Interview with Cheryl Denise

Interview

What did you get your degree in and where did you get it?

I got my degree in Nursing, at Conestoga College, in Guelph, Ontario, a small school. I think there were around 100 students in the RN program. The nurses had their own campus, one day a week we went to the main campus for our sciences.

When did you first start writing poetry? How did you become interested in poetry?

I wrote a bit in high school, but really got going after college. Writing was a way to get my emotions out and a way to figure out what was going on inside. I mostly wrote when I was angry, but then I figured out I liked writing and got into a habit, and I had a roommate who encouraged me to write and who liked to listen to my poems.

How has your writing evolved, especially between your first and second book? 

Hard one. I like to think my "voice" has gotten more refined, more reflective or thoughtful, the questions and the pondering deeper and more complex, I'm less afraid (see "Mother of Paradise"), and I still can't quite believe I had the nerve to publish “Shearing." I've never read Shearing at a reading -- and probably never will.

What themes and images do you focus on when writing? 

Whatever comes to mind: farming, spirituality, relationships, my past, whatever is going on in my life and occasionally news stories.

What does your writing/revising process usually look like?

I'm a big fan of Natalie Goldberg’s book Writing Down the Bones. I usually read a few good poems by other people, have a hot drink, then free write whatever comes to mind, and write as fast as I can for at least four or five pages, then I'll give that piece a rest. [I’ll] come back to it and see if there's anything good in it, and if, so work and work and work on it, [and] then I'll take it to some good poet friends and they'll tell me where the problems are, [then] I'll take it home and rewrite, and then take it back to my poet friends.

How does your Mennonite background influence your writing? Does your work as a nurse influence your poetry? If so, how? 

I think being Mennonite is just part of who I am, I can't compartmentalize that out of my writing. Funny, though, I definitely can take the nurse out of me when I write. Seldom do I write about my job or nursing in general.

Do you have a favorite poet or writer? 

George Ella Lyon from Kentucky, Stephen Dunn, Gregory Orr and Julia Spicher Kasdorf.

Who has influenced your work the most? 

I think living in West Virginia and hearing West Virginian poets like Kirk Judd, who tell story-like poems: easy to understand, rhythmic, and who read out loud -- Kirk wears overalls and is a mountain man and one of the best poets I know -- you wouldn't think he's a poet [when you] look at him.

How long did it take you to write I Saw God Dancing and What’s in the Blood? What was the publishing process like? 

Each book took about five years to put together; not like it was a plan, but just the happening of it. I love to get criticism from my poet friends in my revising process, but getting criticism from someone you don't know, haven't met, out there on the publishing company's board, boy that's hard and can feel very hurtful and personal. Michael King [of Cascadia Publishing] himself was great to work with, and it felt like with the first book that he knew everything about me. The first time I met him in person my husband told me not to get all mushy and hug him and start crying, as our relationship was a professional one and I didn't really know him and he didn't really know me, which was true and yet weird. Oh, and the process feels so slow. By the time the book comes out the poems feel old; I have new poems by then.

Can you go into more detail about the publishing process? What was different between the two books? 

For the first book, my publisher liked it but since poetry books don't make a publisher rich he said he'd have to wait to consider my manuscript as he had published two books of poetry recently (one being by Ann Hostetler, Empty Room with Light), so he was waiting to see if those two books did good on sales and then he'd consider mine. I forget how long a wait period it was, I think almost a year. Then Cascadia Publishing House had Jean Janzen act as my editor -- so she read the manuscript, made comments, asked that I consider deleting a few poems which she felt did not have a universal appeal, and then I took her comments and made changes and added a few new poems; and when [we] agreed on a final manuscript, then Michael King, the publisher, was okay with that and it went to press.

For the second book, Jeff Gundy was the hired poetry editor for Cascadia -- so Jeff and I worked back and forth a bit till we agreed on a final manuscript.  This took several months, and there was a waiting period after that even as Cascadia only publishes a poetry book every so often since they are not the money makers.

