Katherine Gaffney Explores Grief through the Surreal in “Fool in a Blue House” [INTERVIEW]

Katherine Gaffney completed her MFA at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and is currently working on her PhD at the University of Southern Mississippi. Her work has previously appeared or is forthcoming in Best New Poets, jubilat, Harpur Palate, Mississippi Review, Meridian, Harpur Palate, and elsewhere. She has attended Tin House’s Summer Writing Workshop (2014), Sundress Publications’ SAFTA Residency in (2021), and was a scholar at the Sewanee Writers’ Conference (2022). Her first chapbook, Once Read as Ruin, was published by Finishing Line Press. Her first full-length collection, Fool in a Blue House, won the 2022 Tampa Review Prize for Poetry. She lives and teaches in Champaign, Illinois. Below are excerpts from the interview with James Morehead on the Viewless Wings Poetry Podcast.

James: Your collection opens with a prose poem, “The Horse.” It’s a wonderfully strange poem with a horse “born from a carousel” that “tore from the rods.” The images are so beautifully strange. What was your thought process to opening with a prose poem, and this poem specifically?

Katherine: “That’s an interesting question. My thesis mentor for my MFA had a special connection to this poem—it was his favorite in the manuscript. He has since passed away, and the book was accepted for publication before his passing, though I can’t recall the exact timeline. In a way, the poem serves as a memorial to him. Beyond the emotional connection, the poem also sets a thematic tone for the collection. It conveys a sense of wildness and independence, themes central to the narrative. 

“In terms of the creative process, I grew up riding horses, which is a recurring motif in my work. The details about the cloudless morning and the rainy day of the horse’s birth in the poem intertwine with the story of the horse I grew up riding. It’s a blend of her story and a step into the surreal. During my MFA, I felt my writing was heavily autobiographical, so I challenged myself to explore the surreal. ‘The Horse’ is a product of this challenge, merging real experiences with surreal elements.”

James: You’ve organized “Fool in a Blue House” into numbered sections, each with a quote from a wonderful selection of writers. How did you approach organizing this collection and then selecting the quotes?

Katherine: “The original title of my thesis, which I defended at the University of Illinois, was ‘No One Thought of Birds’. Corey Van Landingham, who joined my thesis committee in my final semester, played a pivotal role. Before the defense, she suggested the title ‘Fool in a Blue House’, which is derived from one of the poems in the collection. This idea stemmed from our discussions about the subtle theme of theater present in the collection, such as hints of stadiums, boxing rings, and performance. This led to structuring the collection into five acts, denoted in Roman numerals, in line with traditional theater format.

“As for the quotes that frame each section, I’ve always noted down quotations that resonated with me throughout my MFA and afterwards. This manuscript, while evolved from my MFA thesis, contains significant changes. I compiled a long list of quotations, selecting those that I felt were in conversation with the poems in each section. I specifically chose quotes from poets I admire, aiming to complement and enhance the themes in my collection.”

James: In “Hope Chest” you successfully repeat variants of “hope” no less than ten times, which is a challenge given “hope” is arguably an overused word in poetry. How did you think about the use of the word “hope” in this poem and its repetition?

Katherine: “You know, I don’t know if I was that conscious of the potential for being clichéd. Another poet asked me about this poem, particularly about its object. The poem was born from a hope chest my mother bought me. She felt it was somewhat taboo to give me a hope chest, given that I am unmarried. She didn’t want me to tell my partner about its connection to marriage, fearing it might carry a certain weight. I found humor in this situation and felt it deserved a poem. 

“I think what repetition can do, if not too precious, is crack open a word and detach it from its clichéd weight. I don’t want to give myself undue credit, but maybe the way repetition is used here doesn’t lean into the usual connotations of hope. Instead, it tries to lift it out of that context, leaning into the unexpected humor of the object being introduced into my life.”

James: Yeah, it forces you to look at the nuance of the word and not the superficial cliché, and probably that’s why it worked so effectively. Maybe “Hope Chest” as an object immediately changes the context.

