A Picture and a Thousand Words: Guest Post by Kim Suhr

“Leathery oak leaves grip my soles, and I am stunned by the realization that I must get used to seeing you from this vantage point — the back of your head bobbing, you running, running, running to the next vista, the next adventure.” ~ from “Sweet Scented Place” in Maybe I’ll Learn: Snapshots of a Novice Mom by Kim Suhr

Motherhood is a tricky business. There are plenty of books, mind you, that detail the how-to’s, the do’s, the do-not-ever’s. But inevitably, as soon as we take that baby in our arms (first-born, second-born, it doesn’t matter…every child is different) the books fall to the wayside, the instructions we studied blur, and we begin our individual journey as Mother, Mommy, Mom.

I’m not saying these how-to books should be ignored or discarded; they do provide a starting point. But it is a different kind of book on motherhood that often plays a larger role in our understanding: the book that reminds the new mom she is not alone; the book that says you’ll make mistakes, you’re only human; the book that suggests, even as your son or daughter grows up, that feeling of being a novice never entirely goes away.

Kim Suhr has written such a book. Her essays in Maybe I’ll Learn: Snapshots from a Novice Mom highlight her experiences of motherhood when her children are young, from that first bicycle day trip (where siblings turn  enemies) in “Peace in the Trailer” to a quiet hike for two in “Sweet Scented Place.” But the story doesn’t end at the last page. Throughout the book, in the Afterword, and with her guest post here, the message is the same: take note of everything–good, bad, frustrating–and know that each adventure, each intimate moment, reveals a new truth about who we are as human beings.

I’m thrilled to host Kim as she shares a snapshot of her story now, as a mom of a college-bound son. And because Mother’s Day is right around the corner, I’m offering a giveaway. ENTER HERE for a chance to win a copy of Maybe I’ll Learn. Deadline to enter is Sunday, May 14th, at noon.

Now, welcome Kim Suhr!


A Picture and a Thousand Words

By Kim Suhr

“Take lots of pictures. They grow up so fast!” The advice came from all corners: the old lady in the grocery line, a mom of tweens at the library, the middle-aged neighbor who had just sent his last child off to college. Flash forward 18 years, and my hard drive can attest to the fact that I took this advice. Nineteen thousand images. Add to that the few years of actual hold-‘em-in-your-hand photographs from before the digital era, and we’re talking lots of pictures.

Now it’s time to send my first-born off to college, and, while I am glad I took the advice of strangers, I am also glad I listened to my writer’s heart and took notes. For each kid, I kept a notebook in which I wrote periodic letters describing simple things—my worry of the moment, the kid’s developmental level or fascination du jour, what was happening in the world. They include a few sticky notes and ticket stubs. One particular nametag I just couldn’t throw away.

When I revisit these journals, I get a reminder of the phase when Shelby would break into singing “EIO!” to show her general state of happiness, how she went through a time where everything in the past happened “the otter day,” how she first learned to “write” her name and “read” with inflection.

Twelve years later, I write down a few Instagram posts that capture the vision she shares with her peers, “Life always offers you a second chance. It’s called tomorrow,” and “You can always find sunshine on a rainy day,” both accompanied with arty pictures of herself in starfish-type stances.

A dip into Ethan’s journal takes me to his vexation at having our yard signs stolen during the 2004 election, and his brainstorming on how to solve the problem. One solution involved electrifying the metal posts in the sign. Another called for copious amounts of dog poop.

Fast forward eight years, and I record his reaction to the most recent presidential election, the one he missed voting in by a few months. In a darkened living room, we watched the results together, both at a loss for words:

Before we went up to bed, you said, “Well, at least some really good art is going to come out of this time period,” observing, I think, that it is times like these where we can look to the arts to express what we can’t.

It certainly wouldn’t have occurred to me to take a picture that night, but I sure am glad I recorded a few thoughts.

So, if you have kids and no other stranger has given you this advice, let me be the first: write it down. Start with “Dear Sweet (Name)” and the date. It doesn’t need to be eloquent. Sometimes a list is all you need: Funny Things You Like to Say, What Seems to Be on Your Mind Lately, A Parenting Conundrum. Describe mealtime conversation or what you talk about at bedtime. These snapshots will not only help your kids remember what they were like at different times in their lives but will also give them insights into who you were, too. Perhaps that is the biggest gift of all.

Kim Suhr is the author of Maybe I’ll Learn: Snapshots of a Novice Mom and director of Red Oak Writing. Recently, her work has appeared at Midwest Review, Stonecoast Review and Solstice Literary Magazine. Her short story collection, Nothing to Lose & Other Stories, was a finalist for the Eludia Award. To learn more about her writing, visit kimsuhr.com. Kim holds an MFA from the Solstice program at Pine Manor College where she was the Dennis Lehane Fellow in Fiction.