Interviews, Reviews and Articles about Cheryl Denise
 Bishop, Jim. "W.Va. Poet to Read Works at EMU - EMU News | Eastern Mennonite University." EMU News. Eastern Mennonite University, 6 Feb. 2008. Web. 29 Sept. 2013.

Ervin, Carol. "Novelists Should Read Poetry." Carol Ervins Author Site. Wordpress, 7 Jan. 2013. Web. 16 Oct. 2013.

 James, Sonja. "Denise's Latest Book Explores 'What's in the Blood.'" The Journal. The Journal, 4 Jan. 2013. Web. 16 Oct. 2013.

 Janzen, Rhoda. "Recent Mennonite Poetry: A Review Essay." Mennonite Quarterly Review 81.1 (2007): n. pag. Web. 16 Oct. 2013.

"Local Poet Releases Book, CD." The InterMountain. The InterMountain, 20 Apr. 2012. Web. 29 Sept. 2013. 

Essay and a Poem Inspired by Tea Ceremony

My Understanding of Tea Ceremony

Waldrep’s craft in this poem holds true to his line “the poet speaks precisely so we hear the ‘b’ in ‘lamb.’” The work is crafted so precisely that it must be read one word at a time, to understand the cryptic metaphors. I went to a dictionary countless times during my reading, trying to understand Waldrep’s intriguing and masterful use of words. The Tea Ceremony is an East Asian ritual, that consists of a series of movements and gestures done while drinking tea. The tea ceremony is meant to acknowledge beauty among the troubling facts of life, and foster harmony in humanity and with nature. The symbolism of the ceremony is more important than the tea itself, in the same way that the symbolism of the metaphors is more important than the subject matter. The poem is like a tea ceremony, a ritual designed to purify the reader and create harmony with the world. The poem arrives at this harmony through an analysis spanning from nature to our modern world, eventually finding balance between two extremes. 

Waldrep piles metaphor on top of metaphor framing the poem, as a meditation on relationships between the poet and the world. The queen bee controls the hive with her string and pollen, while the poet speaks precisely. The poet misperceives nativity or childishness, as a language he cannot learn, or perhaps refuses to learn. The sick queen medicates to mask her pain, “The sick queen coughs a scratchy patch of plexiglass on which some doctor’s dank prescription branches as a scrawl”; while the poet feels guilt equal to death for indulging in the simple pleasure of music, because the poet sees music as just another form of medication, a life giving power that eventually leads to pain. The poet sees forgiveness here, but also gives clear details of the armies of hell waiting in the basement. The queen fades into a ribbon, an image of her former self. The all-knowing poet reflects the waves on the lake, warnings of the pain of life, but is also aware of the pain the queen bee feels. “It's true, elections fly too close to the furnaces we cannot see.” Finally the poet admits that the queen and he are not so different, “entertaining the same deserted algorithm.” They both share in entertaining the madness of the world. This is a point of resolution. Realizing that although he and the queen bee are different, they are also similar, the poet has found harmony with the world.

Here is a link to the poem: <https://gulfcoastmag.org/index.php?n=2&si=47&s=2932>

A Poem Inspired By Tea Ceremony

Jacob Martin

The red and yellow leaves

fall on the cold hard ground.

My coat shields my body

against freezing winds,

but I'm late to class

and I need to ride my bike to make it on time.

Winter is always colder from a bike.

I should have planned ahead

and finished my homework sooner so that

I'd have time to walk. But where will I find

the energy, to do my homework sooner?

What other ten minutes of life can I

give up, to spend more time

on my walk to class. I already don't brush

my teeth enough. Maybe if I give up

brushing my teeth all together,

I can enjoy my walks to class.

But then I might have future dental problems,

and clean is nice. But slow

is also nice. Maybe I should sleep

less, or eat better, or give up

on one of my hobbies. But

I need those things too.

For now I continue to bear the cold.

