Collaborators’ Q&A What did you think an artist would pick up on from this poem? Poet Gabrielle Calvocoressi: What I hoped (and what happened) was that the artist would find parts of the poem that I hadn’t realized were there. It’s a poem than is still a mystery to me in many ways. On one hand it deals with two levels of history I believe myself to be “versed” in: the church and synagogue bombings …
Collaborators’ Q&A What did you think an artist would pick up on from your poem? Poet Karen Weyant: I thought an artist would pick up the concrete images of motherhood, such as the missing sock and the permission slip. I also thought that an artist would focus on the factory images, such as furnaces, found in the last stanza. What inspires you in this poem? Artist Alesia F. Norling: The grittiness of it and the feeling it …
Collaborators’ Q&A What inspired you to “dibs” this poem? Artist Alesia F. Norling: It just jives perfectly with my style of art—dark but subtle with lots of layers. Did the visual artist refract any element of the poem that made you see the poem differently? Poet Joe Wilkins: Absolutely. This poem is more or less autobiographical, and I’d long ago let go the emotion of the experience to be able to create the poem itself. But Alesia’s …