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Plating the Poem, Reclaiming the Story: A Conversation with Erin Elizabeth Smith

by Amie Whittemore

Amie Whittemore: I really enjoyed your latest collection,听顿辞飞苍听(Stephen F. Austin State University Press, 2020), and its close engagement with place, body, and memory: how where we are shapes how we see ourselves and our pasts, and how all of these can become strange鈥攍ike Oz or Wonderland, both places you reference throughout the collection鈥攖hrough the effects of grief, trauma, and reckoning. I have questions about all these themes, but let鈥檚 begin with place, as scene-setting is a critical component of the first section of the book. In 鈥淢apmaking,鈥� the speaker states,听

聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 I am everywhere today鈥�

聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 the red and purple living room聽

聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 where I burrowed in the blankets of a man

聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 I used to love. A candy cane

聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 rocket parked on Carolina fairground.

聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 The orange trill of space heaters

聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 on a Hattiesburg bar.听

So, two questions: 1) how would you characterize the relationship between place and memory in聽Down聽and 2) as a writer, how does place influence your writing practice?聽

Erin Elizabeth Smith: When this book started to come into being, I had recently moved for the twenty-ninth time in twenty-eight years; this move was from Mississippi to Tennessee, which was also the ninth state that I鈥檝e lived in. So much of the way that I think about memory is tied to the place鈥攁 childhood in the South, coming of age in the Northeast, grad school in the Midwest and Gulf Coast. To think of personal change is, for me, to think of聽where聽that change took place, but to think of love is also the same. So many of the relationships I had in my twenties were so deeply tied to where I lived that the place itself feels rooted to their loss. Maybe this is why I wasn鈥檛 able to write about Tennessee until my husband left it, until it was a place of grief and, eventually, healing.

When I move to a new place, I find myself ravenous for its histories, its idiosyncrasies, its notes that make it uniquely itself. In moving to Knoxville, most of the people I met in my first year were also transplants, so it took a while to truly understand the ins and outs of this Appalachian city that is not the South that I understood. This unearthing and discovery, though, is part of what makes the writing process so much richer; the way we surprise ourselves in our own education.

础奥:听I love that idea of 鈥渦nearthing and discovery,鈥� and how coming to know a place is often a journey of coming to know one鈥檚 self鈥攖hrough, as you note, grief and healing, which brings us to another dominant theme in聽顿辞飞苍,听the exploration of a marriage coming to an end. This returned me to Jack Gilbert鈥檚 鈥�,鈥� and how that poem refuses to position a marriage ending as failure, rather simply 鈥渃oming to the end of [its] triumph.鈥� I鈥檇 love to hear how you see the marriage in聽顿辞飞苍听in relation to Gilbert鈥檚 logic. As a touchstone, poems such as 鈥淥n the Third Month of Separation鈥� and 鈥淎lice Re-Watches聽Garden State鈥� come to mind: 鈥淥n the Third鈥︹�� ends 鈥渋n this world, nothing / is finished or untoothed,鈥� and the latter poem begins 鈥淲hat I know about moving on is nothing / like how it really works.鈥� So maybe the question is: do marriages ever end?聽聽

EES: Before I was married, I thought that a divorce was just an expensive break-up. That it would carry the weight that the end of previous long-term relationships had. Even though I was married for less than a year, the weight of divorce cut much deeper than expected. Maybe it鈥檚 the promises? Maybe it鈥檚 a letting down of the guard in some way? I鈥檓 still unsure and exploring, but the way it brought me low was something I was in no way prepared for. I kept looking at other people鈥檚 stories of divorce that worked as buoys on the long bay, ways of getting from one thing to the next.听

While I think the end of most relationships haunt in some capacity, the navigation of a divorce carries with it a different kind of weight, which can keep resurfacing in strange ways. My marriage鈥檚 end was neither a failure nor was its original existence a triumph. Our romantic relationships are not what define who we are in the world. Instead, it is the ways in which we grieve, heal, and grow.

