BCC SHINES A LIGHT ON: EMILY BLAIR
Name of the piece published by BCC: “The best ham in Louisville’s in a deli in the back of a liquor store, no signs, salty-sweet and heavenly cold on a biscuit, made for picnics in the March sunlight, made for walking, and even these moments must be remembered.”
When/where was it originally published: Flypaper Lit
Tell us more about your piece! What is the background of the piece? What led you to write it? What’s your process?
I wrote this poem as part of a fictionalized poetry project about my time in Louisville, Kentucky. In a collection of around fifty poems, I imagined a version of my life and myself that never came to fruition, using the figure speaking in this poem as an exploration of Louisville, substance use, relationships, and death. Like many of my poems, there is a kernel of real life in this poem; there really is a liquor store in Louisville that runs a deli out of the back, and once my friend and I really did pick up some ham for a late-winter picnic in Cherokee Park, which was about a block from my apartment there.
I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge the title of this piece, and its inspiration. Paula Harris, an amazing poet and person, is the queen of the extra long poem title, and I always aspired to find space in my own writing for these types of titles. I find long titles so illuminating in what we call something – instead of trying to distill, a long title can befuddle, confuse, disorient. Here, I wanted the title of the poem to frame the rest of the text with this breathless disorientation. I thank Paula for her work and for inspiring me to make a three-line poem title in the first place.
How did you feel when it was first published and how have your thoughts or feelings on the piece changed from then to now?
I remain happy with this poem, which is surprising, given that it was written, at this point, three years ago. Between its original publication and now, I did edit it as part of the aforementioned poetry project. While it hasn’t changed too much since its original form, I have a very different relationship to this poem than I did when it was first written. I began the fictionalized poetry project about my time in Louisville soon after moving from Charlotte, North Carolina to the mountains, the same time that I started teaching at a four-year university and moving in with my now-spouse. I was experiencing complex emotions, very few of which were apparent to me. I was suddenly possessed by this voice, not-me but could-have-been-me, the person I would have been if I had never left Louisville, never stopped drinking daily, never met my spouse, never gotten a stable, well-paying job, and never did the trauma therapy work that has allowed me to finally settle into myself. When I read this piece now, I see that confusion of trying to figure out where I was at the time by looking back and imagining what could have been.
Is there a specific message you would like readers to take away from reading this piece?
I don’t know if there is a message here. It feels, like a lot of the poetry I wrote between 2019 and 2020, like one great, screaming maw of a poem. Having finally achieved, simultaneously, professional, relationship, and mental stability for the first time in my adult life, I found myself still for the first time. That stillness allowed me, or maybe forced me, to look back on the instability that I had lived through previously. I want folks to experience this poem, I think – to read it and read it again.
Also, folks should read some work which inspired this piece, or at least showed me the ways that prose poetry could work, like “We Were Supposed” by Mark Chiusano (https://theharvardadvocate.com/content/we-were-supposed) and the book Wastoid by Mathias Svalina. Such prose pieces which hold an entire universe inside of half a page or less challenge me to cut, to make exact, and to create long lasting imagery.
What else would you like to tell readers about your writing? (Doesn’t have to refer only to your BCC piece)
My relationship with my creative work has radically changed over the past seven years or so. I used to publish as much as possible, and I frequently put my most sensitive thoughts on paper to share with the world. I was using poetry to fill the unfillable holes inside of my own self-worth and my concept of myself; I was also working out, in real time, questions about my identity through publication. After my work was plagiarized by a peer, I stopped writing for nearly two years while I took stock of what writing has become to my life. Now, I mostly journal and write academic articles and presentations. When I do write poetry, I find myself writing more for myself, and thinking much less about publication. My writing, right now, is more for self-expression than it is for others to understand me. I think that is why I moved toward this fictional poetry collection, and why I am more interested in abstract and experimental poetry now than I was in my early years of publication.
Where can readers find more of your work? (Website/social media, etc)