Later in the day the sun comes out,

and the cold like me must yield,

to the nature of balance.

G. C. Waldrep Interview

How would you describe your faith? Do you identify with any specific denomination or follow any specific interpretation of doctrine?

I would hope to describe it as a vital, New Testament, Spirit-filled faith.  I underwent a conversion experience in the early 1990s and was baptized (in a Mennonite church) in 1993.  From 1995 to 2000 I was a member of the New Order Amish community at Yanceyville, N.C.  Since 2005 I've been a member of the Old Order River Brethren

How does your faith connect with your writing? Do you ever have conflicts between faith and writing? If so how do you deal with it?

Likewise, I would hope my faith is everywhere in my writing, although it's not always obvious--to either traditional Anabaptist audiences or the larger poetry-reading public.  I do believe that a complex faith deserves--demands--a complex art, by way of reflection or articulation, and my aesthetic roots are in Surrealism and High Modernism.  I often tell friends that I speak as plainly as I know how, but I also keep in mind Flannery O'Connor's dicta about speaking from within a conservative faith community out into an unbelieving world:  "To the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost-blind you draw large and startling figures."  I also think of my work as having deep roots in the parabolic tradition of Jesus, who repeatedly said "He who hath ears to hear, let him hear."

As for conflicts between faith and writing:  I'm asked this often, especially from within the Anabaptist community--and especially by those who have felt stifled by their own experiences from within Anabaptist Christianity.  The answer is actually no, I have never felt either internal or external conflicts between faith and writing.  Perhaps this is because writing came to me--as I've written elsewhere--as a gift, a much longed-for gift, alongside conversion:  faith and creative expression have always been organically intertwined for me.  Or perhaps it's because even by the standards of my own conservative Anabaptist congregation I am extremely orthodox.

For me, orthdoxy has always offered a large, spacious architecture to move around in, as someone with a creative vocation.  It is not oppressive; it is generative, in Christ and on the page.

There is the occasional poem that I decide not to share, much less publish. (And yes, as a person of faith I find the question of where, how, and whether one publishes to be much more fraught.) Some poems turn out to be private poems. When I am writing, I don't think about audience at all. But later, in revision and once a poem is done, I do think about it--and even pray about it, as necessary. But really these are quite few. I generally try to work out any spiritual problems in a poem during revision, to the best of my ability.

What are you doing in Wales? Does it connect with your writing? Can we anticipate any new works in the near future?

I am on sabbatical from my teaching job at Bucknell University in central Pennsylvania. What I'm doing in Wales is walking and listening, mostly. Wales is a country I've always been interested in, since reading the ripple of children's books from the 1970s set in Wales and adjacent counties of the English marshes. It's a green land, shot through with gray and blue. It's also a land that remains deeply inscribed--I mean this in the tangible sense--with its Christian past (and, to a lesser degree, present). What I am supposed to be doing here is researching and writing a long poetic sequence about Christian attitudes towards the natural landscape: pre-Norman, post-Norman, Cistercian (remember that Wordsworth's Tintern Abbey was a Cistercian foundation), Protestant. There are some parallels between Anabaptism and pre-Norman Welsh Christianity, although it would be easy to overemphasize them.

Anyway this is a long-term project of grappling with faith, landscape, and environment (the first movement of which was published as a chapbook earlier this year: http://www.omnidawn.com/waldrep/index.htm. Before any of that comes to fruition, Lord willing, BOA Editions is scheduled to publish a long poem, Testament (written in 2009), in the spring of 2015.

G. C. Waldrep Biography

Bio:

G. C. Waldrep was born in South Boston Virginia in 1968. He holds degrees in American history from both Harvard and Duke and an MFA in poetry from the University of Iowa. He has published four collections of poetry his most recent work being Your Father on the Train of Ghosts(2011), which is a collaboration with poet John Gallaher done almost entirely through email. He currently teaches writing at Bucknell University in Pennsylvania, edits the journal West Branch, and serves as Editor-at-Large for The Kenyon Review.

