Octavia Knight

Rickett’s Glenn differs from all my other poetry in so many ways. Firstly, it was written in a completely different headspace, provided by a new setting, free from my daily distractions. For the past three and a half months, I have been sitting down at a small coffee shop, The Artists Hand, in Indiana, Pa for four hours every Monday morning, a routine I have become very adamant about. Surrounded by local artwork, a fresh cup of chai latte and soft alternative music playing in the background I sit and write uninterrupted, even forgetting to pay the parking meter every two hours.

My approach to writing this piece was different to how I normally write poetry. I had just finished Joy Harjo’s master class and was set out to apply some of her teachings, focusing mainly on the “listening” aspects of writing poetry. This time I wanted to attempt something new. With a new concept in my mind, I stared at this photograph of Rickett’s Glenn by Brandon Hirt for three weeks before I was satisfied with a finished poem. I was trying to connect with it, trying to understand what it was telling me. So, I stared, and I listened and wrote down the message I gleamed for this piece of artwork —a sense of childhood —a loss of innocence —of imagination that adults go through as we age. And how this photo brought me back to that realization. I feel like writing this poem sort of lead me to an epiphany of sorts.

This poem depicts both a unique and beautiful setting as well as invoking feelings of child like wonder. Most of my poetry is about my inner struggle with the human condition. Usually I write about my emotions: guilt, shame, grief, a lack of apathy. More often I tend to focus on themes about death and immortality. My visuals in these other poems tend to be more of an abstract. Rickett’s Glenn is about a passing moment of realization of loss, but within that realization I know that I haven’t lost anything. I still have my childish sense of imagination and wonder. It still fits the gothic theme I pride myself on without touching on the depressing tones.

Rickett’s Glenn also differs from the usual type of ekphrastic poetry I write. When I see a painting or photo, I like to look for something obscure or hidden within the painting or photographs that speaks to me, usually me utilizing what I see in the negative space of a piece of art. My poem Winter Solstice focuses on the space of the dark-grey clouds instead of the landscape and the house that is the subject of the piece. This time I focused on the subject and wrote about what feelings it invoked in me, instead of giving voice to an abstract subject of my own device. 

This poem is something new and refreshing to my poetry. I came at this piece at some many new angles to purposely do something different. I even made harsh edits to make this piece less prose like then most of my other poetry. I cut almost whole sentences from the first few drafts. I wanted to be very selective of my words and their meanings. Rickett’s Glenn in essence is the start of a new type of poetic form for me.

Rickett’s Glenn
Octavia Knight

Steam rising off the stream
Its heat swirling mystic mist
Fronting backdrop golden glow
Early Autumn sun
Through the trees
This ancient forest
Opening into a hidden world
Fairy waterfalls whisper
Secrets of the sacred
Vapors of the majestic forgotten
Magic, we knew as children
Now we cannot catch
Ghosts in our rational hands
Memories are mist on water
Flowing over smooth untouched stone