Welcome listeners. In the last episode of Sacred Gyre, I read a collection of 13 poems from the newly released book Splitting Open the World by Carolyn Martin. The About page on her website, Carolyn Martin poet.com says quote. From associate professor of English to management trainer to retiree, I've journeyed from New Jersey through California to Oregon to discover Douglas Firs months of drain and dry summers. After years of writing academic papers and business books, I've realized that poetry is the way my mind interacts with the world in images, rhythms, sounds, and intensities of language. So I've settled into the joyful challenge of translating experience into as few words as possible. Carolyn not only gave me permission to do the reading, but also was intrigued by my invitation to have a conversation after listening to my reading of her poems. What are her thoughts and reactions as she listens to my reading? She accepted and here we are. Welcome, Carolyn! How are you doing today?
Couldn't be better on this magnificent May day in Clackamas, Oregon. Uh, couldn't have had a better spring. I. Um, just unbelievable everything. Everything.
I'm Also enjoying it as well. I'm just so excited to get into this conversation,
Yeah.
so I would like to just jump in and ask my first question and, and get rolling if you're okay with that.
Sounds great.
So splitting open, the world reads like an autobiography to me, and in my own autobiographical writings, it has felt very vulnerable. How did writing this book feel to you? Did you feel vulnerable? And if so, in what ways?
Uh, what a great question. And vulnerability is the key. Um, this is my most self-revealing collection to date. Fir. First of all, if you take a look at the cover of the book, there is a broken. Eggshell, uh, my publisher, uh, Sean, from The Poetry Box, uh, said she struggled with that image. She thought maybe put a globe there, a broken globe, but then that would've been too boring and, and much too literal.
So she decided on the vulnerability of an egg, and I thought, oh, my, what, what, what a great insight. And then what she added in this collage. Um, are pictures of my mother, a pair of rosary beads, uh, a pencil, a stack of books, uh, and each of those are, um, thematic and follow the themes of the, of, of the book.
And the second thing I, I wanna point out is, um, a blurb by Andrea Hollander. Um, she says, how do we become who we are? In order to find out, Carolyn Martin interrogates her past and follows its path to her present. Along the way, she uncovers truths never turning away from her own flaws. So part of my vulnerability is telling the truth about my own flawed humanity.
Um, I've, you know, indicated in some of the poems, the struggle with toxic perfectionism. Both at home and then in the 20 years in, in the convent. Um, and also more recently just trying to come to grips with shame. Uh, and that actually there's a poem, uh, called Dear Shame and all the ways in which that really stops the flow of energy.
And, um, you know, ba basically says it's not okay to be human. And I think that that has been one of my lifelong struggles that. There's nothing shameful in being human with all, all of it, all of its flaws. So in indeed, uh, autobiography vulnerability, you aced it, Emily. That is the, the underlying tone, um, of the book.
Yeah, and I felt a similar thing and I, one thing I just really loved about the cover. Is the, you know, the broken egg with the yolk sitting there is quite vivid. And underneath are those other images, which are kind of, you know, not as starkly visible. And they, the, it almost feels like they're dripping out of the broken
Oh.
I just love that image, that imagery of it, because there's a way in which, um, it feels like the realities of your life that as you point out, sometimes you had kept hidden or. Behind, uh, some kind of a wall for so long. They do drip out of the, the book through the poems that as you write them in each stage of your life. And were there any parts that you revealed that were more difficult to put on the page? I mean, you put 'em on the page in a book, they're gonna, lots of people are gonna read them, right? Or were there any that were more challenging
to
one, one area. Now I, you know, I've, I've written about the convent before. I've written about my, my mother before. Uh, but this time I think I was much more brutally honest. With my relationship with my mom, who was, uh, uh, it, there's, there's a poem about her scars and the, uh, the, the metaphor of the scars versus the literal scars that, that, uh, she endured.
Um, yeah, and I think, I think I was much more brutally honest with my re my, what I, what I would consider one of the most complex of human relationships, the mother daughter re relationship.
Yeah.
And the second area where I was much more brutally honest was why I left the convent. And I'm not gonna blow it here, I'm gonna leave that up in the air.
But, uh, in, in several instances, I just tell the readers after 20 years of vows, you know, why I finally had, had to leave. And I don't think that I was ever that upfront, if you will, about this before. So yeah, tho those two areas, mother and convent.