Works:

Waldrep, George Calvin, and John Gallaher. Your Father on the Train of Ghosts: Poems. Rochester, NY: BOA Editions, 2011. Print.

Waldrep, George Calvin. Archicembalo: Poems. North Adams, MA: Tupelo, 2009. Print.

Waldrep, George Calvin. Disclamor: Poems. Rochester, NY: BOA Editions, 2007. Print.

Waldrep, George Calvin. Goldbeater's Skin: Poems. Fort Collins, CO: Center for Literary Pub., 2003. Print.

Waldrep, George Calvin. Southern Workers and the Search for Community: Spartanburg County, South Carolina. Urbana: University of Illinois, 2000. Print.

Published Online:

Waldrep, G. C. "Tea Ceremony." Gulf Coast: A Journal of Literature and Fine Arts. University of Houston,   2011. Web. 1 Oct. 2011 

Wadrep, G. C. "The Sunday Poem G. C. Waldrep." Gwarlingo. 16 Feb. 2013

Web.  1 Oct. 2013 

Waldrep, G. C. "Apocatastasis." Poetry Magazine. N.p., Apr. 2000. Web. 16 Oct. 2013.      
Waldrep, G. C. "Five Poems —G.C. Waldrep". Typo Magazine 3. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Oct. 2013.         

Waldrep, G. C. "What Begins Bitterly Becomes Another Love Poem." Blackbird 2.2 (2003): n. pag.   Blackbird. Department of English at Virginia Commonwealth University and New Virginia Review, Inc., Fall 2003. Web. 16 Oct. 2013.

YourFather on the Train of Ghosts (The Short Film Version). (2011). 

Interviews:

“An Interview with G. C. Waldrep” Blue Mesa Review. n.p. 2 May 2013. Web. 16 Oct. 2013. 

King, Andrew David. "An Inheritance Reassembled: G.C. Waldrep on Finding and Keeping." Kenyon Review Blog. Kenyon College, 8 Aug. 2012. Web. 16 Oct. 2013. 

Bauer, Aaron. "Interview with G. C. Waldrep and a Review of Your Father on theTrain Of Ghosts." Permafrost Magazine. University of Alaska Fairbanks Department of English, n.d. Web. 16 Oct. 2013.

"Interviewwith G. C. Waldrep." Porter Square Books Blog. N.p., 20 Jan. 2010. Web. 16 Oct. 2013. 

Tallin, Lisa. "An Interview with GC Waldrep." BWR RSS. University of Alabama, Mar.-Apr. 2011. Web. 16 Oct. 2013. 

McRae, Nick. "Interview with G.C. Waldrep." The Journal. Ohio State University, Mar.-Apr. 2012. Web. 16 Oct. 2013. 

Hill, Sean P. "Poetry Daily Prose Feature - Interview with G. C. Waldrep." Poetry Daily. Hayden's Ferry Review, Fall 2011. Web. 16 Oct. 2013. 

Reviews:

Conaway, Cameron. "Disclamor by G.C. Waldrep Rattle: Poetry for the 21stCentury." Rattle Poetry for the 21st Century. N.p., 13 Sept. 2008. Web. 16 Oct. 2013. 

"Archicembalo." Publishers Weekly. Publishers Weekly, 16 Feb. 2009. Web. 16 Oct. 2013. 

Jacqueline, L. "Your Father on the Train of Ghosts: A Review" West 10th. N.p., 26 Nov. 2011. Web. 16 Oct. 2013. 

Walker, Ken L. "Dad Who is Benjamin Britten" Coldfront. Tumpelo Press, Mar. 2 2009. Web. 16 Oct. 2013.

Walker, Mike. "YOUR FATHER ON THE TRAIN OF GHOSTS BY C. WALDREP AND JOHNGALLAHER" Coal Hill Review RSS. N.p., 3 Nov. 2011. Web. 16 Oct. 2013. 

