Friday, April 19, 2019

#098 Backstory of the Poem "Tennessee Epithalamium" by Alyse Knorr





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*** The CRC Blog welcomes submissions from published and unpublished poets for BACKSTORY OF THE POEM series.  Contact CRC Blog via email at caccoop@aol.com or personal Facebook messaging at https://www.facebook.com/car.cooper.7

***This is the ninety-eighth 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. 

****All photos are given copyright permission by Alyse Knorr for this CRC Blog Post only unless otherwise noted.

Title Photo Below Left- Alyse Knorr in February of 2019.

#098 Backstory of the Poem
“Tennessee Epithalamium”
by Alyse Knorr
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? 
     During the summer of 2014, it seemed like everyone I knew was getting married, and I tried to write a poem or a song to celebrate the weddings of all the couples in my life. One of those couples were my friends Katherine and Asad, who live in Nashville, Tennessee (hence the poem’s name).  I’ve found that when I’m writing an occasional poem, if I think too hard about the people the poem is for, I feel too much pressure and am too worried about what the recipients will think of the poem. So instead, I try to start with what I know, which in this case was my love for my now-wife Kate. I figured that a love poem for Katherine and Asad would feel most authentic if I created it out of the love I know best.

     The summer of 2014 also marked the longest time Kate and I had ever spent apart since getting together in 2010 and moving in together in 2012. Kate is a poet, too, and we were apart doing residencies all summer in different locations. We had started discussing whether or not we should get married and whether or not we should have a wedding, which were already complicated topics but made even more complicated by the fact that in 2014, marriage still meant something different legally state by state. We lived in Alaska, where same-sex marriage, at that time, was not yet legal, but if we wanted to, we could travel to Washington and marry. (Above Left:  Kate and Alyse in Alaska)                                                      
     During that long summer of missing Kate, wrestling with the idea of marriage, and celebrating the weddings of friends, I processed my thoughts and feelings by writing 20 “epithalamia,” each set in a different state. An epithalamium is an ancient Greek wedding hymn, popularized by Sappho, and “Tennessee Epithalamium” is the last poem in my chapbook Epithalamia.
     
       Most of the images in the poem are the things I was seeing living alone in the woods of Minnesota (Right): the crow, the deer, the veins of leaves, the spider, the delicious blueberry pie of the local diner. And my new friend Pam (with Alyse Below Left), who lives in New York Mills, has a wonderful habit of “yarn-bombing”(Below Right)  the lamp posts and stones around town by knitting them little sweaters. I also included in the list items from my own personal experience—memories that I wish I could directly share with my beloved, like the light rain on your face awakening you (that was teenage me waking up in the back of a flatbed one Georgia summer) or the staked dogwood learning to grow (a tree I planted with my father at the house where I grew up). I also tried to include some really massive items, like entire planets, or impossible stars visible during the day.
     I scribbled all these list items down in my notebook in no particular form and then typed up the poem and started working on line and stanza breaks, and on an ending (more on that below!). (Below:  Alyse's papers on the floor while in New York Mills)  

Where were you when you started to actually write the poem?  And please describe the place in great detail. I wrote this poem during a month-long residency called the New York Mills Arts Retreat in New York Mills, MN. New York Mills is a beautiful small town (population 1,224) in the heart of Minnesota, about 3 hours northwest of Minneapolis. While I lived there, you had one option for lunch—the Eagles Café diner—and one option for dinner: the grill at the local bowling alley. The town had grocery store, one gas station, and one main street full of beautiful old Midwestern architecture. The town is bisected by train tracks, and you can hear the trains at regular intervals throughout the day and night. The citizens of New York Mills are very kind and very dedicated to their community. On several occasions I watched all the volunteer firefighters in town run from their places of work to their cars to go and fight a fire.







       The New York Mills Regional Cultural Center (Right), which sponsors the Arts Retreat, puts residents up in a beautiful old yellow house (Below Left)  only a short walk from Main Ave. The Retreat hosts only one visiting artist at a time, so I was on my own in the one-bedroom house, and spent my days alone reading, writing, and thinking.   

The weather was still pretty cold when I first arrived, but warmed up as the month of May went on. The day I wrote “Tennessee Epithalamium” was bright, warm, and sunny, and I took advantage of that by sitting in the backyard of the house with my notebook.

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 rarely compose by hand—I usually start drafts on my laptop because I like how quickly I can cut and paste to rearrange lines, or break lines and play with form. Or hit “undo.” Or delete a line and never have to see it again. But if I want to work outside, or if I’m feeling stuck working on the laptop, I’ll grab my notebook and draft longhand. That’s what I was doing the day I started “Tennessee Epithalamium.” After the handwritten draft in the photo, the poem probably went through five or six drafts on my laptop, mostly playing with form and the order of the items in the list. 





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 deleted quite a few items from my original handwritten list. I cut “all of my poems” because I found it too self-referential; “yellow paint fresh on a schoolroom wall” and “every mile I’ve ever run” because they felt too saccharine; and “my body, when you need it” and “three girls and a boy” because they felt too melodramatic. Except for “yellow paint,” these items were all also too abstract and generalized, and not grounded enough in the specific/sensory, as the rest of the items in the final draft are. 


I also revised “the moose opening her eyes in the morning” to “the red fox opening her eyes in the morning,” because the fox felt more elegant and elusive than the moose, and because I liked having a small homage to Lucille Clifton’s fox poems.

