By Jackie McManus

Poets say what you do not have

you find everywhere. I do not have a mother.

She was at Kmart on Second Street the day

they closed for good. She was shopping

in the bedding aisle. I saw how her arms rested

on the bar of the cart, how the cart was empty,

how the store felt soundproof, its low voltage,

its trapped air, eight o’clock on a tender night

as we stood in a catacomb of trinkets

and empty shelves. She had come around

the corner to my aisle. I was supposed to be

in Tools, but I was browsing. It almost felt

planned. It almost felt how it might be

at the bottom of a coffin with a book.

There were chunks of earth in her blue-gray

eyes. I tried not to cry.

I saw how she leaned on the cart and moved

unhurried by the late hour, because it was just her

and me and the last day for the sale. Now in aisle

ten, her shoulders stooped a little, her thin

white hair fluorescent against mirrored shelves,

the cart a walker. I followed the scent of her:

Oil of Olay and Bloody Mary’s pickled heat,

linen and the nonenal breeze of her house,

of the next aisle, which had things

we would have bought, useless stuff found

at yard sales: swizzle sticks, ice cube molds

in the shape of fish, plastic flowers, plates,

our cart heaped with forgotten things.

What should we get? I might have asked.

Oh I don’t know.

Is there anything we need?

Betty Boop, House Fires, and Writing as Resistance: An Interview with Jackie McManus

Reonna Huettner: People have always told me every line, including the title, is important. In your poem, “Shopping at Kmart the Month My Mother Died” I found myself captivated as I moved down the page, but the title is what stood out to me right away! Can you talk about what made you choose this title for the piece and how the writing process went?

Jackie McManus: Thank you for finding yourself captivated. I appreciate that. That lets me know my title did its job. 

People who have told you the title is important are right. I think it was Ted Kooser who said a title is the first exposure a reader has so let it make an impression. It functions to let the reader know what your poem is going to be about and for me, it sets a tone and sometimes a trigger warning. For this particular poem, I chose the title because it is exactly what I was doing: shopping at a Kmart that was closing its doors both that night and for good. Not all of my poems are true, but this one is based on that experience. I saw someone who reminded me of my mother so much it felt spiritual. I tried not to stalk her. I deepened that one experience in the poem by talking about other real things that reminded me of my mother. It was easy to write as far as the craft of the poem went. It was hard to write because I missed my mother.

RH: The line, “I followed the scent of her: Oil and Olay and Bloody Mary’s pickled heat,” and just loved it. As a writer, how important do you think sensory is to a reader and to the writer themselves? 

JM: Well, it's everything, isn't it? The sensory details that inform the images keep the poem from becoming too abstract and therefore, usually, unrelatable. I tried to ground this poem with details that were authentic to who my mother was because the nature of this experience could easily have sounded false and been intangible. What would this poem have been without the sensory details to evoke the images and to help readers visualize my story? In addition, it is always my hope that readers will be inspired in using their own imagination because of the work the sensory language performed.

RH: Did you know that you always wanted to be a writer? Did you have people or other authors/poets inspire you? If so who, and what has your journey been like thus far as a poet? 

JM: I have no idea how I came to poetry so my only response can be that poetry chose me. I just could not write anything else that inspired me to keep writing as poetry did. I wrote my first poems in the fifth grade, one 4-line seven stanza poem called “The Spy,” and then a shorter one about Betty Boop. I had journals filled with bad poetry at home. Our house burned down in 1974 and that was, I assume, my first book review. We had very few books, if any, at home until I was a teen so to have such an early review was something. 

I did have teachers and later professors who encouraged me in so many ways, but first by telling me that I was gifted. I took that gift and ran with it during college and then life got a hold of me, and I became a teacher. I wrote in fits and starts and pursued nothing seriously until 2017. I revised old poems and combined them with new poems to create my first book.  It had to be written and of course it does not showcase my best writing, but what it does show is my progression as a poet. My next book would be better because I worked hard on craft, attended retreats such as Cirenaica and The Priory and more recently won the Sharon Olds Scholarship for an online workshop with The Community of Writers. My next book (Tell It To The Water) was accepted for publication but I ended up withdrawing it to work on it in a deeper way. It was important for me to do that. I believe it is my best work so far, as it should be. I work very hard to keep getting better by reading, by attending retreats, by revising, and by taking long walks. But I also know I am not where I want to be, so I write and revise every day.

RH: With issue #6 submission opening again, do you have more pieces you’re currently working on? Do you have any advice for other writers out there who want to be published one day? 

JM: As I mentioned, I am working on some poems for my poetry book, Tell It To The Water. I am also working on poems for a book titled Midwest Interval based on the several months I spend in Wisconsin every year. I am also organizing a memoir that is mostly written and as of yet untitled. 

I’m not sure who I am to give advice, but I will say, don’t be shy. I was painfully shy with my work for years and that will definitely stall both your writing and publication. Poetry is a craft and requires work but there is so much help available online now. I have found a few books helpful such as Tony Hoagland’s The Art of Voice and Ordinary Genius by Kim Addonizio. I also found it helpful to read The Best American Poetry series and to listen to Rattle’s editor Tim Green who interviews a poet each Sunday. Billy Collins also has an online event.  William Stafford used to get up every morning and write a poem. His advice was to lower your standards and just get something written. It’s great advice. If you write about hard things like trauma, don’t be tempted to dismiss it as purely therapeutic. It’s revolutionary. One of the best things you can do is take the advice given by Melissa Febos in a recent L.A. times article. Writing, she says, is resistance against all the things that would stop you. Think about what those are. Then write your poetry and change the world.