An Interview with Samantha DeFlitch

Samantha DeFlitch sat with our Interviews Editor Esteban Rodríguez to discuss her poetry collection Confluence, religion and faith, and the importance of examining the places around us. 

The opening of your collection Confluence begins with "Downed Birds," a poem in which the speaker, in the beginning, peels an orange only to find multiple rotten oranges beneath it: 

I peeled open an orange. 
Inside was a rotten orange, 
and the rotten orange split open. 
Inside: another rotten orange. 

There is a very surreal quality to this scene that created for me, and that I suspect will create for readers as well, a sense of both curiosity and uneasiness. At the end of the poem, a blackbird snatches up a rotten orange, perhaps one of the many the speaker encountered. When composing your poems, how did you approach not only images of this nature, but metaphor throughout your book? 

The book is very interested in repeated images and motifs, and how images—like the repeated oranges and blackbirds—can appear, disappear, and reappear in surprising places. Not only are single images repeated throughout the book, but also lines from poems and sometimes entire poems. I think this first poem, "Downed Birds," functions as a set of instructions on how to read this book and its repetition: these poems and images are not stagnant. Look for them to appear again. 

So in the same way these oranges and blackbirds open to each other, images in the book give way: an orange becomes a folding chair becomes a dog. I suppose this use of images in some way becomes the experience of living. Things don't generally stay where and when we lived them. They swirl and ebb and flow through our lives and can reappear when least expected. And even if it looks like the same image, poem, or experience, it isn't. We're in a different place, in a new section of the book, where the poems are speaking to each other in new ways. 

I suppose I'm also interested in how repeated images—that within themselves contain the possibility of a new image—can function as spiritual practice; how images and motifs, when presented at different times and spaces, give us both a space to ground ourselves and space to explore. I think some of this springs from my own religious practice; as Catholic, repetition of words has always felt like a grounding spiritual practice. It is ritualistic. And this is both comforting and unsettling, the knowledge that things are always returning to us. The year is always coming back. 

As a Catholic, as you mention, writing the poems was akin to your religious practice, but to what extent did you find your faith, and not just the ritual, influencing your work? Or was there really no distinction for you? 

This is a great question! For me, ritual and practice are my real "ins" to Catholicism. While I'm aware that neither is more important than the other, I definitely connect more with orthopraxy (both ethical and liturgical) than orthodoxy. The physicality of a practiced hand gesture, for example, begs the question: is the care with which I move my right middle finger the same care and intention I use to walk through this world? So I suppose, for me, there's little distinction between faith and ritual, and therefore how it influences my work; I practice the same word—orange, orange, orange—without the intention of "getting it right" or finding some revelation. Similarly, I say the right prayer or try to make the right action (in my community, for the land) on repeat; tangible spiritual practice making its way through the world.

I find my experience with Catholicism very embodied, physical, and I think that does show up in my work. This is my body, says my practice, and so also says the book: this the bullet in a head, the bird in a throat, the outstretched hands shaking, the open mouth, the concave rib, the thighs stuck to a bench. I'm extremely interested in what it means—really, practically means—that the infinite became finite. I read your interview with Pádraig Ó Tuama where he noted that "Within the Catholic system, sacraments all involve something physical that’s happening. So water on a head; or the taste of bread on the tongue; or confession, words of reconciliation they call it; marriage – rings being exchanged; holy orders, there’s oil and confirmation there’s touch and the death sacraments, there’s oil as well. And in all of those, there’s something very physical" - which is a much more eloquent way to state my deep interest in the physicality of the holy and the earth. This makes its way into the last poem of the book, "To Lead a Pig Skyward": 

Earthbound is probably
better. We all start
getting ideas when we
look up, and the pigs,
they always seemed so
pleased where they were,
rooting in soft earth.
No need to look up for God
when the holy was there,
beneath their trotters, cool
below the autumn archer
that was rising, lightly,
on the eastern horizon.

Each of the sections in Confluence is named after a river in western Pennsylvania— Monongahela, Allegheny, and Ohio. How important was it for you to distinguish each section geographically, and what role do you see place playing in your work, both in Confluence and beyond? 