Don’t forget: ENTER THE GIVEAWAY by Sunday @ noon, May 14th (Mother’s Day), to win a copy of Maybe I’ll Learn: Snapshots from a Novice Mom!

Q&A (& #Giveaway) with Poet, Christina Kubasta, Author of &s

“On the backyard firepit, a cicada / anchors itself…it splits / its own back, and emerges, lime green / and terrible: splayed / over the carcass of itself.”
~ from “Reconciliation” in &s


We are days away from National Poetry Month. In early celebration, I’m hosting poet, Christina Kubasta, to talk about her new chapbook entitled, &s (Finishing Line Press). In her collection, Kubasta pairs ideas using juxtaposition: wanting less and yet more, pushing away one expectation only to root oneself in the weight of another. Her poems explore the way we view ourselves, our bodies, in relation to an other; they invite us to consider the truth uncovered in such explorations, even when the truth makes us uncomfortable. Especially so.

Along with her Q&A, I’m offering a giveaway (courtesy of Christina–Thank you!). Click HERE for a chance to win a copy of &s  (deadline to enter is Tuesday, April 4th, at noon)!

Now,  welcome Christina Kubasta!

Christi Craig (CC): I know that collections like this, whether filled with poems or essays, tend to unfold unexpectedly, almost naturally, like magic. Can you tell us a little more about the development of this chapbook and its title?

Christina Kubasta (CK): As I was thinking about the poems in this collection, I found the ampersand playing an outsized role in a number of titles – including the opening poem “Autonomy & the Importance of Empty Space.” I’ve liked the ampersand since a grad-school friend peppered all her writing with it; it’s so visually attractive. But whenever I use it, someone will object – it’s not “professional,” or something similar. But some situations call out for the ampersand, and some resist it.

While I didn’t have a reason why I’d use the “&” as opposed to the “and,” I ran across the essay “The 27th Letter” by Mairead Small Staid (I used a line of it to open the book). In it, Small Staid gives a history of the ampersand (fascinating!), how poets have used the ampersand, and talks about how this character can be used to suggest collaboration. She notes that when two authors’ names are joined by the ampersand it means they worked together on a text, rather than approaching the work at separate times in separate places.

Armed with this idea, I returned to my poems and tried to think about when particular ideas existed side-by-side, inflecting each other, shaping each other, influencing each other. To return to that first poem in the collection, which explores a desire for autonomy & independence, as well as a desire to be enveloped and not desire the empty room or the solitary, those ideas exist together, playing off of each other & informing each other. The speaker of the poem (like many of us, perhaps) wants both “to escape—just for a moment—try a different kind of life,” and also (at the same moment!) to “return to the room // behind the window, behind the awning / and be grateful.” The collection is full of ampersand-moments like this: ideas that exist twinned with other moments, inseparable.

CC: Some of us (and by “some” I mean me) resist change with force and indignation. Many of your poems, like “Reconciliation,” speak to the painful but positive side of transformation: “sometimes we become less than what we were / and it is no tragedy….” Your poem paves the way to acceptance, a theme that runs throughout this book. Is it the writing of poetry–and the poet within–that brings you to a better understanding of body, life, and experience? Or is it in the acknowledgment of the experience, and the resolve that follows, that brings a poem to the surface? 

CK: I would say this too is an ampersand moment, a both/and. I think poets should be honest, above all. I tend to resist the idea that poets have any answers at all – which means also that we shouldn’t pretend to, in our poems or anywhere else. But poets pretend all the time. I distrust that. I distrust the poet’s voice that says to the reader Listen, I’m going to tell you something important . . .

Witnessing a cicada unsheathe itself from itself was horrifying and fascinating to me – we often hear them, and see the husks they leave behind, but I’d never before seen one in the act. We often dream of other lives, but know we shouldn’t admit it, because it will cause pain. We misunderstand each other, often. There’s a line from a Stephen Burt poem that captures a lot of this feeling for me, from his poem “The People on the Bus.” He writes, “if we wish too often, this fall, to have led another life / We do not mean that we would give up ours.”

Instead of pretending wisdom, I think we should just tell the truth. As painful as a transformation may be, it may just be. And it may be no tragedy, barely noticed. But that doesn’t in any way make it less true as an experience.

CC: In your bio for Marian University, where you are an Assistant Professor of English and the co-director of the Honors Program, you say that “teaching and writing inspire each other.” What is it about teaching that most fuels your desire to write poetry? 

