In The Field: Conversations With Our Contributors—Amy Roa

“Red Pine” is a beautifully creative poem in Volume 28 that details the melding of trees and octopus. Where did the inspiration for this poem come from? 

I wrote “Red Pine” during my time at the Bread Loaf Environmental Writers’ Workshop. We were given an assignment to observe something from our immediate environment and build a poem out of that observation. I remember walking along campus and coming across a red pine and getting caught on the bark. I was drawn to the tree’s color and texture. I started thinking about what it would mean to wear the bark, like clothing. Then my mind moved, as it tends to, toward octopuses. They’re one of my favorite non-human animals. They’re capable of play behavior even as adults, which I love, and their ability to camouflage, to blend into their surroundings, started to feel connected to that earlier thought about wearing the tree. After that, the poem began to assemble itself.

What sparked the image of the octopi walking on two legs?

I love reading about the cognition and behavior of various species of octopuses, and one of the most interesting facts I’d learned was that they can move across land for short periods of time. There’s something about that movement that stayed with me. I visualized this clunky, speedy movement of a body meant for one place, but compelled to move toward an environment foreign to its own for some unknown reason. 

What was the impetus to make the poem sound information and/or educational?

I’ve spent a lot of time with texts on non-human animal behavior and conservation, both academically and on my own, and I think that language has stayed with me. I’m drawn to language that’s meant to observe, to document, to describe something living without ever fully pinning it down. Then to apply that language to something fantastical was too appealing to resist. 

Was this poem always in this format? What is your editing process?

The format came early. Once the voice of the poem arrived, I held it close. My process isn’t linear, it’s pretty scattered, actually. It feels more like working on a jigsaw puzzle. I start with an image or a feeling, and I don’t really know what the poem is until it’s finished. I move pieces around, take things out, follow something until it disappears. The ending is usually the last thing to reveal itself.

What are your favorite books and authors? Or which stories do you continue returning to?

I have a trio of poets I keep returning to: James Tate, Charles Simic, and Russell Edson. They let strangeness sit next to you in a corner, dress it in a hat and coat, ask if it’s cold, then offer it a cup of coffee. I’m interested in that kind of play—where something can happen without needing to explain itself.

What are you working on now?

I’m working on a manuscript of prose poems. The work moves through different ecosystems and inhabits different bodies. I like it when crows speak, when fields get up and walk, when giant lizards fall in love with beauty queens. I keep returning to the same questions: how thin is the veil between what is human and non-human? How easy would it be to become something else entirely?