CONTRIBUTOR SPOTLIGHT:
Interview with Julianne DiNenna

Rappahannock Review Interview Editor: Your poem “Cerberus” personifies death as moving, creeping, and gnawing. Why did you personify death this way?

Julianne DiNenna: Already, the mythological figure of Cerberus is quite fierce and terrifying. His job is to keep the deceased in Hades, to not let them escape. Death is terrifying, even for those who accept its inevitability. Just look at how many writers write about death as a regular theme. Death is never wanted; life is so precious that we try to hold on to it as long as we can, especially for loved ones. The death of a parent is a recurrent theme in poetry, but there is not enough poetry for children who have lost. Ralph Waldo Emerson’s poem “Threnody,” published five years after his son’s death in 1847, seeks to understand and find meaning in loss, probably in similar ways ancient Romans and Greeks sought to find meaning in death, too, though Emerson turns to nature to help him through his grief and find acceptance. “My servant Death, with solving rite, pours finite into infinite.” Emerson says, “Perchance not he but Nature ailed; the world and not the infant failed.”

Ancient Greeks and Romans describe Cerberus as a three-headed monster, freakish but stemming from the natural world. In today’s world, harsh chemicals that we use on a daily basis come from the natural world but are transformed and are no longer natural. They harm the earth, but we accept their use as inevitable…

The figure of Cerberus probably helped the ancients to accept death, the ultimate end, as Cerberus symbolized the transition from the natural world to the spiritual. Mythology explained the inexplicable, as today’s poetry seeks to express the inexpressible. So this poem seeks to embody what it is like to lose a child. Death literally rips the child from your arms and leaves you in shreds. It is never gentle. We do everything and anything to keep our loved ones alive. And when death comes calling, it is lonely and devastating. You never recover from the monster who stole your child.

RR: The repetition of “out, dark dog, out” appears three times by the end of this poem. What is the importance of that phrase?

JD: Things happen in threes, as they say. Three denotes trials, struggles, challenges, ending in success or defeat. The number three appears in the Bible—Peter denied Christ three times, for example. In a fairy tale, the main protagonist is tested three times. Three is a prime number. The emphasis of that phrase expresses the pain, the struggle, and the weight of not being able to change anything. My daughter lived a life that could be divided by threes, and she was one of three. She was a university student, so I am very appreciative that this poem is published in the Rappahannock Review.

RR: This poem deals with a very personal subject. What role does vulnerability play in your writing process?

JD: Writing poetry makes you vulnerable. It can be scary—you put yourself out there no matter what you write. On the other hand, vulnerability in poetry allows us to bring our authentic voices, which the world needs more and more nowadays. Vulnerability is authentically human. You hope that your words will resonate with readers in ways that allow them to feel connected through the poems. It is the truths in the words that matter, and writing about those truths creates a universe in which readers can hopefully see themselves—and see how we are all connected to each other. And it is an opportunity to keep people alive in memory.

In a keynote speech this month at the Geneva Writers’ Group Conference, bestselling author Dorothy Koomson advised everyone never to use AI for any part of writing, not even for research. It can kill creativity and deny writers the opportunity to develop and improve the craft, she explained (in summary). That message resonated with me since I never use AI in any part of the writing process. I love libraries and librarians, and I hope that theirs won’t be another profession that disappears through cost-cutting measures. What I love about librarians is that they will never judge you for how little you know (laugh). Developing our writing also makes us very vulnerable indeed, but it leads us to learning from and being open to others. It reminds us again and again that we are all connected. Like trees. All different types of trees connect at the roots and help each other grow. And that is the type of world we should live in.

RR: Your bio mentions that you are part of the Geneva Writers’ Group of Switzerland. Could you tell us a bit more about that?

JD: I work and study with a group of poets; no poem goes out into the world without my sister poets giving me feedback first. One thing they said, for example, was that my poetry collection, “Girl in Tulips and Other Non-Communicable Family Diseases,” was a guide for other parents and families coping with hardship and giving care. Indeed, poetry can be a guide, though I didn’t have that in mind when I wrote that collection. I wrote that collection so that people could feel less alone. There is a lot of vulnerability in having to manage healthcare and treatments, making sure to continually be fully present and shower love over ailing children. That collection also demonstrates the fragility and tenderness of life—and how we need each other.

RR: What are you working on now?

JD: I am working on my second collection of poetry, where this poem Cerberus will hopefully appear, and which might be entitled ‘All the Women of the World,’ or not (laughs), along with a novel about how far somebody might go to help somebody else.