Yeah.
We're challenging.
Reading your poems and as you talk about that, especially relationship to your mother, it's actually causing me to think about my birth mother and my stepmother. And so there, there will be more to come as a result of that. So thank you for, um, being vulnerable in that way. 'cause it's opening up vulnerability for me and I hope as people read your book, they will take in those vulnerabilities. just even for themselves, just think about what it means to to them. So I was utterly delighted when you agreed to let me read a a, a set of poems from your book. What are your thoughts or feelings as you gave me that permission?
Well, knowing you, it was easy to do. Emily. Um, for the past two and a half years, uh, I've been part of a, a weekly three person poetry group on Zoom, and from the very beginning of our organizing this, this little gathering. We decided that we would read each other's poems, and so to hear your poem in the voice of another person was something that was not new to me and, uh, offered, you know, delights and insights that I wouldn't have if I just read my own.
Um, you know, you, you say a very interesting thing in that question. Um, when you agree to let me perform. A set of poems.
Yeah.
don't say read a set of poems,
Yeah.
you know, you perform poems and I've known you for years and, and watched you do this. Um, and indeed, I, I think performance of poetry is an art and a skill that you have mastered.
So number one, it was easy for me to say yes to you, and number two, I was delighted in the result. You are brilliant, absolutely brilliant. So thank you.
Well thank you. That's really sweet of you to say that. um, I mean, after I had asked you and, and you know, you agreed to let me do it, and especially after I finished doing the reading, before I even published it, it just brought back home to me. I. The ways that, as I genuinely try to allow your poems, your writing and your life to come through me like a vessel, of some sort. But the reality is that no matter how hard I try, I can't stop my own experiences in some way being infused into the re reading. Uh, or is, like I said in my original question to my performance, and I, I do see it that way. Um, the fact is that those feelings are going to be there in at least as, as in my own belief.
And I'm just wondering how that lands for you. Do you think I'm missing anything as I talk about it that way? And, and were there ways in which, as you heard me performing your poems, that something came through that? Was more than just you or, I don't know. I don't know. You're not quite sure how to ask that.
Mm-hmm. Uh, well, you know, fir, first of all, let, let me just say this. When I listened to your performance of those 13 poems, that's a lot of poetry and I was totally gobsmacked by how smoothly you read them. When I do a reading, inevitably I will flub a word or words or, or lines and bravo to you. You didn't flub a darn thing.
I think I'm gonna hire you to do my readings, uh, af after this now. It's just absolutely marvelous, you know, you know. And then, um, go back to the epigraphs. I have two epigraphs at the beginning of the book. Uh, one is from Muriel Rukeyser, uh, who said what would happen if one woman told the truth about her life, the world would split open.
So hence the title. So the vulnerability of telling the truth about your life, splits open the world. But then there was a second epigraph, a one liner by the poet William Matthews. Um, he said, I am in these poems because I'm in my life.
Yeah.
So I'm in these poems because I'm in my life. I believe that any poet.
Would be delighted to have readers identify with whatever parts of life, parts of the autobiography that are being shared. Um, I, I like to use this image that when a reader comes to a poem, they are looking at the life of the poet as through a window, right? So you enter the world of the poet through a window.
However, if you look carefully enough. Through that window, you will see a mirror, and the mirror reflects back to you some truth about your life. Uh, the facts don't make, you know the details, the facts, the plot, what, whatever. But there is the essence of a common humanity that we all share. You know, whether it's dealing with perfectionism or shame or mothers, or, you know what, you know what?
Whatever. So. Yeah, that you could feel something is what a, what a tribute to the poem,
Yeah.
And any poet would be jumping for joy, you know, and, and when people have responded, and I've heard people respond to, uh, uh, my, my poems, you know, via varieties of con comments whenever they say, yeah, I understand.
It just, it makes all the writing worthwhile.
