My thanks to Nigel Kent for inviting me to drop-in and talk about a specific poem from 'Welcome to the Museum of a Life'. There are plenty of drop-ins on Nigel's site so it is well worth having a delve to read what writers say about their work followed by the review of the work by Nigel.
This week I’m particularly excited to welcome Sue Finch to reflect upon a poem from her acclaimed collection, Welcome to the Museum of a Life (Black Eyes Publishing, 2024).
I Don’t Know, is featured in Gallery 2 in my second full poetry collection, Welcome to the Museum of a Life. This gallery is a gallery of the unspoken which seems fitting for a poem which is about the grief I experienced when my Nan died.
I thought of it as a quiet, contemplative poem when I selected it for publication and was surprised and pleased when both Julie Stevens and Susan Richardson engaged with it shortly after the book was released.
The poem began in a workshop with Kim Addonizio. When I become fully present in a writing workshop it’s as if my pen is conducting my thoughts onto the page. I think quite fast during this process and enjoy watching the words flow and fill the lines. I also have moments of just being and waiting, and this helps me to stay in the moment and see what comes next. It is as if my brain is scanning my memories and thoughts, and filtering for the important bits.
The first lines that came were:
“I don’t know exactly how many seconds there were
between your final two breaths.”
They remained at the start of the poem throughout my editing processes because to me they came from the overriding image that sparked the whole.
Redrafting the morning after a workshop is a key part of my process and I have a ritual of setting out my journal and pen on my desk before I go to bed ready for revisiting. It feels good to come at the work as if it is new the next day and to see what is there. For this poem I put the lines from my journal that I was pleased with, into a word document and set myself a writing time of seven minutes. This time limit allows me to pick up the pace from where I left off and lean into my curiosity. To me writing poetry is like riding a ghost train – you start in the dark and it takes a while for your eyes to become accustomed. The track isn’t straight, and you have to hold on tight for the sudden corners. You need to want to see more of the things you glimpse in the dark and be prepared to hit things and go right through.
When I reviewed my second draft, I felt that the grief that hit me so hard that I didn’t know what to do was perfectly summed up in the following lines:
“I don’t know if biting one by one
through a dozen budded tulips would help.”
I have always had a need for getting feedback from my body in times of stress or contemplation. I have been a nail biter, a scab picker, a table leaner, a pocket tissue shredder. And these lines came to me seemingly out of nowhere when I was working on my second draft.
I can begin to hear which lines work and which ones don’t even before I read the work out loud because I have a strong internal voice, but if I don’t listen to the words in real life, I can miss repetition that isn’t planned, and this then weakens my work.
The aroma of tea and sugar used to cloud out each time my Nan unlocked the bureau to share supplies with my mum. I loved the ritual of it and the way all that was inside. I think I still like to stockpile certain things because of my nan’s wonderful reliable stash.
The sense of smell, and the way it evokes memory and moments, is strong and important to me. I have a vivid memory of finding myself lost in the supermarket when I was young because I had been leaning right into the freezer to fill my nose with the scent of ice-creams and ice lollies. I did not like the feeling of having lost my mum, but I found absolute joy in the smell that was still in my head. This memory led to me writing I Think She Left Me in the Frozen Aisle which you can find on my website. When I was redrafting I Don’t Know with Josephine Lay whilst editing the collection, Josephine suggested altering a couple of the don’ts in the poem. It was good to pay attention together to which lines would change in their power by taking on this different starting word. It definitely made a positive impact and I know I wouldn’t have seen that change if we hadn’t explored it together. I love the duality of the meaning for ‘I can’t’… where one human can’t know the exact feelings of another and the ‘please don’t tell me, I fear it will be too painful’.
“I can’t know if you died hungry or thirsty,
grateful or knowing.”
“I can’t know how cold you were with no heating.”
My Nan pops up in other poems too and I like the sprinkling of her essence. “There’s only one of you” was something she said to me a lot and it resonates with me still when I remember how unique and special each human being is. That line is a perfect balancing line in my poem I Hate You.
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