For the most part, poets are reluctant to discuss openly the deep personal meanings and inspirations in their poems (T.S. Eliot refused to ever discuss). This goes for most writing. Sometimes the reasoning might be that the writer doesn’t feel comfortable revealing specifics of their personal life. But more often than not, writers don’t want to diminish the mystery and interpretability of a story, song, or poem. For instance, how many times have you experienced a song or poem and thought, “that’s exactly something that happened to me, that’s my song too.” Or how many times have you had a conversation with someone about a piece of art and both understood the general meaning of the work, but discussed — maybe even argued (!) — about the specific interpretation. Could that happen if you knew exactly what the poem or song was about? As we all know, interpretation and empathy is what makes art engaging and so important. Nevertheless, sometimes it is fascinating to peek behind the curtain at a poem and see why the poet did what they did with the words. Ciona Rouse and erica lewis are two poets whom Third Man Books has recently published. They’ve also both read in Nashville recently. And both write poetry infused with personal experiences that are socially relevant. As part of Third Man Books 3rd anniversary, both poets graciously agreed to give us the inside scoop on some of their work. We hope you find it as fascinating and energizing as we did. In the spirit of exploring poetry deeper, we’ve also made available at thirdmanbooks.com study guides to erica and Ciona’s books, plus Kendra DeColo’s excellent 'My Dinner with Ron Jeremy.' I have to add, to me the classification of “study guide” is sort of a stuffy, misrepresentation, maybe “experience guide” might be better. At any rate, we plan to provide study guides for more of our books in hope that those of you who wish to will take the plunge into the deep end of poetry and prose. Go all the way, touch the bottom, we all know from being kids that the real mysteries lie deep beneath the diving board where your ears pop and the world is a more surreal place.

—Chet Weise
Editor, Third Man Books

CIONA ROUSE’S INSIDER NOTES ON VANTABLACK

"THE POET POSING NUDE"

It’s a mutual service to pose for a figure class; I’m helping the artists practice with a live model, and they’re helping me practice stillness and being in my body. Sometimes the poses are long, and on this particular day, as I started to feel like I might lose the posture, I made “Be still” a silent mantra swirling in my brain. As the artists continued to work, listened to them talk to each other at times. They said things like, “see the light right there on that line” or “you captured the red right there on that curve.” I loved how the body, which we often sexualize, criticize or make disgusting became just line and shape, light and colors in their language. They weren’t talking about the dark skin of my hips or the juiciness of my lips. I became lines and curves and squares and ovals. I became many colors. So again, I began adding to my mantra: “Be not body. Be not limbs. Be not muscle. Be not black. Be still. Be drawn.” The poem began in this pose, and I didn’t have paper, pen or the ability to move, so I held tightly to silently repeating phrases: “Be not your cold nipples turned to blades.” As soon as I got to my car, I recorded my new mantra on my phone, and the poem emerged.

"EXPERIENCES OF YELLOW"

I spend a lot of time in my poetry, asking what we assign to colors—why does yellow represent joy? Why does black represent evil? Why is red love? Could I revise these concepts in my work? Or has life already revised my ideas of color? I mean, I see black as beauty, strength, not the norm of sinister or evil. So in this poem, I simply started writing down several of my experiences of the color yellow—some of them certainly fit the yellow trope of fun and bright, like making a few dimes and nickels in my local neighborhood by selling fresh squeezed lemonade. But while the color yellow does bring me quite a bit of joy, some of my yellow experiences are much more painful—remembering the ire of how the next morning came as per usual after a dear friend died, recalling how often I heard “You’re pretty for a dark-skinned girl” in high school. It may be helpful for you to know about the brown paper bag test: it’s a process once used by black sororities to determine if you could be a member or not. If your skin was darker than a standard brown paper bag, then certain sororities would not let you in. This internalized racism stems from a long line of Euro-based imagery where privilege was granted to lighter skin versus darker skin. Field slaves lived in slave quarters, had to do the tough outdoor labor while house slaves, who were often lighter skinned, mixed-race products of rape, were allowed to live indoors and given more privileges. All were enslaved, though. And we continue to enslave ourselves with some of our language today when we refer to the complexion of black bodies.

"HUSSY"

My Granny and I wrote letters to one another for many years before she died. She was born in 1911, was brave and bold. She married later in life and purchased a home on her own in the South when she was only 26-years-old. I’ve always admired her fierce independence and her sassy tongue. She would call me “hussy” sometimes, and I’d always laugh. I found the last letter I received from her. In it, she included a letter I mailed to her when I was probably 5 years old, filled with poorly scribbled I love you and stick drawings. Then she poorly scribbled (because she was 96 and starting to lose some functions), “I don’t have all the days. I can’t do many more.” I think it was her way of saying this needed to be our last letter. And it was. Finding this letter gave birth to the poem.