Yes,
just my truth, it's human truth.
yes. When I, uh, wrote my first book of Poetry, Butterfly A Rose and started performing it, and somebody came up to me who was not transgender, and my book was all about coming out as a transgender woman and said. That really moved me in a way that I, I mean, I don't even remember the full thing that she said, but I realized then that there's something going on here that I could not even have imagined. And it's, it's just coming through me. So just relax and let it, but I also want to say a little bit of truth, which is because I record these, uh, my, what I'm, when it's just me, I record into script. I can flub all I want and pull the flubs out. So, when you see, hear the final product, all those flubs are gone. And I can, and it's, it's, I mean, when I'm performing in public, I mean I, I call it glancerizing.. I memorize them enough that I can just look down and see the next, you know, bit and, and carry on. Um, and it, it was challenging to do, especially with 13 poems in a row, right? There's no way I could, could have done that. So in a way the script gives me that, okay, just relax. Don't worry. You flub it. Pause a second re-say it. 'cause you just take out the flub. Right?
Ah, technology.
So it's, it's fun in doing it in that way. But also I realized as I was reading it, the feelings in your poems touched me in a way that. You know, a couple of times all of us wanted to, to cry. Just the, uh, the pain that you felt as a youth trying to navigate, you know, the, what did you, how did you say it? uh, the beatings that your parents had experienced coming through in, in the way that they reacted to you often. Oh God, that is so painful to think about for any of us who've experienced that.
Yeah. And, and I wonder to what I mean in, in a way, you're, you're, um, bringing forth a not very pretty picture of your own parents, right.
Mm-hmm.
I did with my mother and stepmother in my book. And how is that for you?
Well, luckily my parents are gone. Uh, and it, over the years, they really were not poetry readers, so I was, uh, you know, not, not worried about, you know, spilling the truth. Um, I, I don't, I don't know if cat, I don't think catharsis is, is the right word. Um, but alright. It maybe it was healing. Yes, maybe it was healing.
Uh, when I get to the last poem, uh, in, in the book, um, or the second of the last poem in the book, uh, a year after my mother's, uh, death, the first anniversary, um, you know, I, I basically rewrote the ending of that poem. Um, and of course I don't have it right with me. Can I just grab a copy of the. The,
few
the la but the last nine lines, like I, I ended with, um, you know, like some, sometimes you sound, you sound like poetry.
And then the last nine lines were in addition,
This is to my mother on her first anniversary?
right? I,
. But hear me out this time and don't interrupt. Words and time are what I need. Someday, when I've grown closer to myself and cycles of shame and rage dissipate. Someday, I suspect, I'll rewrite the story of your life with Unscarred love and awe. And if truth splits open wide enough, I'll use your name with reverence in odes, not elegies..
Yeah. Yeah,
I almost
yeah.
crying as I was
Yeah.
it
Yeah, that mo that moment was an acknowledgement. I'm not healed yet,
Yeah.
and if I am really honest, I've not grieved and it's been two and a half years since my mother died.
Wow.
perhaps I'm grieving for the inability not to be able to grieve. Uh, my, my partner just lost her mother last week.
They had a magnificent relationship. They adored one another. She is grieving, um, what can I say beautifully, if you will. And we've, we've talked about this. What happens when you grow up with a wonderful relationship with a parent then they die? The pain is unbearable. . Versus what happens if you didn't have a very good relationship with a parent and they die.
It's like, oh, well, you know, it's a relief. It's over.
Yeah,
it'll, it'll, it's gonna be interesting to me as I grow, as I say, as I get closer to myself, as I get rid of the rage, get rid of the shame. It, there will be a poem someday about finally the arrival of grief. Uh, as I say earlier in another poem, grief is another name for love.
And if you don't feel the love, then there's not the grief. And if you do feel the love, like with my partner and her mom, the grief is intense
Yeah, yeah,
just an interesting human. Can I say process? Dy dynamic? Yeah.
I've just been reading the uh, book The Choice by Dr. Eger
Mm-hmm.
who survived the Holocaust. And one of the things she's saying is that, um, the big struggle for her has been around forgiveness. First of all, to forgive hit not only Hitler, but Mengele, who she ran into in person. Um, but more than that to forgive herself
Wow.
in, in ways.
And I'm just starting to really take that in and thinking of my mom and my stepmom, who in my. And Butterfly A Rose. If you read it and remember it, there's places where I say, you know, the pain that I felt, um, at different times in my relationship or lack of it with them. it's what she said there.
And what you, what I got out of your book I think, is that I have an opportunity forgive to. Do a better job of forgiving them. They were just human beings, you know, reacting to harsh situations. They didn't, uh, create. And to forgive myself for not being perfect in how I reacted, which I have very much not been.