础奥:听I love that perspective on the role of grief, healing, and growth and how they ground the individual, in ways similar to geography. Which brings us back to place! In section two, 鈥淎 Fabulous Beast,鈥� the issue of place, particularly home place, becomes further complicated with more exploration of real (Illinois, West Virginia, Delaware) and invented (Wonderland, Oz) geographies. These landscapes come into conversation with each other through the perspective of Alice, mainly, though she also enters into conversation with Dorothy. In 鈥淚f Alice Lived Here,鈥� the speaker notes 鈥渕aybe home is a made-up place鈥� / like love, like Wonderland.鈥� How did you arrive at Alice and Dorothy becoming central figures in the collection?聽

EES: The first semester after my husband left, I was teaching a course focused on the literature on which Disney films were based. In preparation for the course, I watched every version of Alice I could find (there were quite a few that had just come out) and read a ton of the history of the books including the biography of Alice Liddell, the inspiration for Carroll鈥檚 Alice. Thus, the character was on the brain.

But it was in my reread of聽Alice鈥檚 Adventures in Wonderland聽that I realized how this novel was different from the tales that followed. Alice wasn鈥檛 trying to get home. She wasn鈥檛 trying to defeat an evil monarch or find adventure, buried treasure, or even herself. She moved from place to place because she had to. For me, the story was about momentum, how you get through the strangeness of a new world without purpose, without goals. You move because you have to, and there was a beauty in that that rang true for that moment in my own life.听

It felt important to put Alice in conversation with Dorothy, whose character and original story is based heavily off of the Alice books, partially to showcase their differences. To highlight why home isn鈥檛 something that one needs to find outside of the self.

础奥:听I love this perspective on the self as a kind of home and also appreciate how Alice and Dorothy鈥檚 experiences as literary characters are used as critiques of the male gaze and the male imagination: 鈥淚鈥檓 moved / ball-headed, from one adaptation / to the next,鈥� Alice notes in 鈥淣eco z Alenky,鈥� 鈥渁ll by men who want / to make me nubile, blonde, / each in wonder of their new version / of my world.鈥澛�

The biographical speaker feels this pressure too, to see herself through the lens of the men in her life, particularly her ex-husband: 鈥渉ow you found me / like I look for men now, as hurt / and as clutching as you鈥� (from 鈥淒ear John鈥�). How do Alice鈥檚鈥攁nd to a lesser extent, Dorothy鈥檚鈥攅xperiences refract the more biographical speaker鈥檚 perspective on these issues?聽

EES:聽One of the things that I thought about a lot was the ways in which seven-year-old Alice Liddell helped to narrate the original version of the tale that Charles Dodgson (AKA Lewis Carroll) created and how her influence is never given credit in the story鈥檚 creation. Part of the genius and weirdness in this collection is based in child logic, which Dodgson, in some ways, steals from her. Think about the ways in which Alice functions鈥攊t鈥檚 not the story of a girl trying to get home (this trope comes more from the Oz books which later abandon it in favor of a more speculative world), but rather a girl who explores for the sake of exploring. Who moves to the next thing as if in a dream, with no purpose, no plan.听

This is the story of many important girl characters, characters that shape us deeply as young readers. These characters as the pawns of male authors seemed important in the ways in which I thought about my own life and how so many of the choices I鈥檝e made have been driven by men in my life. In many ways, this book is about reclaiming my own story.听

础奥:听Not only are these poems imaginative, heartfelt, and smart鈥攁nd, as you suggest above, actively feminist鈥攖hey are also delicious: appetite, and the objects of appetite, feature prominently throughout the collection, though particularly in the latter half. The third section, 鈥淭he Moon, and Memory, and Muchness,鈥� opens with 鈥淎lice in Louisiana,鈥� its speaker wondering how 鈥渁nything survives this appetite / for all things sumptuous.鈥� Later, in 鈥淕astronomy,鈥� the speaker states: 鈥渨e eat and we become / something hungry鈥�.Nothing left of us but the urge / to consume something miraculous.鈥� There鈥檚 a sense in these poems, as well as in others, that appetite defines the self; not only are we what we eat, we are what we聽飞补苍迟听to eat.听

I also know you鈥檙e a聽. So, I鈥檓 curious about the connections you see between cooking and writing: how does your experience in one mode shape your experience in the other? Or, to lean into the pun, how do these two practices feed each other?聽

EES:聽Certainly, both ideas here are about appetite, not just what we want to eat, but what we want. There鈥檚 a reason that the language of sex and food have been conflated since there鈥檚 been language, and it鈥檚 hard for me to write about desire without thinking about the sensual in terms of all of the senses.听