What do you want readers of this poem to take from this poem? The items in the list are meant to evoke sensory experiences, so I hope the reader can taste the blueberry pie and the cream, feel the rain on her face, and smell the salt on the breeze. I hope that the images provide pleasure and delight, and that the reader feels connected to the earnest, urgent love at the core of the poem, which is what occasions the speaker offering this list to the beloved.

Which part of the poem was the most emotional of you to write and why? While I wrote this poem, I mostly felt joy and love and delight. It’s fun to imagine all the things you’d give the person you love, if you could, and writing it made me feel simultaneously more connected to Kate, Katherine, and Asad. List poems are fun to write, too, because they start to create their own momentum, and composition becomes a kind of exhilarating, cascading process. I also had fun coming up with very different types of items to offer as gifts—things that maybe wouldn’t actually make great gifts (like the spider) or that would be impossible to give (like the planets). But I probably felt the most excitement and satisfaction when I wrote the final couplet, “But I will give you one thing today,/this first of all the days.” I didn’t write this couplet in the first draft; I just wrote the long list and didn’t really know how to end the poem. That came later, with the form.

In the process of typing up the poem, I experimented with a lot of different forms stichic,  tercets, prose, etc. Finally, I landed on the short-medium-length couplets, and that helped me write the final couplet. I knew I wanted some kind of turn at the end, the way a sonnet turns on the final couplet. So I typed “But.” 
       Then I thought about what would negate or subvert or complicate the big long list of gifts that preceded the “but,” and the answer was to give just one thing. In the final couplet, I could have stated what that “one thing” is, but I wanted the poem to be subtler and more complex, and I also wanted to turn into the idea of marriage—the idea that today is a special day because today is the day of the wedding. 

      I wanted the poem’s final line to explain why we’ve been talking about gifts and giving this whole time, and to offer the idea that the gift is the wedding, which is the self, the commitment, the promise of marriage. In a way, wedding vows are just lists of promises, which are gifts, so this poem, to me, reads like a set of wedding vows (which is why I put it last in the chapbook). In addition, the caesura at the end of the couplet’s first line set up a feeling of heavy closure for the final line, and I liked the idea of the poem’s final line sounding like both an ending and a whole new beginning (like what a wedding represents).

So all of that helped me compose the poem’s very last line, and typing out the final words felt both surprising and inevitable, which is the feeling I most love to have while reading and writing poems. It’s the addicting feeling that keeps poets writing.

Has this poem been published before?  And if so where? This poem appeared in my chapbook Epithalamia, published by Horse Less Press in 2015.

Tennessee Epithalamium
I want to give you:

the tiny black spider trembling

on my shoulder
stars you can see

in the daytime

the crow at the very tip

of the tallest white oak
blueberry pie so blue it’s purple

and the cool rich cream

every long night before I met you

every long night when I wanted you
staircase that creaks perfectly

when you come home and meet me

a freedom that glistens brilliant as you

walking up the path from the lake
stones wearing crocheted sweaters

the parts of my history
I haven’t yet found

fire and water

the mundanity of joy

light rain on your face awakening you
veins of leaves translucent in sun

far inland from the ocean

the smell of salt on the breeze

staked dogwood learning to grow

a room of the house entirely for thinking

the planets, freely given in love for eons
garden to feed us and two deer

warm grapes on the vine, perfect orbs

the red fox opening her eyes in the morning.

But I will give you one thing today,
this first of all the days.  


Alyse Knorr (Left - December 2018) is an assistant professor of English at Regis University and editor of Switchback Books. She is the author of the poetry collections Mega-City Redux (Green Mountains Review 2017), Copper Mother (Switchback Books 2016), and Annotated Glass (Furniture Press Books 2013), as well as the non-fiction book Super Mario Bros. 3 (Boss Fight Books 2016) and the poetry chapbooks Epithalamia (Horse Less Press 2015) and Alternates (dancing girl press 2014). 
      Her work has appeared in Alaska Quarterly Review, Denver Quarterly, Columbia Poetry Review, The Greensboro Review, and ZYZZYVA, among others. She received her MFA from George Mason University, where she co-founded Gazing Grain Press.
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

080 March 12, 2019
“Of Water and Echo”
by Gillian Cummings

081   082   083    March 14, 2019
“Little Political Sense”   “Crossing Kansas with Jim
Morrison”  “The Land of Sky and Blue Waters”
by Dr. Lindsey Martin-Bowen

084 March 15, 2019
“A Tune To Remember”
by Anna Evans

085 March 19, 2019
“At the End of Time (Wish You Were Here)
by Jeannine Hall Gailey

086 March 20, 2019
“Garden of Gethsemane”
by Marletta Hemphill

087 March 21, 2019
“Letters From a War”
by Chelsea Dingman

088 March 26, 2019
“HAT”
by Bob Heman

089 March 27, 2019
“Clay for the Potter”
by Belinda Bourgeois

#090 March 30, 2019
“The Pose”
by John Hicks

#091 April 2, 2019
“Last Night at the Wursthaus”
by Doug Holder

#092 April 4, 2019
“Original Sin”
by Diane Lockward

#093 April 5, 2019
“A Father Calls to his child on liveleak”
by Stephen Byrne

#094 April 8, 2019
“XX”
by Marc Zegans

#095 April 12, 2019
“Landscape and Still Life”
by Marjorie Maddox

#096 April 16, 2019
“Strawberries Have Been Growing Here for Hundreds of
Years”
by Mary Ellen Lough

#097 April 17, 2019
“The New Science of Slippery Surfaces”
by Donna Spruijt-Metz


#098 April 19, 2019
“Tennessee Epithalamium”
by Alyse Knorr