Stoner & Soderling in The Rotary Dial - Page 2

Ed Shacklee · #11 11-04-2014, 01:43 PM

Congratulations Julie, Janice, and Marcus -- a real pleasure to read these poems, which are so different from each other. I've a feeling I'm going to get some use from the phrase, "puppet-socky souls."

Best,

Ed

Julie Steiner · #12 11-04-2014, 03:16 PM

Thanks for the warm wishes.

I wrote the poem because I was so shocked by my vulture-like eagerness at this tragedy. I knew that each death meant that lots of other people would be experiencing the same horrible loss that I'd been dreading since my daughter's heart started to fail. And I knew that my hopes were stupid, anyway, because there was almost no chance that any viable organs could be made available from such a forensic situation, let alone that they would be the right blood type and size to save my kid. But I couldn't stop feeling excited about it. Yuck. The strictness of the ballade form helped me to feel more in control of my disturbingly out-of-control emotions.

I submitted this poem to The Rotary Dial because I had been so impressed by Catherine Chandler's poignant "Off-the-wall" sonnet in the May 2014 issue (Issue 15, p. 11), which shows a mother's perspective from the potential-donor side of the transplant experience. The emotions are almost identical, I think, in her narrator's rejection of the saintly selflessness we've always been taught is more appropriate: "I exercise my right to fall apart, / ask God's forgiveness for this venial sin..." Yup. Been there, done that. We all get a little tunnel-visioned where our loved ones' lives are concerned.

Thanks for your efforts to invite Marcus back, Roger. I hope he's tempted. Then again, if he comes back and turns out to be as annoying a jerk as the rest of us can be at times, everyone's going to blame you and me....