Because cooking is not just an art but an obsession for me鈥擨 read cookbooks for fun and don鈥檛 even know what a 鈥渟imple鈥� meal is anymore鈥攖he language of cooking becomes part of the language that鈥檚 used in my writing in the same way any obsession can. But on the other side of things, I do feel that the way I think about poetry also bleeds into my cooking鈥攖he use of negative space in plating, the editing of ingredients, the ways in which you can blend form. I think all artists find their art in other places as well, the ways in which things seem to seep into one another. But with food, it鈥檚 something you have to engage with in some way to survive. Why not make that engagement as pleasurable as possible?

础奥:听Agreed! I also think there鈥檚 something to be said for reclaiming, not only one鈥檚 story, as you noted above, but also one鈥檚 appetite, one鈥檚 desire for and experience of pleasure. I relish that the title of the last section is 鈥淓verything鈥檚 got a Moral (If only you can find it)鈥� and how it explicitly confronts the desire/expectation of a lesson to come from loss and grief; that it both invites and questions whether and how we learn from experience.听

I feel there is often pressure in poetry collections to mimic some of the conventional actions of a novel鈥攖o have a plot for instance, or at least some narrative tension, especially if the poems are individually bent toward narrative. And, while your poems are grounded in narrative, they also are lyrical, meditating on the texture of memory, on those moments where 鈥渢he last snow pants in the milky dawn, / unable to stay anywhere but afloat鈥� (鈥淭he Last Snow鈥�). As a poet, how do you balance your interest in narrative propulsion with the desire to stay 鈥渁float鈥�?聽

EES:聽As an editor, I spend a lot of time thinking about the story that a book tells as well as figuring out the best way to tell it. While I appreciate a certain chronology in a collection, I think it鈥檚 important to also remember that we don鈥檛 live out our lives in that same chronological order; memory, repetition, routine, even kinds of forgetting, are all ways in which we circle around and around in a way that cannot make a straight line.听

I think poetry collections are so aptly able to do this work through the ways in which we call back and call forward to ideas that are important in the lives of what we create. I certainly didn鈥檛 write these poems in the same chronology they appear in the book; some weren鈥檛 even Alice poems, but instead reworked to fit within the framing of the conceit, which further illustrates the ways in which we come back to the same ideas, losses, and obsessions again and again.听

础奥:听Finally, I鈥檇 like to zoom out a bit from聽顿辞飞苍听and talk about your creative practice more generally. Anyone who knows you, or at least knows your presence in the literary community, knows that you are extremely active in supporting other writers through your nonprofits,听听补苍诲听聽and the many projects that live under these sunny umbrellas. You are also an聽聽at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. How do you protect time for your own work in the midst of your many responsibilities?聽聽

EES:聽Honestly, this took a lot of time to figure out. Most of this book was written in my first few years in Tennessee, but by the time the majority of the poems were on the page, I was creating the residency program here in Knoxville, and I didn鈥檛 touch the manuscript, or my own poetry at all, for almost two years while I focused my life towards making sure that the farmhouse and the projects we were fomenting here in Knoxville were able to stand on their own.听

I realized after we had opened the farm for short-term residencies and filling those spots, that I needed to figure out a way back to my own writing. This started with the workshop and retreat series that we run here at SAFTA, writing poems alongside the workshop participants and working towards a new collection. Eventually the SAFTA crew and other local writers started doing what we call Poetry Crossfit, where we give each other a certain set of rules and thirty minutes to write a poem. We come back. Share. Then rinse and repeat. It鈥檚 what I like to refer to as 鈥渕aking clay,鈥� i.e. getting something down on the page that you can work and rework later.听

This has been my primary way of writing for the past five years simply because I do not have the time to sit around and wait for 鈥渢he muse,鈥� or I鈥檓 alone in the forest gathering mushrooms, or standing above a pot poaching an egg, or at the white board talking about the importance of understanding audience, when inspiration strikes, and there鈥檚 no place or time to write those sudden thoughts down. It鈥檚 okay, though, because sometimes the language that you have in that minute isn鈥檛 what鈥檚 important. It鈥檚 knowing that when you do need the words to come, they will.