Interviewed by BRITT TRACHTENBERG POETRY Managing editor at Chaotic Merge
Britt Trachtenberg: What was your writing experience while creating your poem To The Mother of My Abuser? And how does your writing and revision journey differ from your other works?
Taylor Franson-Thiel: This poem was a unique one in the sense that it went through very few revisions. I actually had the dream where my abusive ex partner was driving while my head was out the sunroof of my old jeep in the middle of a hurricane and woke up to write the poem. I had the line “when I think of your son’s hands” in my mind for a while before I actually wrote this poem, so when I woke up it flowed out of me in one draft and other than a few words here or there I didn’t change much.
Usually I workshop my poems with either someone from my old or current cohort, or I write them then set them aside for a while and come back to them to “mine” them for images or fully revise them. It’s very rare that I have a poem that stays in its original version like this. My first drafts are typically just generating images that I like that I can come back to and use when I have a better poem for them to live in.
Britt Trachtenberg: Your poem starts with a quote by Warsan Shire. How did you choose this quote? Did it come first or after the creation of the poem?
Taylor Franson-Thiel: This epigraph came after the poem had been written but very shortly after. I read the collection “Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth” soon after writing the poem and felt like it was a little bit of fate and immediately added the quote. I am a huge fan of epigraphs and the way they put poems in conversation with each other. I think over half of my poems come with some kind of epigraph because I am always so inspired by other authors.
I appreciated the way Shire wrote about their mother and being a woman dealing with abusive men. I think adding this quote to a poem that addresses the mother of my abuser was very important to helping the poem feel finished. Choosing it felt very easy and I love the tension between setting yourself on fire before “the men” can get to you, rather than drowning in their actions like I do in the poem. Shire is a wonderful author and truly on a subconscious level I think including this quote was my way of hoping that one day I could write like her. I hope the epigraph encourages readers to go read Shire as well.
Britt Trachtenberg: The poem ends with such an impactful line: “He used to say I reminded him of you?” Why did you decide to end this poem with this line?
Taylor Franson-Thiel: In a very real and very petty way I think I imagined him reading this and I wanted him to hurt just a little. Which is sad now that I think about it, but very real to my feelings as I wrote the poem.
When I think about how men become abusers I think about their relationship with their mother and how or what may have caused them to become like that. I actually love my abuser’s mother, and I know he loves her too. It feels very heavy that he was willing to hurt me, but that I reminded him of her. There was a sense that I needed to write that line out of me so I could set down that grief.
I also wonder a lot about if she knows. I imagine that she doesn’t and that also makes me feel sad inside. So I think all of that, and all of my above answers came together in a poem that feels very honest and heavy. But I needed it to exist outside of my body so that I didn’t have to hold it anymore. I’m married now (to a wonderful and different man) and I appreciate that this poem allowed me to heal so I could be a better partner now.
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Who is Taylor Franson-Thiel?
Taylor Franson Thiel is a writer from Utah, now based in Fairfax, Virginia. She received her Master’s in creative writing from Utah State University and is pursuing an MFA at George Mason University. Her writing frequently centers on playing as a Division One basketball player, the body, and mental health. Along with writing, she enjoys lifting heavy weights and reading fantastic books. You can find her on twitter @TaylorFranson