Katherine: “I think there are a couple of poems in the manuscript that do this. For example, there’s a poem called ‘Widow’s Walk,’ which is an architectural feature of coastal homes. It’s tied to the idea that your love goes out to sea, and you’re not sure if they’ll return, but you have your widow’s walk to watch for them. I’m enchanted with these literal phrases like ‘Hope Chest’ and ‘Widow’s Walk’ that can be imaginatively turned and cracked open beyond their actual function. 

“So, ‘Hope Chest’ doesn’t inherently indicate marriage. I love the marketing around it. For example, I found an ad saying the chances of a marriage ending in divorce court doubled when the bride has no hope chest. Both of these poems, and perhaps the repetition in them, stem from my love of research, which many poets share. I remember William Logan at the University of Florida discussing his research into how sheep birth their lambs. Historical research and these little personal moments help to ground the poem and build allure around the abstraction of ‘Hope’ in ‘Hope Chest.'”

James: Poets do more research than people realize, on a treasure hunt for cool images and words connected to their research. It can be exciting when you find a cool word associated with what you’re researching.

Katherine: “I was recently looking up the anatomy of a boot for a poem and was frustrated that I couldn’t find a single term for the whole bottom of a boot. It’s funny how you can find disappointments in language, or the excitement when it holds something unexpected.”

James: “All For Is”, for me at least, creates a voice with a distinct accent, with lines like this:

       I about fell out when
he asked me to pass the boiling
pot, check out back to see
the cows are fat and sassy.

How does the voice a reader might hear inside their head, while reading your poetry, play a role in your writing? 

“I’ve never heard that before, so that’s a new thing for me to consider in how my readers are engaging with a poem. I’ve been told, I think during a conversation with Felicia Zamora, that my writing can tend toward an older register. I’m not sure why that is, or if it’s related to the time period influencing the accent. ‘I about fell out’ does sound more archaic than contemporary speech. 

“I hadn’t thought of it as an accent, but perhaps as a certain musicality. There’s a lot of internal rhyme in this poem. My current project is rooted in autobiography, with many details drawn from real life. For example, the poem was inspired by my partner, who was working in the food industry and had vivid dreams about his work. At one point, he talked in his sleep about making sandwiches, and the cow imagery came from one of his dream utterances. I was struck by it, and it found its way into the poem. But these elements aren’t my own creation; I owe it to the stunning beings, animals, and people in my life. So, in this poem, music was the guiding force, rather than an intentional focus on accent or an unusual register.”

James: In “On Watching Marie Antoinette After My Love’s Grandfather Died” you write:

Your grandmother insists you see if your grandfather's crocodile
               shoes fit, that she'll mail you them, once she finds them
in this mess. The question I know you will not ask is, But where
               would I wear them? A question that never left Marie's tongue

               as she was fitted for the bodice of each new gown.

Throughout the poem you find parallels between two seemingly unrelated subjects, and it works so well. How did you approach crafting this poem, which is uniquely poetic in its surprises?

Katherine: “Oh, that’s great. I mean, again, I have to credit it with reality. My partner sadly lost his grandfather to bone cancer. We were living in Illinois, which is quite a distance from Florida. He was able to make it down for the funeral but not before his grandfather passed, despite trying. We were looking for a distraction from the loss, and Marie Antoinette happened to be playing on cable television. I let him choose what we watched; I didn’t want to make any decisions during that time. The poem was inspired by his surprising choice. It wasn’t a comedy or a ‘comfort food’ movie like Harry Potter. The Kirsten Dunst version of Marie Antoinette is somewhat artistic for a mainstream film. 

“I started to dive into this rabbit hole of trying to understand why he chose it and to digest the grief. Grief is a running theme throughout the collection, whether it’s anticipating grief or enduring loss, as in this poem. It became a joy to find those strange parallels between Florida and the passing of a patriarch, and the lush, rich, and colorful world of Marie Antoinette in the film. The parallels seemed so fitting, from the orchid to the crocodile shoes mentioned in the poem, which in our context felt as lush as Marie Antoinette’s silk chapeau might have felt to her. The clothing, food, drink, and other elements just intersected in a way that was organic, as watching the film was a way to endure the grief in the immediate wake of the news.”

