Shannon Wolf
Are All The Fathers In Your Poems Real?
after Aimee Nezhukumatathil*
If by real you mean as real as the stinging light still burning
in an empty refrigerator, the pooling on a water-ringed table,
the crumple of a toe against a desk’s steel leg—
then Yes, every last page is true, every sharp word,
bark and bitch. Wait, I have made them all up—all of them—
and when I say I am fatherless, I mean my father was less
and so somewhere there is a room full of fathers, all of them.
Can you imagine the number of beater cars, how many
unearthed golf balls? Even now, my fathers prepare to call me.
One dials the phone, another commandeers the speaker.
One screams into the abyss of the internet and one sits
at my grandmother’s grave. One sleeps with his broken glasses
on, another is preparing a dinner alone and every single
one of them wonders why I am never coming home.
* “Are All the Break-Ups in Your Poems Real?” by Aimee Nezhukumatathil
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/56130/are-all-the-break-ups-in-your-poems-real
If by real you mean as real as the stinging light still burning
in an empty refrigerator, the pooling on a water-ringed table,
the crumple of a toe against a desk’s steel leg—
then Yes, every last page is true, every sharp word,
bark and bitch. Wait, I have made them all up—all of them—
and when I say I am fatherless, I mean my father was less
and so somewhere there is a room full of fathers, all of them.
Can you imagine the number of beater cars, how many
unearthed golf balls? Even now, my fathers prepare to call me.
One dials the phone, another commandeers the speaker.
One screams into the abyss of the internet and one sits
at my grandmother’s grave. One sleeps with his broken glasses
on, another is preparing a dinner alone and every single
one of them wonders why I am never coming home.
* “Are All the Break-Ups in Your Poems Real?” by Aimee Nezhukumatathil
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/56130/are-all-the-break-ups-in-your-poems-real
Commentary
Shannon on "Are All The Fathers In Your Poems Real":
This poem came out fully formed and running. Much of that immediacy owes itself to the piece from which it borrows its form: "Are All the Break-Ups in Your Poems Real?" I encourage anyone reading this, to read that poem, and in fact any poem by Aimee Nezhukumatathil for a thorough grounding in poetry that just always works. I was inspired by that poem and how it encounters past experience - the surprising color of the language amid the prosaic appearance of the piece on the page. I love its question and answer format, and how the poem goes so far beyond the limitations of our understanding of a call and response.
The original poem dallies somewhere between laughter and nostalgia, and I wanted to walk a similar line. I like to think I am achieving an element of vulnerability, alongside some stinging, palpable anger. I've borrowed some of the structural phrasings of the sonnet-like piece, "If by real you mean" and "Wait. I have made them up—all of them—" for example, and I particularly admired what the final lines, with their repetition of "one," allow the writer to reckon with. For Nezhukumatathil, the “one” allows a playful acknowledgment of the ex-lovers’ acts of service: “one chops up some parsley” or “One changes the baby,” whereas in my piece the “one” encounters the sickening desperation of the speaker’s father: “One screams into the abyss of the internet.” Hopefully, the more sardonic language suggests a sizeable tonal shift away from Nezhukumatathil, closer to derisive than facetious.
I won't speak too much on the personal meaning behind the poem, as I hope that the poem speaks for itself on that account - but I will say that I regard poetry as a form of seizing the narrative for oneself. With so many platforms at our fingertips these days, it seems easy for others to speak for you, or rewrite your story in their own favor. This poem is a reclamation of my own story, as a daughter and as a woman in her own right.
This poem came out fully formed and running. Much of that immediacy owes itself to the piece from which it borrows its form: "Are All the Break-Ups in Your Poems Real?" I encourage anyone reading this, to read that poem, and in fact any poem by Aimee Nezhukumatathil for a thorough grounding in poetry that just always works. I was inspired by that poem and how it encounters past experience - the surprising color of the language amid the prosaic appearance of the piece on the page. I love its question and answer format, and how the poem goes so far beyond the limitations of our understanding of a call and response.
The original poem dallies somewhere between laughter and nostalgia, and I wanted to walk a similar line. I like to think I am achieving an element of vulnerability, alongside some stinging, palpable anger. I've borrowed some of the structural phrasings of the sonnet-like piece, "If by real you mean" and "Wait. I have made them up—all of them—" for example, and I particularly admired what the final lines, with their repetition of "one," allow the writer to reckon with. For Nezhukumatathil, the “one” allows a playful acknowledgment of the ex-lovers’ acts of service: “one chops up some parsley” or “One changes the baby,” whereas in my piece the “one” encounters the sickening desperation of the speaker’s father: “One screams into the abyss of the internet.” Hopefully, the more sardonic language suggests a sizeable tonal shift away from Nezhukumatathil, closer to derisive than facetious.
I won't speak too much on the personal meaning behind the poem, as I hope that the poem speaks for itself on that account - but I will say that I regard poetry as a form of seizing the narrative for oneself. With so many platforms at our fingertips these days, it seems easy for others to speak for you, or rewrite your story in their own favor. This poem is a reclamation of my own story, as a daughter and as a woman in her own right.
Biography
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Shannon Wolf is a British writer and teacher, living in Denver, Colorado. Her debut full-length poetry collection Green Card Girl is forthcoming from Fernwood Press. She received a joint MA-MFA in Poetry at McNeese State University and also has degrees from Lancaster University and the University of Chichester. She is the Co-Curator of the Poets in Pajamas Reading Series. Her poetry, short fiction, and non-fiction (which can also be found under the name Shannon Bushby) have appeared in The Forge, No Contact Mag, and HAD among others. You can find her on social media @helloshanwolf.
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