Elizabeth Sylvia is author of None But Witches, winner of the 2021 3 Mile Harbor Prize. Elizabeth’s work is upcoming or has recently appeared in The Southern Review, Feral, SWWIM, and Thimble Literary Magazine, among others. Her poem “Sunday” appears in the Fall 2022 issue of Carve. @e_sylviapoet
The simplicity of language and form here lends each line such lovely gravity. I was especially taken by the phrase "small, expensive dog." How did this brevity influence your use of language?
Although I don’t write a lot of directly autobiographical poems, I really did write this poem on my deck next to my small expensive dog. I wanted to capture a moment when time seemed to stop and settle into a deeply peaceful stillness. I hope the economy of language captures the vertical depth a passing moment can drop us into, a sense of being momentarily outside of time. But I also wanted the poem to carry some discomfort. The “expensive” situates this peaceful moment in an economic framework. Money often makes refuge possible. And isn’t it absurd to pay for a dog? But I did and here he is.
What did your writing and revision process look like for this poem? How did you arrive at the ending?
This is terrible but I don’t remember! When I check back on my notes, I don’t have alternate versions, which probably means I only made small revisions to the original. So I guess it was largely a moment of inspiration! The ending is (in my mind anyway) inspired by Robert Frost’s poem “Neither Out Far Nor In Deep,” which describes people looking at the ocean. It’s meant to be something of a self-indictment. This moment is peaceful, yes, but in part because of what the speaker is choosing to exclude. The privacy provided by the trees protects the speaker and also discourages her from considering the world beyond her own comfort.
Do you see "Sunday" as part of a larger conversation with your writing?
Yes, I’m very interested in the interplay between respite and privilege, between our sometimes-competing social needs and responsibilities. “Sunday” is a sort of pastoral, but it acknowledges the limits of the pastoral, both in terms of how economic forces constrain the speaker, since she can only have this experience on the weekend, and facilitate her moment of peace, situated in her private property. A lot of the media response to “burnout” during the Covid-19 pandemic bothered me because it seemed directed towards the people least likely to be materially affected by Covid, people with the means and employment status to have refuge and take refuge. Yet I don’t feel it’s right to deny how much many people struggled even if they were sheltered from the worst economic and health consequences. I don’t know the answer to these questions! They are complicated! That’s why I’m writing about them, to explore my ambivalences. Many of my current poems return to these themes, with repeated motifs of the yard/garden and a partially imagined Marie Antoinette figure.
Which writers, poets, or artists have influenced your work? Are you typically drawn to imagism?
I would say poems as unified as “Sunday” are rare for me, though they appear more frequently in my current project than they have in the past. Poets I love include Linda Gregerson, Kathleen Graber, Kevin Prufer and Natalie Shapero, all of whom can be discursive and “talky” in a way that profoundly appeals to me. I often wish my writing sounded more like theirs, but it doesn’t and I have to live with that, since I can only manage to sound like myself. They are all poets who helped me understand how to widen the lens beyond my own emotions, experiences, and family history. I like poetry that engages with the world and holds the speaker accountable, and I hope I’m writing in that spirit.
