{"id":3715,"date":"2011-05-11T11:30:54","date_gmt":"2011-05-11T15:30:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lanternreview.com\/blog\/?p=3715"},"modified":"2011-05-10T16:14:49","modified_gmt":"2011-05-10T20:14:49","slug":"process-profile-michelle-penaloza-discusses-vestige","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lanternreview.com\/blog\/2011\/05\/11\/process-profile-michelle-penaloza-discusses-vestige\/","title":{"rendered":"Process Profile: Michelle Pe\u00f1aloza Discusses “Vestige”"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Michelle Pe\u00f1aloza (Photo: Janna Ireland)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Michelle Pe\u00f1aloza grew up in Nashville, Tennessee. Currently, she is an MFA candidate in Creative Writing at the University of Oregon. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in <\/em>Kartika Review<\/a>, <\/em>Mythium, <\/em>Nashville Review<\/a> and <\/em>Birmingham Poetry Review. She was awarded the Women Writers Oregon Literary Fellowship for 2011. <\/em><\/p>\n

For APIA Heritage Month 2011, we are revisiting our Process Profiles series, in which contemporary Asian American poets discuss their craft, focusing on their process for a single poem from inception to publication. This year, we’ve asked several <\/strong><\/em>Lantern Review contributors whose work <\/em><\/strong>gestures back toward history or legacy to discuss pieces of theirs that we have published.\u00a0 In this installment,\u00a0 Michelle Pe\u00f1aloza discusses her poem \u201cVestige<\/a>,” which appeared in <\/strong><\/em>Lantern Review <\/strong><\/a>Issue 2<\/a>.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

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I wrote \u201cVestige<\/a>\u201d in response to one of Geri Doran\u2019s prompts in my first M.F.A. workshop at the University of Oregon. I enjoy prompts, particularly Geri\u2019s: they stretch my imagination and lead me, sometimes nudge me, to subjects and structures I would otherwise never have considered. \u201cVestige<\/a>\u201d began from a wonderful prompt: \u201cWrite a poem of slow praise or meditation. Find a space free from all distraction. Turn off your cell phone, don\u2019t check your email. Be spare, intense, quiet, alone.\u201d<\/p>\n

When I began the first draft of the poem, it was a very hectic time\u2014the end of my first term of grad school. For nine weeks, had been writing two new poems a week\u2014one for workshop and one for a forms seminar. I was utterly exhausted by the time I got this prompt and initially had a hard time sitting with myself in the quiet, letting the poem happen. At the prompt\u2019s suggestion I read John Donne\u2019s “Holy Sonnets” and was, as I always am with Donne, struck by his conviction and devotion. As I began writing this poem, I reflected on how my ideas of holiness and faith have changed since I was a child.<\/p>\n

I was raised Catholic, but no longer claim that faith. Yet, I still find value in recalling the sensory experiences of my religious upbringing\u2014the candles, the incense, the quiet interspersed with canticles and scripture, the rituals of mass. Meditating upon these experiences in tension with doubt and within the context of loss, inform the first thirty or so lines of \u201cVestige<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

I think there can be holiness in poetry. I find awe and a spirit of praise in the mundane aspects of daily living. The rest of the poem is a catalog, an accretion of those things in my life at the moment of writing the poem. One exception is the anecdote about the old man doing the dishes, which came to me third hand\u2014when I heard Lawson Inada re-tell this anecdote of Thich Nat Hanh\u2019s.<\/p>\n

I wanted to close the poem by returning to the materiality of Catholic mass, but I wanted to place that materiality outside the context of church and juxtapose it with mundane yet vital things\u2014buttered toast, the breath of a lover, the washing of dishes. My aim with the poem\u2019s syntax, catalog and anaphora at the close was to convey the music of discovery and the conviction of what is holy for me.<\/p>\n

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Excerpt from “Vestige”
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The creak of pews makes my knees ache,
\nmy palms and fingertips kiss.
\nPhosphorus, censers, old mahogany,
\nold penitents close to death and God,
\nboxed wine, and candle wax work upon me
\nlike the itches of an old collared jumper.
\nThe poetry of worship seeps from memory to body.
\nI confess to the air.
\nForgive me, Air, I cannot believe.<\/em>
\nIt has been three years since my last quiet.<\/em>
\nI hold a rosary, count its beads
\nlike the redolent string of rose petals
\nmy Lola held close when she died.
\nAfter prayer, the attar of her rosary melded
\nwith the garlic bouquet of her hands, bulbous
\nscents cradling, caressing my face.
\nI roll each pressed round between
\nmy forefinger and thumb, keep count:
\nmy guilt, lack of conviction, rage\u2014<\/em>
\nin this confession, my hands tell me
\nI am not free. I cup my tangled strand,
\npass it between my hands. The attar
\nnow lives in the leaf creases of my palms.
\nThe quiet whispers, scent is memory’s companion.<\/em><\/p>\n

From “Vestige<\/a>” | Michelle Pe\u00f1aloza | Issue 2, <\/a>Lantern Review<\/a> | <\/em>pp 25-26.
\nClick here<\/a> to read the poem in its entirety.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Michelle Pe\u00f1aloza grew up in Nashville, Tennessee. Currently, she is an MFA candidate in Creative Writing at the University of Oregon. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Kartika Review, Mythium, Nashville Review and Birmingham Poetry Review. She was awarded the Women Writers Oregon Literary Fellowship for 2011. For APIA Heritage Month 2011, we […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[318],"tags":[314,353,409,632,321],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lanternreview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3715"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lanternreview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lanternreview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lanternreview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lanternreview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3715"}],"version-history":[{"count":25,"href":"https:\/\/www.lanternreview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3715\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3788,"href":"https:\/\/www.lanternreview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3715\/revisions\/3788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lanternreview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lanternreview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lanternreview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}