"THERE’S SO MUCH I WANT TO TELL YOU"

My sister gave birth to a little girl named AJ in 2013, and AJ lived for only a couple of hours. We all feel fragile when we think of her sweet, brief life. Sometimes I write poems to AJ, my way of being in relationship with my niece who was but really never got the chance to be. This poem is one of the letters I have written to her. I happened to be listen to the album “Kind of Blue” by Miles Davis when writing this one and really took to the melancholy song “Blue in Green”—it’s gorgeous piano, the march of the cymbals, the aching of that trumpet. Truly it’s what my sister is now—always beautiful, fully alive, creating (she’s an artist) but there’s this sadness within the shell of all that green, and it will forever live with her. She’ll always hold some shade of blue within.

"HOW SOME CHILDREN PLAY AT DISCRIMINATION"

I like to ask people when was the first time they realized their race. When did you realize that you were black or white or yellow or brown? Often for white people it was much later in their lives, or they didn’t ever really have to “realize” it per se. Often for people of color, it is much earlier. Some of our formative moments are around racial identity. This was one of those moments for me—when I started first grade at a brand new school, and a little girl declared herself playground guard, not allowing black people on the jungle gym. I told the teacher who fixed the situation, but I often wonder how long she’d been guarding the jungle gym. How long had other black students just walked away, ok with this rule?

I read Grimm’s fairytales and was especially moved by one called “How Some Children Played at Slaughtering.” Read it if you haven’t. It’s insane and, obviously, not one that Disney picked up and put in theaters. Just as the title suggests, it’s two stories actually of some children who decide to be butchers. It ends in blood everywhere. I keep thinking about how the ways we move through the world is the ultimate lesson to children, so I began a series of “How Some Children Play” poems. As I got to know this little girl more over the years at school, I learned that her grandfather was terribly racist. The things we teach our children . . . so much to un-teach our children.

ERICA LEWIS’ INSIDER NOTES ON MARY WANTS TO BE A SUPERWOMAN

WHO WOULD BE ON THE SOUNDTRACK OF YOUR LIFE?

There are songs attached to very specific memories at very specific times in our lives. The intent behind mary wants to be a superwoman was to understand the past, understand how the past determines how we live in the present, and find a way for the two to (co) exist.

I wrote the majority of 'mary wants to be a superwoman' while my mother, Mary, was recovering from cancer. I was literally living in two cities at once for the better part of a year. She almost died and I just kept wondering who would tell her story, our family’s story. Who would keep the past alive? Our family has such a rich history and the only people who knew the details were gone or battling old age and illness. I sat up late at night at her house in Ohio, and while she slept, I went through her old photo albums. I realized that there were so many people and stories that I didn’t know. I had no idea what I would do with the photos and the information I found, but I knew that I had to keep some sort of record of what I was hearing and finding. Everything felt old and new at the same time; it also felt like a responsibility that I never asked for: to give voice to people who didn’t necessarily have voices while they were alive.

I made digital copies of many of the photos and asked my mother to tell me about our people, repeat their stories, what they went through, how our heritage was hidden and changed and revealed. I recorded hours and hours of conversations with her. I wanted to hear the stories I grew up hearing as a child with fresh ears, listen to them as an adult. I wanted to hear them over and over again. I wanted to make the ancestors proud but I was also looking for some sort of balm to help what was ailing me in the present.

'mary wants to be a superwoman' is the second book in the box set trilogy (daryl hall is my boyfriend is the first) and uses the music of a pop artist that I grew up listening to – each poem in 'mary...' takes its title from a line of a Stevie Wonder song. The poems are not “about” the actual songs, but what is triggered when listening to or thinking about the music. I’m thinking about what happens when you take something like a pop song and turn it in on itself, give it a different frame of reference, juxtapose the work against itself, against other pop music, and bring it into the present.

While the entire trilogy project is my take on revising the confessional, the poems from 'mary wants to be a superwoma'n delve more into my family history, specifically the women on my mother’s side and their voices within that history, and also take inspiration from a list of poets and friends. These poems recount my family’s complex history with race and culture in America, the conflation of personal and past and present, cataloging the digging in of our deepest collective dirt; our darkness reflected back at us. 'mary...' is about processing that history, what it means to live with your own history, and how to live and move on from that history and its implications.

The entire trilogy project continues the oral traditions of my black and Native American heritage while engaging with pop music as a memory device and reconsidering the notion of “the confessional.” It delves deep into history, going all the way back to the trail of tears, and moves back and forth between the past and the present, using songs to occupy a space that you can pull into. It makes you think about history and memory and who raised you and who made you. That’s where I get my strength. I have no reason to complain about anything in my life. Look at what these people went through and they survived. And I can, too. They didn’t go through what they went through for me *not* to survive. 'mary wants to be a superwoman' is about seeing yourself in other people, about history repeating itself through a personal lens. It’s not a vanity project, a purging, or a reckoning; these songs are for everyone.