Yeah.
Does that resonate with you as well? I.
Oh, it's hard to be human. It's hard to, you know, if, you know, we, I grew up Roman Catholic, so very structured dog dogmatic, and then they enter the convent, you know, and. Very little room for flaws. You know now, now what? You know, one of my favorite saying sayings is, make more mistakes and better mistakes, faster
Yes. Yes. Oh, I love that.
up with being human.
And that, that's interesting the way that your poems resonated with me. Now, I grew up in the Unitarian Church, which was a result of my dad being an atheist scientist. He didn't care about. People's religious belief. He wasn't one of those angry atheists. He was just, he just didn't believe. But you had to go to church in order not to be looked down on. So he took us to the Unitarian church um, I, we had to hide the fact of the divorce 'cause we started getting really nasty feedback from it and had literally had to leave town. So all those, those, uh, ways of, of, uh, being affected by other people's prejudices. Actually imposed a discipline on us because one of the dictums that I remember in my life growing up was, whatever you do, don't shame your family. Don't mention the divorce. Don't go telling people that your stepmother is beating you. How shameful that would be, and don't. Tell 'em you're transgender.
Right? So that imposed its own discipline. Very different from the Catholic church, but as, as narrowing. As as. And strangling. As as. Could be, yeah. Wow.
Interesting.
So, as you think about answering the, the questions I asked. What, um, reactions do you notice after listening to the podcast and now as you think back up on it and remember what it was like to hear me read the poems?
Is there anything else that came up for you that you know might not have been there before?
Yeah, uh, definitely. Uh, this was astonishing to me. Um. I found myself moved. Feelings arose, especially about the mother poems. I started to choke up
Wow.
in a way that I've never done before. Um, and, and it was almost as if I was going outside my body. Uh, relinquishing for a moment, being me and seeing the narrator.
And this relationship more objectively. I, and I don't know what other words to say other than I literally choked up.
Wow.
And then on a, uh, how can I say, a performance level, I learned a lot of things from you as far as technique is concerned. Um, I, I was listening to how you emphasize verbs and nouns and how you slow down a line for emphasis.
And this delighted me to no end. How effectively you delivered the conversations that go on in many of my poems so that I could hear the different voices changing of tone, changing of pacing. And you did that so well. So it was, it was a masterclass
Oh.
in performance. So you moved me and you taught me. Thank you.
Wow. Well, thank you for that reflection. I do take it seriously. And I, and I think that there anybody can do that even sometimes in if, if I really want to enjoy a certain book, there's sometimes even just silently to myself, I'll read it as though I were performing it because it brings up different feelings in me. I'm really
Interesting.
It's, I, I almost feel um, it's a spiritual experience. If I'm really into it,
Mm-hmm.
there's something coming through me that's larger than I can possibly understand. And just by being the more open I can be, the more easily it can flow through. And so it's not about me. I, there's a, like a time of. Practicing in terms of reading the poem. Does that really feel right? And so there's a little bit up in the head about it, but then to just get into practicing and the more it becomes about just being open to whatever's, uh, coming through, the more it's not about me, it's about the poems,
Mm-hmm.
and about what's coming through the poems.
Oh, that, that's.
is the essence of it. It's not like a one particular skill. Anybody can read in their own voice doing that.
Yeah. Well, what, what, what a gift that you give yourself. You give the author and now you're giving your audience and, and, and me. I mean, what, what a great idea of reading out loud. That's beautiful.
yeah. And if you're a listener who listened to that first one. Go back and listen again and just listen from that point of view is how does the way that your voice works and the way your tone goes up and down and the volume and so forth, how that makes a difference as opposed to just reading the words as the written and which is easy to do, but not very fun, right? So, wow. Uh. Well, I really want to thank you for, for doing this. I, I worried that that even asking you to reflect on it could feel vulnerable, but you just reacted in the most open and genuine way, the way I've known you all, all the years. That's, that's the Carolyn I've always known. So
Wow. And that's the Emily I've always known. So we go back, we go way back. I.
We do. We do. Well, thank you again. Um, dear listeners, if you enjoyed this, please send it on to other people. Send, send on both the, the reading and this conversation between Carol and I. I really appreciate, uh, your listening. As always, send me your thoughts and comments after you listen to any of my 📍podcasts and I'll see you next time.
Share this post