Suzanne Kay Miller

Biography:

            Suzanne Kay Miller has published one book of poems, Storage Issues, as well as numerous poems and other written works in publications such as The Mennonite, Mennonite Life, Mikrokosmos, Women of the Plain: Kansas Poetry, and The Gallery. She has received awards for her poetry from The Associated Church Press Association, the Evangelical Press Association, and the Winfield (Kan.) Arts and Humanities Council.

            Miller was born in Indiana in 1956. She first studied at Hesston College, where she received an Associate’s Degree in Liberal Arts, but later changed her course and enrolled in Kansas City School of Watchmaking. She eventually transferred to Tabor College, Bethel College, and ultimately to Wichita State University where she received a B.A. in English and later a M.F.A. in Creative Writing.

            She was married to Kurt Lawrence in 1977 and has 4 children with him, whom she raised while earning her multiple degrees. She and Kurt divorced in 1996, and in 2007, she married Jim Buchhorn in her car in Las Vegas. Her book, Storage Issues, is a culmination of poems she has written from 1988 to 2008. She now teaches English at Friends University, in Wichita Kansas, and is working on her next book of poems, which deal largely with Miller’s departure from the Mennonite Church.

Bibliography:

Miller, Suzanne Kay. Storage Issues. Telford, PA: DreamSeeker, 2010. Print.

 “Breaking Bud,” The Mennonite, May, 1995.

“Come Close,” The Christian Leader, December 1993; Voice, January-February 1995.

“Dreamers,” Christian Living, January-February 1992.

“Four Sticks,” Festival Quarterly, Fall 1991.

“Girls Playing Church,” Mikrokosmos, Spring 2003.

“Grandma,” Lines, 1991; Voice, May 1994.

“How Can We Know?” The Gallery, 2007.

“How Much More,” The Menonite, May 2, 2000.

“In the City at Twenty,” the Mennonite, May 24, 1994.

“It was the Kind,” Porcupine, Winter 2006.

“Knowledge of Birds,” Women of the Plains: Kansas Poetry (anthology), 1995.

“Leaves on the River,” The Mennonite, October 4, 2005.

“Leaving Wichita Late,” Mikrokosmos, Spring 2003.

“Living under Authority,” First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion and Public Life, October 1995.

“Old Story,” Window to Mission, October-November 1989.

“On Entering Grandma’s House,” Lines, 1991; Voice, May 1994.

“Prelude,” Mennonite Life, September 1992 (“Photographs”).

“Prodigal,” The Penwood Review, Spring 2007.

“Riddles from Mary,” Window to Mission, Winter 1996.

“Shingles, Socks, and Photographs,” The Mennonite, October 11, 1994.

“Silence,” Voice, April 1995.

“The Matchbox,” The Mennonite, December 22, 1992.

“The Old Land,” Festival Quarterly, Fall 1991.

“Thy Waves,” Women of the Plains: Kansas Poetry (anthology), 1995.

“To My Daughter Jailed in Chicago: 3/20/03,” The Mennonite, November 4, 2003.

“Try This,” Lines, 1991.

“Vision,” Mikrokosmos, Spring 2001.

“We Place These Stones,” Voice, May 1991.

“We Wait For Words,” Mennonite Life, September 1992.

“Wheat,” The Mennonite, June 14, 1988.

“Yggdrasill,” The Gallery, 2007.

Online Works:

“Aubade,” The Mennonite, April 20, 2004.

            < http://www.themennonite.org/pdf/magazine_pdf_74.pdf>.

“Leaves on the River,” The Mennonite, October 4, 2005.

            <http://www.themennonite.org/attachments/pdfs/0000/0041/Issue19-8.pdf>.

Miller, Suzanne K. "Living Under Authority." First Things Magazine Oct. 1995: n. pag.FirstThings.com. First Things Magazine. Web. 17 Oct. 2013. <http://www.firstthings.com/article/2008/09/003-living-under-authority-48>.

