Sneak a Peek at Our Ekphrasis Adventure!

Little Thoughts Press: Your poem “Boundary Waters Dark Sanctuary” is an atmospheric, sensory delight. The reader is immersed in the images and sounds of this space—the mesmerizing expanse of glittering stars and the colors of the Northern Lights, the sounds of trees and of animals shrieking and bellowing—and yet there is a feeling of such peace and quiet reflection among all this noise (especially contrasted with the clatter and sensory overload of zooming headlights and booming construction crews that start the poem). You make the dark come alive in a way that is both haunting and comforting. Can you take us through how this poem came together? What images did you start with? How did you choose which sounds to include and how to describe them? Do you have any tips for creating such an immersive setting in the short space of a poem?

Christiana Doucette: I wrote "Boundary Waters Dark Sanctuary" specifically for this issue of Little Thoughts Press. We'd recently had several space events happen that left our family scrambling for a place where it was dark enough to actually see the meteor shower, or comet, or planet conjunctions. And I'd spent time reading about the dark sanctuaries of the world. The beautiful thing about a place secluded enough to minimize light pollution is that it often shelters a variety of endangered animals, such as some I reference within the poem.

When I began drafting, I knew that I wanted the poem to move. And to do that, I needed to take the reader from somewhere to the dark sanctuary. A bustling city full of sound and light seemed the right contrast, so I began there. My hope is that the contrast allows the reader to better enjoy the stillness, the nature, and the light that is not artificial and everywhere.

When you turn out the lights, all other senses intensify. That element seemed vital to this poem. It led to the final stanza full of nature's endangered sounds. I'm always drawn to verse that weaves sounds together to create an aural experience that mirrors the story. A poet I admire who uses this technique is Christian Wiman. His lines cascade with sounds echoing and chiming off each other. That's what I want happening in this poem. I'd love for it to be read aloud to someone who has closed their eyes and is just listening to a sound waterfall in the stillness of their own mind. I listen for similar vowel sounds like "shriek/tree," "canvas/dance" or "sphinx/drinks." In portions I just pour a rich helping of internal rhyme into a line like "perch on a boulder shoulder to shoulder and listen to older sounds." I wanted nature to feel rich and real and full of connection. As I worked through this portion of the poem there were animals I added and then took away because they did not add to that sound experience/endangered animal element that I wanted.

Tips for immersive setting? Set yourself in that place. However you need to do that. Maybe look at pictures. Maybe find Youtube clips of people there so you can get a taste of the sounds. How something looks is just one sense, and there are five senses. Use them! Here I use a lot of sound. But if I'd wanted to create something longer I might have gone further into the piney smell of the wood, the damp moss on the boulder's earthiness, or what the air tastes like next to the water at night. Layering senses is a great way to create immersion.

Raccoon's Sonnet for Trash Cans

Oh, wondrous trash cans, lining city streets,

we topple you to let the scraps spill out,

and cherish the discarded tasty treats,

like chocolate-covered cake with sauerkraut.

The mighty depths of your gourmet cuisine

keep we raccoons a-digging through the night,

discovering a donut or sardine,

or ketchup-coated morsels of delight.

Some apple cores in gravy mixed with peas,

potato peels in homemade apple sauce,

a giant chunk of moldy cheddar cheese--

we never know what we will come across,

each trash can a mysterious food tower

with succulent surprises to devour.