CK: Because I teach research writing, creative writing, and literature to students in all different majors from many different backgrounds, I get to approach texts in new ways all the time. A student who has never read poetry before will often notice something that a more seasoned reader of literature wouldn’t – because the student doesn’t know what s/he should read for, something completely different or surprising comes up in our discussion.

Those moments inspire me to re-read a text in a different way. Revisiting poetry and language with fresh eyes is invaluable, and something my students push me to do.

I’m originally from a small town in Wisconsin. Talking with a friend from high school lately, we were reminiscing about our classmates and where they went after graduation. A few of us left the state for college, most went in-state, some went to a 2-year community college or tech school, and some went right from high school to employment or family. When I’m talking to my students at Marian (many of whom have similar backgrounds) I recognize some of the pressures they face, the names of their small towns, that their spring breaks and summers are spent earning money to support their educations. I’m inspired by them: their drive & passion, their questions, their stories. Sometimes those details find their way into my work (whether poetry or prose).

More often, the idea that what I’m writing should speak to something that matters, because literature should be about things that matter, is driven home by my students and their lives. If a poem is merely pointing out something pretty, or nice –the occasional poem – then it isn’t doing enough. If it is reinforcing a common idea, or a structure of power, without questioning it, then it’s not doing enough. Obviously, much of my work falls short of this standard, but I feel compelled to strive for something more difficult & a large part of that is because what I’m writing should matter beyond the well-wrought image or the well-turned line. That isn’t enough anymore.

CC: What are you reading these days?

CK: Last week was my Spring Break, so I got to finish up some reading – some for school and some for pleasure. I finished Susan Faludi’s In the Darkroom, a memoir and exploration of her father’s identity; re-read J.D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy (which I’m teaching in a class this semester); read John Darnielle’s Universal Harvester (a pseudo-horror novella set in Iowa), and lot of Mark Doty’s poetry. The Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets Spring Conference this April in Milwaukee will be featuring Mark Doty and I’m honored to be a part of making that happen. Doty’s imagery is swimming in my head right now – how he imagines heaven for so many people; how often his dogs appear in his work, pointing him toward some realization; how love is present, but also desire (thrumming insistent desire) and we are not diminished by desire and what the body wants, but made fully human by it, whether accompanied or not by love.

CC: Who is one poet you return to again and again for sustenance or relief? 

CK: It depends on the day. I love Dorianne Laux and Frank Bidart for some moments. Catherine Barnett’s “Sweet Double, Talk-Talk” sometimes needs to be read aloud (the cat or dog are willing to sit & listen on those days). More than a particular poet, I have poems snipped & saved for certain days. I have the “worried about X” poem, a poem for when that person “who means X to me” dies. I know where I’ve filed them; I retrieve them as needed. (I know this sounds maudlin, but . . .) I tend to like poems that don’t provide relief exactly, but lance open & cauterize a wound.

~

A Wisconsin native, C. Kubasta experiments with hybrid forms, excerpted text, and shifting voices –her work has been called claustrophobic and unflinching. Her poetry has appeared in So To Speak, Stand, The Notre Dame Review, Pith and Construction, among other places. She is the author of two chapbooks, A Lovely Box and &s (both from Finishing Line); Box won the 2014 Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets chapbook prize. All Beautiful & Useless (BlazeVOX [books], 2015) explores the stories of growing up girl in rural Wisconsin in fragments, ellisions and half-understood stories. Her next book, Of Covenants, is forthcoming from Whitepoint Press in 2017.

 She teaches writing, literature and cultural studies at Marian University, is active with the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets, and is Assistant Poetry editor at Brain Mill Press, where she writes an occasional column, Portaging. She lives with her beloved John, cat Cliff, and dog Ursula.


Don’t forget: Enter the Giveaway by Tuesday, April 4th,
for a chance to win a copy of &s!

* Photo credit for black and sepia ampersand: media.digest via Visual hunt / CC BY 

#Quotable: The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane

Later that night, Jack came and sat next to Bull and asked if he could borrow the rabbit. Bull handed Edward over, and Jack sat with Edward upon his knee. He whispered in Edward’s ear. “Helen,” Jack said, “and Jack Junior and Taffy — she’s the baby. Those are my kids’ names. They are all in North Carolina. You ever been to North Carolina? It’s a pretty state. That’s where they are. Helen. Jack Junior. Taffy. You remember their names, okay, Malone?”

. . . .

Edward knew what it was like to say over and over again the names of those you had left behind. He knew what it was like to miss someone. And so he listened. And in his listening, his heart opened wide and then wider still.

We write to remember, we write to reflect. Fiction or non, your stories matter. Who will you honor on the page?


* DiCamillo, Kate; Ibatoulline, Bagram (2009-08-30). The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane (p. 103). Candlewick Press. Kindle Edition.