So I think this is a really great continuation of where I left off in the previous question. Growing up in Western Pennsylvania, I didn't truly recognize it as a Place (capital P intended). It was only when I moved away when I became very interested in Western Pennsylvania and connection to the physicality of the landscape; incidentally, Pittsburgh has a real visceral physicality to it. The "steel-ribbed bridges" of my poems stretch over these massive rivers that converge at The Point of Pittsburgh, known locally as the Confluence. So I was really interested in physically representing the convergence of these three rivers in the book; to this end, the sections Monongahela and Allegheny converge at the final section, Ohio. 

Confluence has been called a book of place, and I take no issue with that. These poems largely speak to Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania in a range of ways, but I think they're less interested in representing or remembering a place, and more interested in being that place. Calling back to the previous question, they're interested in how physicality of language can bring about an immediacy, a becoming. To that end, the poems are also interested in how people create places and how places create people; a grandmother becoming a folding chair becoming me becoming a bridge. Language and land; people and land; animals and land; trauma and land; place encompasses all of these things. 

Do you think there are moments when the people depicted in your poems (the woman in "Route 30," the people in the laundromat in "Laundromat in Irwin," to name a few examples) create the place more than the place creates them?

Yes. I think that the language—and perception—create the place. In "Route 30" for example, I look at language like "where / there are no more exits / until Ohio" and there's such a tightness there, a sense of confinement of being single-tracked out of the state, but then there's an opening at the Ohio border. But then there's "Ohio, Indiana / and after that, well, she doesn't care / what comes after that." So there's this real tension between being locked into place and also creating potential outside of that place. 

In these poems I think my real obsession with gas stations, turnpikes, and toll booths comes out—I'll say it: the liminal places. So I think that presents a really interesting angle into your question where transitory places come in, and how people create a sense of meaning there. I'm thinking of a poem like "Breezewood" where:

A home-bound cold snap settles
over the interchange, hissing. Taco Bell—
the barely-lit sign mimics sunset.
Taco Hell—my father’s voice.
I hardly remember. Like the Sunoco
sign, flickering, that has forgotten its O’s—
Sunc.

So what we've got - aside from a lot of em dashes—is a cold snap (nature, land) that is home-bound on the interchange (created space). Then, in another blending of people creating space, the Taco Bell Sign mimics sunset and the Taco Bell sign has the voice of a father. And later in the poem:

My mother,
waiting for me, fades into sleep.
A clear Midwestern sky freezes
deep—the voice of my father. How

So the Taco Bell sign becomes sunset becomes the voice of the father. I think this makes it difficult, at times, to draw the line where people creating place starts and ends; there's such a constant becoming that the landscape contains, a constant movement that doesn't let up. Like a turnpike, for example. Or a toll station, where we slow down only to speed up again. 

It's interesting that you're drawn to gas stations, turnpikes, and toll booths-- areas that on the surface don't appear to be a poetic source. But I'm reminded of Alan Shapiro's Night of the Republic, a collection that guides readers through a variety of America's public spaces, some of which are completely devoid of people. The world is no doubt your inspiration, but what literary influences are you indebted to? 

A question that I'm never quite sure how to answer! I suppose right off the bat, I think of Charles Simic. I had the great fortune to take several of his workshops at UNH, and both he and his work made a huge impact on my poetry. His poetry - I'm hesitant to touch or attempt to describe it at all! - does occupy that liminal space that is very interesting to me; it is strange and it is ordinary all at once. It is wholly human; language that is both straightforward and remarkable.  I think in reading his work and in taking his classes, I really dug into this understanding of what language could do. I also was fortunate to learn with David Rivard and Mekeel McBride, both of whom opened me to new ideas what it meant to be a poet; of how to read poetry as well as write it; of how to understand myself in community. 

But past this certainty, I'm not sure I can draw a straight line to my literary influences; it's difficult for me to point at my work, then point that same finger at another poet. Of course, I have my poets, like us all, whose work and lines make up my waking days: W.S. Merwin, Naomi Shihab Nye, Ilya Kaminsky, Joy Harjo, Jean Valentine. These are poets whose work feels very essential to me, like when I hold their poems, I'm holding something very sacred in my hands. So while I feel the challenge of directly pointing to a literary influence, I believe there's great spiritual (if not literary, also) value in knowing the poets whose words accompany us on daily walks, on trips to the gas station and grocery store. 

