When I say forgiveness makes me a moongate I mean… is an intimate poem, with stunning lines such as “we grieve together / we dream of homes together”. The process of writing a poem like this requires immense strength in both craft and storytelling; how did you approach this? How have you seen this poem evolve while writing it?
Well first of all, thank you! This poem actually started out as an exercise my therapist gave me. A few years ago I wrote a poem called “Apology to my Raggedy Ann Doll” as one way to grapple with the aftermath of an abusive relationship. Over the years as I’ve been able to process more and more of that experience and move forward with my life, I’ve worked a lot on the concept of integration – that is, that trauma doesn’t ever fully go away or stop affecting me 100%, but I learn to fold it along with all the healing I’ve done into my life now. I’m lucky enough to be in an amazing partnership now, with a person who lights my life up in a trillion ways. The lines you pulled out (and the whole poem really) were me trying to capture how pain often exists in the same space as the hope that self-forgiveness can bring, how interconnected and complicated and non-linear those things are, and how they affect the people around me as well.
It’s scary to publish something like this because it’s not something I’ve talked about with anyone besides my closest friends, and the thought of anyone reading it and pitying me or thinking I’m oversharing or a million other judgements people make is terrifying to think about, but I’m trying to be braver! It’s still very stigmatized to be openly vulnerable about mental illness and trauma, but if this piece can resonate with anyone who’s been in a similar situation then I think it’s worth it. Of course, I also want people to walk away with their own interpretations and what speaks to them most. One of the coolest things about poetry is that everyone who reads it can read it in a completely different way!!
In terms of the actual technical aspects of writing, I wrote my first draft all in one sitting and then tweaked it for months. I think I went through about 8 drafts where I changed a phrase or line here and there, but only two or three major edits. The first one was workshopping a format that felt intentional. I had the words, but needed to find a structure and line breaks that meant something too. Then the last major change was going through and seeing if I could cut out all the filler words and literally only keep the absolute core of the poem, which is what’s published here!
What does poetry mean to you for the processes of healing?
Poetry has been my main way of processing for almost a decade now. That’s weird to think about because it definitely doesn’t feel like it’s been that long, but I started writing poetry in my freshman year of high school, when I started dealing with severe depression and anxiety. It was a way for me to try and represent a really amorphous, kind of hazy thing in a way that gave it some concreteness, something to hold on to and be able to reference. I didn’t ever edit those pieces- they were raw expressions of whatever feeling was overwhelming me at the moment. Now my depression is a lot more manageable, but I still turn to writing to work through difficult memories and trauma. I’ve learned that the only person who can give you closure is you in a lot of painful situations, and poetry is one way I give myself that grace.
In general terms, my relationship to writing is very guided by and in line with Audre Lorde’s Poetry is Not a Luxury. I won’t try to summarize because she said it all better than I ever could, but poetry really does feel like a vital necessity to life, an innate force that comes from deep inside of us to help us face the otherwise unimaginable. Obviously there’s also a lot of work the writer does to hone and channel that force, but poetry is something that has a lot more power than most people give it credit for. It’s an incredible essay, one I think everyone should read.
You mentioned that your poems explore the “quieter politics of existing and growing in a world that would simply rather you didn’t”. I adore this concept and see it as reminiscent of Toni Morrison’s section in The House that Race Built, where she talked of domesticating the racial project into “manageable, doable, modern human activity”. Poetry has always been, and will always be, political, and much of that political action is done with showing smaller, domestic aspects of life. Could you speak further on this topic?
That’s another great piece! A lot of politics is about the production and valuation of knowledge. Who is allowed proximity to knowledge, whose knowledge is respected and lifted up versus erased or silenced, and in what forms. I think historically poetry has been less respected by the general population than longer form writing because it’s so personal and accessible to all. You can write a poem on the back of a napkin or in between jobs much more easily than you can say, a novel, so the voices and subjects present in the genre are wider (although publishing is a whole different issue).
For me, poetry isn’t an intellectual exercise. It’s an expression of life as the author views it, a process of “re-membering the body and its parts” as Morrison puts it, of staking a claim to knowledge and situating it within the self and the community. My poetry embodies a lot of traits that many people wouldn’t consider “strong”. I’ve been hurt, and I’m talking about it. I focus on experiences that largely impact women and femmes, I use delicate imagery. There’s not a lot of head-on confrontation or anger at the world. But that’s my story and it should be as valuable as any other. Why don’t we view vulnerability as strength? Or connection to others? Or love, or friendship? Or getting up to go on a walk when we’re depressed – or having the self-awareness to know when we need rest instead? None of those things are particularly flashy, but we need them to live full lives, and all of them are discouraged by capitalism. Those quieter moments and points of connection are political because they’re happening within a larger context- a deeply screwed up world where success is defined by how much money someone can make working themself into the ground, or how much someone can cast off their difference in race/citizenship/(dis)ability/gender/sexuality etc and fit the norm. Writing in ways that are explicitly tied to our difference helps to start redefining and expanding the boundaries of what’s deemed acceptable knowledge.
Where can our readers find more of your work?
I have two poems published in Narrative Northeast’s Issue 6 – including the one I talk about in the first question. Beyond that, the rest of my writing is all in my personal journals for now!
Interviewed by Munira Tabassum Ahmed
Hyades Magazine 