 “To My Daughter Jailed in Chicago: 3/20/03,” The Mennonite, November 4, 2003.

            < http://www.themennonite.org/pdf/magazine_pdf_63.pdf>.

Interview with Suzanne Miller:

Tuesday, October 15, 2013 7:56 PM

1. I know from your biography that you pursued higher education for quite a period of time while also beginning to raise a family and take care of kids. What motivated you to continue your education during this time of starting up a family?

I wanted children, and I wanted knowledge and credentials.

2. How many of your poems would you deem 'Mennonite Poems'? And how important is being Mennonite to the way you write?
Although I was raised by Mennonite parents and was a Mennonite church member when I wrote these poems, I no longer hold or identify with Mennonite beliefs. A friend who recently read the book said she could see signs of my transformation already in these poems. So, my former worldview, although disintegrating, was Mennonite, and worldviews are always important.

3. This project is for a Mennonite Literature class. How do you feel about your poetry being labeled as Mennonite poetry, and you being labeled a Mennonite poet? Do you think the title accurately represents you?
I do not think Mennonites feel very good about it, and I can see why. It is not an accurate title.

4. In your poem "Conservative Bodies," you write about your "training in defenselessness." Is this poem a representation of a long-standing rebellion you have felt against the ideas of non-violence in the church?

I respect all grand traditions involving nonviolent solutions to conflict. But I have always felt that silence as a solution to abuse is a continuation of abuse.

5. In the same poem, you write about your mother being a woman who apparently wore short dresses, which is clearly contrary to Mennonite custom. Was your mother a non-Mennonite, or what reason was there for people to judge the way your family dressed?

My mother and her mother-in-law were different kinds of Mennonites: GC and OM. This was before your time.

6. You organized your book of poems alphabetically instead of by theme, as in most other poetry books. Was this a play on the theme of Storage Issues, or an afterthought, or a personal preference?
I like to alphabetize. I wanted to throw readers off their paradigms.

7. What are you working on now? Current projects? Will you stick with themes you have developed already or venture into new territory?

I have a manuscript of poems overtly related to leaving the church. And I have a short story in verse, a fiction based on the true story of my great aunt’s suspicious death. These have not found a publisher. I have not written anything else new, but maybe that’s because of my bout with cancer this year. If I write again, I hope for new ideas. I am taking art classes and enjoying that very much.

8. Anything you would like to say about what formed you as a writer or why you chose this career path?

I like the care with which words shape or hold images, sounds, and ideas in thoughts and on pages.

All other known reviews or interviews:

Various. "June/July Letters." First Things Magazine, June-July 1996: n. FirstThings.com. First Things Magazine. Web. 17 Oct. 2013. <http://www.firstthings.com/article/2007/10/junejuly-letters-5>.

Storage Issues Essay

            Suzanne Miller writes in a variety of fashions throughout her short book entitled Storage Issues, utilizing various forms such as sonnets and quasi-pantoums as well as free verse. In the free verse poem, “Storage Issues,” the book’s namesake, Miller begins with a quote from Viktor E. Frankl: “For, in the past, nothing is irrecoverably lost, but everything is irrevocably stored.” This quote sets the tone for the poem, a tone of over-the-top, pack-rat-style storage.

            In the first line, Miller sets up a symbol for the “storage issues” she presumably has—a cemetery—and immediately relates it to “her ancestors’ upstairs bedrooms.” She lists all the numerous relatives buried there in “orderly rows.” In the second stanza, line two, Miller poses the question, “For whom and what are these kept?” Through this set-up, Miller raises the question of how everything is stored so neatly for the future, her relatives examples of stored things no longer needed. In line four, Miller mentions the “others of the congregation,” in an apathy that strangely contrasts the usual heavy focus on ancestry among those who are culturally Mennonite.