James: “Remains” is a series of questions, and, in contrast to prose, doesn’t suggest any answers, leaving the reader the freedom to interpret what the poem means to them. How did you approach editing this poem, and given the entire poem is questions, when it should end?

Katherine: “That’s a really great question. This poem was born out of an April poem-a-day challenge. Those can be hit or miss, and you’re lucky if you get two or three good poems out of it. Originally, this poem was a bit longer. The joy of writing it was how one question could lead to another, creating a continuous flow.

“The editing process involved deciding which questions were compelling, lyrical, or imaginative. The poem’s main image, ‘remains,’ was sparked by an article I read about skeletal remains discovered buried together for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. The imagery of skeletons almost kissing or caressing each other was eerie yet heartwarming. That image was the impetus for the poem, and I wanted to explore more about them through these questions. Of course, these questions aren’t literally answered; it’s not a conversation with skeletons, though that could be an interesting poem in itself. I liked the idea of leaving the questions unanswered, allowing the speaker to ask whatever they wanted in a conversation stymied by the lack of response.

“In terms of the final question, the challenge wasn’t just shedding questions, but organizing them in a way that had surprising, not just logical, progressions. I wanted the final question to be a bit provocative, a bit sexy, to capture the catalyst of this seemingly electric connection between the people who had been buried together in such an intimate position for so long.”

James: Many of your poems have long and wonderfully rich titles that make the Table of Contents fun to read. A few examples: “The World Is the Goat Who Ate My Dress Clear Off My Body” and “On Driving to Find Him at Midnight When All He Could Do Was Turn Left” and “A Conversation in Home Depot’s Kitchen Department with a Line From Mrs. Dalloway”.

What is your approach to crafting poem titles that are so long that they could almost stand alone as micro poems?

Katherine: “I love that idea about them standing alone as micro poems. I’m a sucker for a good long title. Sometimes, a minimalist title can be intriguing in its own way because of its potential, but I’m drawn to specificity. It’s reflective of how I craft poems. I like to delve into the exact details, like the machinations of lamb birthing or whatever the subject may be.

“There’s something enchanting about a title like ‘A Conversation in Home Depot’s Kitchen Department with a Line From Mrs. Dalloway’. It started as a conversation in Home Depot’s kitchen department, but then I incorporated a loved quotation, in this case from ‘Mrs. Dalloway’. Adding ‘with a line from Mrs. Dalloway’ to the title felt important. Similar to the Marie Antoinette film, the contrast of Woolf’s novel with a scene in Home Depot’s kitchen department added an element of tension. Sometimes, the elaboration in the title can push the poem toward a better articulation of its tensions than a short title can.”

James: “Very cool. Well, I thought they’re wonderfully rich and they could almost create a little pamphlet of micro poems from just the titles of many of your poems.”

Katherine: “I love that idea. It reminds me of an exercise Adam Clay had our class do at the University of Mississippi during my PhD. We were to take workshop feedback and turn it into a pantoum, I think it was. So, it makes me think that taking longer titles that feel like lines or micro poems and turning them into some sort of repetitive form of poetry could be an interesting exercise, even if just for a project in progress.”

James: “Once Read as Ruin”, a multi-part long poem, is one of my favorites in your collection. The poem opens with an unsettling image:

A torn open fetlock, summer, flies, a red
so real it turns to fiction. Sore, first golf
ball of growth, tears to cleft.

And then proceeds to interleave historical references of women self-mutilating to protect themselves from men. How did you approach constructing this poem and incorporating the research and more contemporary images, while achieving such a unified whole?

Katherine: “This poem started with my interest in writing about horses. People often see horses as very strong, but they’re actually quite fragile, often due to human breeding. They also have this habit of rejecting care or facilitation of life, which intrigued me.

“The poem began with horses, and I was bringing drafts to weekly meetings with my mentor at a Mexican restaurant, which now holds a special place in my heart. We talked about poetry over chips and salsa, and I realized the poem needed something else for tension, something to buffer against. Much of my collection is written from a first-person perspective, and I felt this poem was still removed from myself.

