Karen Skolfield's poems have appeared in magazines, both print and on-line, including Rattle, 2011 Best of the Net Anthology, Cave Wall, Tar River Poetry, West Branch, and The Adirondack Review. Two poems in her book, "Homunculus" and "Sturm und Drang," were nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and Frost in the Low Areas was a top ten Small Press Distribution best seller.
Karen received her MFA at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where she currently teaches. She is contributing editor at the literary journals Tupelo Quarterly and Stirring. She and her family live in western Massachusetts.
That's how the world works: A little mirror
tells you more than you want to know.
-- from CHECKING THAT THE MATTRESS IS STILL STRAPPED TO THE CAR
So I didn’t start out with a project such as writing about a place or situation or huge event.
Still, themes do emerge, and quickly: family, the surprising challenges of having small children, the
military, an abusive father. My fascination with science takes up some bandwidth.
From the very first compilation of the manuscript, the poem “Frost in the Low Areas” was the
last poem of the book, but it wasn’t always the title poem. The old title was Lazarus Species,” which
means a species once thought extinct that is rediscovered. I love that concept, that phrase, but it
only lasted while the manuscript was more science-y (the poem “Lazarus Species,” however, remains in
the book). As the manuscript evolved, the title had to change; my friend, poet and musician Daniel
Hales, acted as my chief reader and suggested the new title.
The words themselves come from autumn freeze alerts: “frost warning, low-lying areas” strikes fear
into the hearts of farmers whose fields are in dells. There’s such a thin line between life and death
for some crops: 33 degrees, okay. One degree less, not okay. By extrapolation, that life/death line
exists for every living thing.
Then came the first time I discussed that poem in a class at a nearby college when I was a guest
speaker. I looked around that room of strangers in their early 20s and thought “What have I done?” I had
to take a breath and talk about the writing, but also about the subject of family gone wrong, and I hadn’t
quite mentally prepared myself for that moment. The phrase that’s allowed me to write and publish poems
about this issue, and later talk about it, is that it is his shame, not mine.
There are other poems in the book that feel deeply personal – “Rumors of Her Death” is one. It’s
about a mom discussing death with her two small children, and the conversation goes terribly awry even
as she tries to distract her children from asking more questions. This was based on multiple
conversations I’ve had with my son about death, all of which I was very matter-of-fact about while
trying to be empathetic and a good listener, but when I read this one in front of an audience the first
time I actually got choked up, and this was more than a year after I’d written it. I was so surprised,
and more than a little embarrassed, and I hope I covered it well enough to look like I was coughing.
I get many questions from family and friends about the subject matter, and it’s hard explaining
that some of the situations may be real, but some may not; details I’ve changed to suit the poems’ needs;
some poems may not be real at all but help advance the narrative threads. All I was concerned with was
staying true to the world of the poems and the experiences those words set in motion; I did not adhere to
real life even though there are real moments represented.
Not that the publicity, readings, interviews aren’t fun, but it’s not the same type of fun as latching onto a pleasurable line. I doubt many people start writing with the hopes that they’ll spend scads of time at the post office, mailing their books. Ah well. The fluffy new poems will have to be patient. I have a writing retreat coming up, and I am ridiculously excited for it.
Oddly, this seems to relax them – writing becomes just one more thing they have to do, rather than the one thing they fear and avoid. I try to keep class lighthearted : we play with Legos, we reverse engineer paper airplanes, we dissect instructions for tying a tie, we pick apart Fox News graphs and charts, we read hilarious McSweeney’s articles and summarize them. So my class planning strives to be creative, even if the writing assignments are more basic with instructions, process descriptions, ethical issues in engineering, and the like.
And it’s funny – you’d think that reviewing the basics of grammar and punctuation would be dull, that it would hollow out any love I had for writing, but it does the opposite. My students tease me about how much I love the semicolon, and they’re right. Teaching has helped me fall in love with that sexy little piece of punctuation all over again.
I wish I’d been more proactive about getting feedback from writing friends. I got some, but I shouldn’t have been so timid to ask others. I even had an offer from one friend, an excellent editor, and I was “no, no, I’m good, you’re probably busy.”
I wish I’d asked for more advice during the entire process, from assembling to choosing places to submit. I’m better about asking for help now – I got tons of it while the book was being designed – but why did I isolate myself? I don’t even know. It just felt like something I had to slog through on my own.
I wish I’d known how vulnerable publishing would make me feel. It’s one thing to put out a few poems in journals, and everyone says “yay;” it’s quite another to put out a whole collection of just your stuff and no one else’s poems to prop it up. There are no ringers in my book, no solicited super-famous poets. Me. All me. I’m not the type of person that generally feels vulnerable; I’ve got backbone from my skull down to my heels. But publishing a book… it’s all out there, and it’s taking all my reservoirs of brave.
I wish I’d known I wanted to work on a whole collection of military/war inspired poems (my current project); I’d have left out the military poems in Frost.
I wish I didn’t already have two tattoos; I’d take that snaking cover image of frost on a blade of grass, courtesy of a scanning electron microscope, and have it tattooed around one of my calves. Oh yes, I would.
Deceased, for coffee: Anne Sexton. Sappho. Sylvia Plath. Hart Crane. Shakespeare. Wallace Stevens. Agha Shahid Ali. Walt Whitman. Emily Dickinson. Another list that must remain incomplete and barely brushed. But then I think, who could I tell? I mean, let’s say I did just have coffee with William Shakespeare. Oh, and he told me EVERYTHING. You wouldn’t believe me. My husband wouldn’t believe me. I would check myself in somewhere, but still, I would know I had this conversation, and all these answers to giant literary mysteries, and those answers would still die with me.
Walt Whitman, I wouldn’t be able to help myself, I’d lean across the table and give him one big, sloppy
kiss. Probably Sappho, too. Guess I’m not above the need for bragging rights. But again, who could I tell?
Dennis and I say we’ll replace it when the kids go to college, but I’d bet 20 years from now we’ll still have the same table. Hopefully I’ll still be sitting at it, writing poems.
Mmmm, who am I reading now? I just got books of poetry by Rafael Campo, Tracy K. Smith, and Patricia Fargnoli, so I’ve been pecking at those. I’m also working on Ann Aguirre’s Sirantha Jax sci-fi series. It’s good to take breaks from poetry and read sci-fi, and it’s good to take breaks from sci-fi and read poetry.
I also love traveling. I go to a desert – usually the Sonoran – every year or two for backpacking and feel very connected to that environment. Sleeping next to the prickly pear and cholla cactus, under the spin of stars, is an amazing way to reconnect to the world and to my family. My kids are excellent backpackers, excellent travelers. I am so grateful.
What I remember is the frustration of trying to write “Skeleton Key” while my kids were home and awake. They were toddlers and needed things, probably survival things like food, and who can blame them? I don’t usually write in this situation, but I had these lines I just had to get down. When I read the poem, I can still feel the veil of that frustration, that clouding.
“Skeleton Key” almost didn’t make the manuscript, and I’ve never chosen it at a reading. I should probably forgive that poem for whatever lingers within.
I say that now, but watch: In a month it’ll be “Ugh, SESTINA, you are killing me!”