            Throughout the poem until the very end, Miller consistently refers to the human idea of storage, order and control. In the second stanza, Miller describes the woman in the poem selling her relatives’ possessions at an auction. Her vivid imagery here, “boxes of gloves missing fingers” and “unpatched overalls,” brings the reader into the lives of those who have passed. Through this, Miller conveys an attitude of triviality to storage, asking the question, “For whom and what are these kept?” and later answering that everything is “sold or scattered into deeper storage.” Why store things when no one needs them and they end up lost anyway? In the third stanza she references not knowing where “that book that should have saved her soul” is. The questions of this stanza introduce the reader to the idea of needing the past but not having access to it, to answer questions from the past or relive an important moment. She ends her poem with a vivid image of the moon—of nature—followed by the final question: “She wonders what she may need and has not kept.” The reference to nature in the last stanza is significant as the only reference to nature in the entire poem. This final juxtaposition shows a glimpse of the other point of view, that of wild and free nature, with no attempts at organization or control. She questions whether selling all the possessions was positive in the end. Will she need something she’s lost?

            Overall, Miller asks the reader to think about the plethora of items and people we store throughout our lives and questions the necessity of its organization and structure. She compares this human element to nature, free from such structure and labels, but in the end questions whether she has stored enough—if she may need some now-lost object or memory to complete her as a person. Using this contrast as inspiration, I wrote an imitation in the perspective of how nature’s beauty can never be preserved well enough without such storage systems.

Storage Issues

-A Suzanne Miller Imitation-

The forest he jogs at dawn surrenders damp chill

like his mom’s carpeted bathroom after a cold shower.

The young squirrel, the aged deer, The murder victim,

the lonely turtle, the burnt oak and birch saplings,

Yellow ducklings who no longer follow their off-white mother,

Lie scattered unevenly under the rotting earth. To whom do these

Matter? He collects and cleans what he can:

Freckled flowers on looming brown branches, carbon-color sleek stones,

Unkempt vines tangled together, glistening bones, spread handfuls of tender water,

Two-note melodies, double rainbows, citadels of seed grain, tired goose feathers,

Mud-spun twig nests: nothing compliant to a form or a memory, misplaced

In lack of proper storage. Where is that wild onion now that should rekindle

Her soul? Where is that evergreen meadow that should shield her?

Under the sun’s arduous downpour, he wonders

What he may need but cannot hope to keep.

~Original in Storage Issues, page 82. 

Essay and Imitation of Helen Alderfer's "Waiting for Tomorrow in Assisted Living"

The piece I chose to imitate is entitled “Waiting for Tomorrow in Assisted Living,” and can be found in Helen Alderfer’s The Mill Grinds Fine. At first glance, this poem appears to be a rather depressing eulogy of the speaker’s youth, but the final stanza reassures the reader that these doubts and fears “are passengers in a boat in a safe harbor / with pilots of skill and compassion.”

Ms. Alderfer’s poetic voice is simple, straightforward, and easily understood. Critics might think her work lacks complexity,  but I believe that her easy to read style allows for a deeper connection with her audience. Her similes and metaphors do exactly what they are meant to do, which is to conjure a vivid image in the reader’s mind. Take, for example, the first line of “Waiting for Tomorrow in Assisted Living:”

            When a flight of stairs looks as daunting as Mt. Kilimanjaro

            Where gourmet meals taste like sawdust

                        To those who have no appetite

The flight of stairs being compared to Mt. Kilimanjaro could be argued as a hyperbolic simile lacking complexity, but I argue that Ms. Alderfer is not exaggerating as much as some might think. Speaking as a person who is only 20 years old, I can only imagine what having joint pain or arthritis would feel like, but I’m sure it would make a flight of stairs look like Mt. Kilimanjaro. Regarding the simplicity of this comparison, I believe a strong writer doesn’t need to rely on extravagant, wordy comparisons in order to reach the audience. Can you imagine a gourmet meal tasting like sawdust? This is another example of a simple, yet very effective comparison.

