CONTRIBUTOR SPOTLIGHT:
Interview with John Sieber
Rappahannock Review Poetry Editors: We love how “ticks” juxtaposes the tenderness of nature with the bloodsucking of ticks. How did you land on that image?
John Sieber: I found that when I write, I tend to riff off of the beautiful, more idyllic parts of nature—waterfalls, flowers, ponds; serene and calm images. One day I was out in my own back pasture, walking, enjoying the sun, and when I came back into the house, I heard my mother’s voice in the back of my head: Remember to do a tick check! Don’t want to get Lyme Disease! Sure enough, when I dug through my hair, I found one; I used the dish soap trick to unlatch its head before flushing it down the toilet. All this to say I realized I would usually ignore the less appealing side of nature and never seemed to remember it when writing.
This all just so happened to occur during a personal rough patch for me: I fell in love with someone I knew, deep down, couldn’t love me back. So, with that on my mind, I naturally began to experiment with combining the two in a poem. It just kind of made sense.
I saw myself as something like a tick. Unrequited love is not that different from a parasitic relationship. At least, that’s how I began to see my place in it—like I was something that was sucking all the good out of this guy; exhausting him by just wanting to be around him so much. It’s a pretty bleak comparison, but I think this piece was the beginning of a longer, much needed, healing process of acceptance.
RR: Another aspect of “ticks” we really enjoyed was the alliteration. How do you work with sound in poems like these?
JS: I like to read my poems aloud pretty soon after I’ve written them. Sometimes I’ll come across too much of a tongue twister and I’ll be like, No, that doesn’t work, let’s try this. And I’ll keep doing that; I’ll listen to recordings of myself over and over again until I feel like it’s right. I think in some ways it also challenges me to find a word that fits within those limitations. I think it keeps things interesting—more engaging for both myself and the reader.
RR: The poem “to Jackie; faded” is clearly shaped by experiences surrounding people with drug addiction. How do you approach pieces that deal with trauma like this?
JS: This poem is part of a fictional series that I’ve been toying with, a total of four poems altogether: one woman’s addiction shown from different perspectives, told by an omniscient narrator.
I don’t usually write poems that I don’t share a strong personal connection with. For “ticks” it was easy because I always saw myself as the narrator, and I can tell that story from my perspective. For “Jackie,” however, I only have little ties. While I, personally, have never gone through this experience, I understand that all trauma is unique and therefore requires different, careful approaches. I think all forms of trauma should be approached with extreme empathy, but human emotions and experiences are more complex than that. That’s the reality of it; there’s no one right way to approach it, and I think most feelings and reactions are valid if it results in progression and healing.
This poem in particular is the first of the series, and it’s Jackie’s daughter’s perspective. I decided she would approach this with resentment. The daughter felt that she was robbed of a childhood; that she was forced to grow up too fast, and for that, she blamed her mother and her addiction. That’s the sort of response I feel could be expected from a young child who acts on the most obvious emotion in a mix of those they do not understand.
There are more empathetic characters in this series, but I don’t feel like I’ve gotten those messages just right yet. Those are still works in progress.
RR: You have written very touching and thought-provoking narratives. How does storytelling play a part in your poetry?
JS: Storytelling has everything to do with anything I write. My ultimate goal as a writer is to connect with people on a genuine, one-on-one level. Storytelling is as human as bipedalism or opposable thumbs. And I think that’s the most beautiful thing about the craft—that you have something to share with the world, but you’re also allowed to attach a fantasy to the morals of your work.
RR: As a lover of the outdoors, do you have any favorite places to be in nature that spark your creativity?
JS: Put me anywhere—the woods, the desert, the beach, the mountains. I think for me, it’s more just the silence that nature offers. When the only noise I hear are birds or the uninterrupted running of water, or wind howling through leaves and branches, or thunderstorms… anything. It just forces me to stop and be with myself and my thoughts for a minute. I think there’s some kind of spiritual element to it too. We’re animals, through and through. We are meant to be surrounded by nature; by something much greater than ourselves. That type of environment is incomparable. It’s a gift to have access to this part of our world that I probably won’t ever fully understand and which fascinates me incredulously.
Read “ticks” and “to Jackie; faded” by John Sieber in Issue 12.1