that is not found in most male-female relationships.
In December of 1952 she waits to receive money from Bill so she can return home.  She senses Bill is extremely cold to her in his letters and suspects something.  When she reads Bill’s letter her suspicions are well founded – Bill reveals to her that he and Renee are in love and want to get married.  He recommends that she should find her own lover.  Joy is devastated, feels nausea boiling, feels her body chill cold, and yet deep inside she had suspected.  Even still all she can do is slam her fist on her typewritten pages, scream, and weep.  She finally resists the urge to lay down in bed and instead dresses and ventures out into the England cold: 
I walked the streets like the dove from Noah’s ark in search of mooring but finding only water, endless miles of ocean and nowhere safe to land.  It was of course all my doing, the ruin in which I found myself.  What did I think would happen if I left Bill with the perfect Renee?  What id I think would happen if I chased peace and health across an ocean?  I had destroyed my own ark.  Page 168 (Left:  Noah Sent Out This Dove attributed to Julius Schnorr young Carolsfeld in 1860. )
       On January 9, 1953 Joy finally returns to the Gresham farmhouse and refuses to leave.  She is determined that she will be brave, claim her children, claim her right to her own home, and then decides that eventually she, Davy and Douglas will move permanently back to England.  She files for a separation from Bill and in November of 1953 she and her boys sail to England.
She falls more deeply in love with Jack; and Davy and Douglas (Left:  with C.S. Lewis) develop an intimate father -son relationship with Jack: both boys now view Jack to be their true authentic father figure. 
       The British Government sends Joy a letter stating that she is no longer a legal immigrant of England and if she is not married to an Englishman she will be deported with her two boys back to New York.  Jack insists she cannot leave and the two marry in April of 1956 in what is a love of marriage but lacking any sexual consummation.
       Then something happens – something that shocks them to their core and even questions how much time they have together on this earth.  Finally Jack admits he is in love with her and wants a real sexual marriage;  for Joy she finally realizes the Man she truly has fallen in love with is the Trinity God, and this falling in love with the Trinity God enables her to love Jack with an abounding, pure, love that encompasses all four loves that exist –

Eros (sensual, romantic, sexual love),

Storge  (love between family members such as parents and children, and siblings),

Philia (Love shared between Christian brothers and sisters),

Agape (the highest of the four loves, which defines God’s immeasurable, incomparable love for humankind.  It is divine love that comes from God.  Agape love is perfect, unconditional, sacrificial, and pure).

       All along Joy had been craving a real marriage with Jack; but deep down inside what she craved for was her love for God to be all encompassing.  Finally she can say to Jack what Ruth says to her mother-in-law in the Book of Ruth Chapter 1 Verse 16:  For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God.