But this by no means a comprehensive list! In fact, I feel like any given book I'm reading is essential to me. Right now, I'm reading and holding close the work of Jose Hernandez Diaz, Jill Osier, Chloe Martinez, and Tyree Daye. I tend to take my time with books; a good friend of mine gave me some powerful insight on how to read a book of poetry with care. To that end, I try to enter each book with intention; I take time with the cover and font and artwork, with the paper and fonts that make up the poems, with the title of the book and the poems. It's like a spiritual practice to me - to be fully present with and aware of each book. So to answer your question directly, I feel deeply indebted to all of the listed poets, and to each new line I read; to the cover artists and printers and editors - each person who makes the book of poems a book of poems.

Oh, and how could I forget James Wright? 

How do you approach your writing, the logistical aspects of it that is? Do you write for a certain amount of time a day? Do you immediately revise after you've written a poem? Do you let your work sit for a while before you pick it up again? 

So my day job is helping to run the writing center at the University of New Hampshire, where we work with students on their writing. A lot of our focus is on the writing process - that process is actually a lot more important than product. To that end, we're constantly talking about best writing and revision strategies, that writing needs space and time and, yes, practice.

But I'm not great at taking the advice I so easily dish out! I'm a real perfectionist, and when I sit down to write, I place a ton of pressure on myself to create something "really good." The only way I've gotten around this is to set an intention of writing X amount of minutes per day. I structure in flexibility for days when I know I can't write for an hour - I've found it's better to write consistently for lesser periods of time. I think of my daily writing like running: if I say hey, I'm going to start running five miles each day, I'm going to stop that real quick. But if I say I'm going to run for five minutes each day, it's much easier to stick to that goal and eventually increase the amount of time. It's also a lot less pressure; instead of saying "Today, I will write a poem" I say "Today, I will write for 20 minutes" and I will do it again tomorrow, and again, until a poem emerges. I always tell my students that the most work they will do is going from a blank page to something - anything - on the page, and to take pride in that!

It's taken me a while to internalize that the way I live my days is the way I live my life. So I try to be very intentional; I write for X amount of minutes each day, I read before I sleep instead of scrolling through Twitter, etc. And I try to be intentional with my revision - I've developed a little practice called active procrastination where I move away from a poem to do something productive that will help with revision. For me, that's usually something with repetitive physical movement (walking the dog, washing dishes, folding laundry). I think a lot of my revision is very embodied and based in movement and work. And also, of course, community-based. Bringing a poem to workshop is like receiving a real gift; additionally, reading & discussing my friends' in-progress work is usually a big help with my own poems. 

But I think for all the structure I try to have, my main priority is gentleness. I know myself; I'm an overachiever and I'll run myself into the ground. But as someone with a chronic illness, I know that's not healthy or realistic. I'm learning to embrace flexibility and compassion for myself and my body and make space for that in my writing process. 

What's next after Confluence? And how do you hope that work interacts with your debut collection? 

I'm working on my second collection, which certainly feels like it picks up where Confluence left off. But it moves into new subjects that I want to explore, like the language of chronic pain, and it does a deeper exploration of how this body is linked to a religious tradition. There's a lot of movement, from the very tangible and earthly to the cosmic. For example, I've been exploring ways to make present the presence of God in my poems - the word God appears so frequently in my work that to me, it started to feel and sound like white noise. So I feel like the next book asks how the name of God can be not just represented, but made immediate; it asks how we write and talk about the divine, a place where language often fails. It's not a new question; so many traditions have wrestled with making an infinite finite, with the challenge of physically writing the name on paper. But it's a great exploration of what language can do, and how it links to the physical body. 

There are still some through-lines in the second book that are found in Confluence; there are some poems of place, too, that feel like they are in conversation with some poems in Confluence. There's repetition here, too, repetition within the poems and the book, but also some repetition pulled from Confluence - I'm curious about how these poems continue to speak to each other between books. And that includes the look of the book, too. I don't want to get too far ahead of myself, but I would be thrilled to have my mom - an artist working in the North Country - create the cover art for the second book, as she did for the first. I'm interested in how the art can provide a visual narrative of continuation, and I think the opportunity to collaborate and create with my mom in this way is a really special thing.