Martha Webster is a nurse living in Amityville, New York. Her work is also forthcoming in Prairie Schooner.
Her poem, "I Imagine My Father Returns from the Dead," appeared in Issue Sixty-Five of The Collagist.
Here, she speaks with interviewer, Christina Oddo, about electricity as a metaphor for image development, form following content, and the tension between rage and relief.
There is something rhythmic arising from the combination of two-line stanzas and unique line breaks. How much did content play with your decisions on form?
Yes, in this poem content strongly influenced my decisions on form. Traumatic emotional material is hard for us to integrate into coherent memories, feelings, or histories. I think the most damaging consequence of childhood abuse or trauma is the fracturing of personality that happens in the victim. In my line breaks and stanza breaks, I tried to evoke a “broken,” scarred psychic effect.
A handful of moving and surprising images set the foundation for this piece. For young writers who are looking to develop weighty images in a small space, what advice can you give them?
My process is intuitive. When I revise I use my imaginary “electricity detector.” I try to find and delete phrases, words, or syllables that seem to obstruct flow. I think of flat phraseology as dead tissue, an obstacle to the poem’s true vitality. Strong images conduct a startling charge. Frankly I think young people are better “bullshit detectors” than the rest of us. My advice is: respect (and inspect) the thrill and the adrenaline rush wherever you happen to find it in your early drafts.
The last image particularly stands out to me because I continue to feel the poem moving even after the final line. What meaning does the last image hold for you?
For me, the last image captures the tension between rage on the one hand and need for pain relief on the other that depression sufferers feel but can’t resolve. The speaker is still speaking at the end of the poem: hence the anguish persists.
What are you currently reading?
I’m reading The Selected Levis (Larry Levis) and Correspondence, the letters between Ingeborg Bachmann and Paul Celan.
What are you currently writing?
A lot! I stopped writing entirely between age 30 and 55, so I feel I have a lot to say.