CONTRIBUTOR SPOTLIGHT:
Interview with Georgie Contreras

Rappahannock Review Poetry Editors: The imagery is so rich in “Poem written on the back of a postcard depicting Georgia O’Keefe’s White Rose with Larkspur No. 2,” and I wanted to ask why you chose to use Georgia O’Keefe’s White Rose with Larkspur No. 2 in this piece?

Georgie Contreras: The premise of this poem, a museum intern handing out free postcards in exchange for survey answers, did in fact happen when I took a trip to Boston’s MFA last October. I went with my younger brother who was in town, and I ended up coming home with two postcards. The one I picked out because it immediately struck a chord with me was Georgia O’Keefe’s White Rose with Larkspur No. 2. The delicate blues and whites of the piece created a stark contrast with fall in New England, which is full of vibrant warm tones. It evoked an early sense of the vast emptiness of winter or even the transition from deep winter to early spring. When I had placed the postcard on my desk at home, my eyes were constantly drawn back to it.

RR: To us the poem really does feel like a note you would read on the back of a postcard. What was your process and how do you think about form in a poem like this one?

GC: Hmm how to put this? The blank postcard was calling to me across my room like the Green Goblin mask meme. For the first twenty-four hours of ownership, I wanted to use the postcard for its intended purpose: writing a note and sending it off in the mail. After a couple of days of restlessness, I came to the conclusion that I would write what I had in mind and edit it for myself, not with the intention of a specific recipient actually reading it. I wanted whatever I wrote to feel like it could realistically be read off a postcard in the mail, so I love that it reads that way to you all. I think the beginning of the piece reflects that once I got to writing it, I haven’t actually seen a postcard in reality, so I didn’t know what a sender is expected to say in it. I even had to look up how you would send a completed one. Once I had the general message down in my notebook, I got a sticky note, wrote out the first draft on it, and began edits there. The space on a sticky note was about the equivalent of the space available on this particular postcard, and I wanted to make sure that the length of the poem was true to that restriction. The “justify” function in Word really pulled the digital version of the poem together.

RR: Do you often find yourself changing up the form of your poems in order to elevate the focus of your pieces?

GC: I had to take a quick look at my body of work to answer this question accurately. I think the form of a poem I write depends on the subject matter, so it’s a decision I make pretty early in my writing process. What makes poetry interesting for me is a lack of restrictions, especially when it comes to form, and I really admire other writers who are experimental with their work in that regard. I hope to do more of it moving forward.

RR: The speaker and their emotions are the core of this piece. How do you typically go about developing a voice in your written work?

GC: Nearly every completed piece of mine, including this one, has started out as an entry in a pocket-sized notebook. The content is usually pulled from my everyday experiences, so that first draft is always uninhibited, very wordy and raw. Once I start editing, usually by transferring the piece to a Word doc, that’s when my focus narrows. I ask myself, what is the prevailing emotion of the experience? Because that’s what I want a potential reader to take away from the finished piece. I think of the various components of the poem, including words, phrases, lines, grammar, and spacing, as pieces that can move around and slide into a right place, like a puzzle or a Lego set. That line of thinking also applies to the overall experience I’m drawing from; I’ll shave it down by tossing out unnecessary details or beef it up by drawing from elsewhere. It’s interesting to start out with something that is very personal and specific and then to arrive at the end of the process with a piece describing something that I now feel some emotional distance from, even if the “I” or “you” hasn’t completely changed.

RR: Something in your bio that caught our attention was the mention of you having “an indie wrestling match from the mid-2000s going on in the background.” This is such a fun tidbit, could you tell us a bit more about it?

GC: Anybody who knows me will tell you if there are two things you could associate me with, writing would be one, and professional wrestling would be the other. My mom’s a lifelong fan, and I dove headfirst into watching it when I was fourteen, starting with WWE. At the time, I really needed something to devote my attention and energy to, so wrestling became it. I established my favorites early on, and thanks to the internet, I learned a lot about their careers before hitting it big in WWE. It turned out most of my faves started out on the independent wrestling scene (“the indies”), so I expanded my palette.

After undergoing surgery last spring and getting laid off from my full-time job a couple months later–this was a rough stretch of time, personally–I took to putting on indie matches most of my daylight hours, including while writing and job hunting. I got myself a Ring of Honor HonorClub subscription and decided to start watching the company’s entire catalogue, starting with their first show in 2002. It’s quite a comfort to me, and it’s something I’m still doing a whole year later, particularly days where I’m working from home. I’m only in 2006, though.