            The poem’s structure is a single14-line stanza, followed by a one-line stanza, and concluding with a four line stanza. The 14-line stanza deals with questions and doubts about living in assisted living, which Ms. Alderfer experienced for herself in Waterford Crossing Retirement Home. These issues range from low energy, to table conversations exclusively about pain and pills, to a “dead mailbox” that can “hurt all day,” the line that concludes the first stanza. The concerns of the speaker build to this point, and the tension is released in the next one-line stanza, which is just, “Do not be deluded.” The last stanza continues to ease the tension and provides a more hopeful outlook to help resolve the issues in stanza one. In imitating this work I tried to preserve the structure Ms. Alderfer has, with the tension building and falling away in the same places. I kept a few lines verbatim from the original poem, the most important being “Do not be deluded,” the one sentence second stanza.

            Helen Alderfer’s straightforward style was a lot of fun to imitate, and despite the subject matter of “Waiting for Tomorrow in Assisted Living” being alien to me, I resonated strongly with the underlying themes of loneliness, reminiscence, and growing older.

Waiting for Tomorrow in a College House

When a walk with you is as draining as a marathon

When words flop like escaped fish on the deck of a boat

            because the fisherman is inept

When energy is so low that it is impossible

            to imagine that we walked for hours,

            carving our path into the night

Where casual conversation concentrates on

            parties, boys, and how-are-yous,

            not words that break the ice between us

When I remember your past and can predict a storm

            dancing on our doorstep

When the old familiar contact

            is too much or too little

Where a dead phone can hurt all day.

Do not be deluded.

We are passengers in the boat of our 20s

            with pilots who are unpredictable,

            bumping into each other, or steering away

            when we have grown apart.

Helen Alderfer Biography

Biographical Sketch:

Helen Alderfer (1919-2013) was a poet for most of her life, and her first poem was published when she was just 8 years old. Although she published only one volume of poetry during her life, she was an editor for Mennonite Publishing House for 25 years, and worked on magazines such as Christian Living and On the Line. She edited A Farthing in Her Hand, a book for (about?) Mennonite women in 1964. Her poetry collection, published in 2008, is The Mill Grinds Fine.

Ms. Alderfer was a Goshen College graduate, but she attended before there was a substantial creative writing program. She had to find her own writing community of people who loved poetry as much as she did, and she continued to do so well after she retired to Waterford Crossing Retirement Community in Goshen, Indiana. There, Ms. Alderfer participated in a monthly meeting with fellow poets to exchange poems and critique.

Ms. Alderfer wrote poetry throughout her life, and used it during times of emotional upheaval, whether volunteering with Mennonite Central Committee in the Philippines or coping with caring for her husband Ed as he succumbed to Parkinson’s Disease. Not even the ailments of old age could stop her from writing; her last publication: The Mill Grinds Fine was compiled when Ms. Alderfer was 90 years old and legally blind. Although she died in September of 2013, she will be remembered as a determined poet who loved writing and refused to let macular degeneration stop her from doing what she loved.

Published books:

Alderfer, Helen Wade. The Mill Grinds Fine: Collected Poems. Telford, PA: DreamSeeker, 2009. Print.

Alderfer, Helen Wade, ed. A Farthing in Her Hand. Scottdale: Herald Press, 1964. Print.

Selected publications:

http://www.themennonite.org/pdf/magazine_pdf_82.pdf

Bibliography of Interviews and Reviews:

Dukes, Howard. "Greencroft Holds Writing Contest." South Bend Tribune. South Bend Tribune, 18 Nov. 2012. Web. 16 Oct. 2013.

Hostetler, Ann. "Grist for the Mill." Center for Mennonite Writing. Center for Mennonite Writing, 15 May 2009. Web. 16 Oct. 2013.

Rich, Sarah, ed. Goshen Portraits 3. Goshen: Pinchpenny Press, 2009. Print.

Showalter, Shirley. "Helen Alderfer, Poet, Mother, Wise Woman, Role Model." Shirley Hershey Showalter. Shirley Hershey Showalter, 3 Jan. 2009. Web. 16 Oct. 2013.