“It started with St. Agatha the Younger and the idea of ‘cutting off the nose to spite the face’. This led me down a rabbit hole of research, where I found Saint Wilgefortis. The poem started to come together with these figures who did something to themselves to fend off what was considered care or stability in their contexts.

“To quickly recap Saint Wilgefortis, she was a noblewoman whose father tried to marry her off to a pagan king. Being devout, she prayed to avoid the marriage, and she grew a beard. I was interested in the gender ramifications of this story, especially given my background in horseback riding. Horseback riding isn’t traditionally feminine in the pristine sense, but it can be the most feminine affair in its true practice.

“The poem wasn’t working with just the horses. By plugging them into these historical figures’ stories, who were making themselves independent through gruesome means, the images of the horse began to have more weight and application. It became more universal, even if you’re not someone who’s into horses.” 

James: “Matroneum” is a wonderfully rich short poem that demonstrates how poetry can be so compact. I’ll read the entire poem:

Architectonic. Stop. This space
matronly, once, ought not be
reduced vestigial, to a thrust. Let's write,
the Myth of or Mystery at or make
whispers of fairies, ghostly dresses
singing from their once posts, turning
once into ever after. Let's think:

In crafting a short poem like this, which I was willed to re-read several times, how do you approach revising and editing to whittle the poem down to its core?  

Katherine: “That’s so funny. This poem was born out of an architectural theme I had going. I had another poem in the collection, ‘Hole in the Barn Door Quilt’, and a few architecture poems that survived through the final manuscript. The idea of ‘matroneum’ intrigued me, especially these gendered architectural features. I was playing with the research on matroneums and the language from their definitions.

“The poem actually stopped at ‘Let’s think’. I brought it to my thesis mentor, and he thought it was done. So, it’s an unintentional draft that we later read as fully rendered. My impulse is usually to fully render a thesis in my poems, which are generally longer, but there’s something stunning about letting ‘Let’s think’ hand off the argument to the reader.

“Funny enough, this poem didn’t undergo a ton of revision. It’s an unintentional fragment that, as you experienced, seems complete even if it wasn’t intentionally rendered that way.”

James: I mean, there’s a fear, especially for newer writers, in cutting things. My test is if you cut something and five minutes later you don’t remember it, it probably wasn’t needed. And if you cut something and the next day it’s still aching at you, maybe you went too far. With digital editing tools, you don’t have to worry about losing anything.

Katherine: “No, it’s true. From a young age, I learned about cutting. I worked with William Logan in undergrad, who was very generous with cutting lines. I would often get a poem back with just a line or two remaining, and he’d say to start rebuilding from there. I was introduced to the concept of ‘killing your darlings’ at 18 or 19. Though it was hard at that age, it taught me that brevity is often an asset. I tell my students all the time when teaching writing that you have to be willing to write more than what you’re going to turn in, as there’s often a lot of fat to trim off.”

James: The poem “In April” is striking in its visual form, so slight yet powerful. How did you find the form of this poem, shaped like a fish bowl, as though the poem is swirling in the water?

Katherine: “Yeah, the fishbowl metaphor in the opening line, ‘She must have carried her belly around like a fishbowl,’ is part of another thread throughout the manuscript about my mother. One of the major multi-part poems in the book is about my mother’s experience with a heart attack, her near passing, and her survival. This consciousness of my mother and her fragility influenced the poem, especially regarding her ability to carry pregnancies. This particular poem describes her seven miscarriages, two before me and two after, and ultimately, we adopted my little brother when she was about 45 years old.

“Moving away from the content to your question about form, this poem started really compressed. Sometimes a short poem can feel so dense that a traditional left-justified format doesn’t provide enough space for the reader to fully inhabit the emotions or images. So, I started moving the text across the page. Then I realized the potential of the fishbowl image. It wasn’t terribly concrete, but as I moved the poem, the shape of a bowl began to emerge. The poem’s structure created rests and pauses for the reader to sit with the images. So, in a way, the poem itself gave me the shape, starting with that first line.”

Listen to the full interview on the Viewless Wings Poetry Podcast to hear Katherine recite selections from the book.