In The Field—Conversations With Our Contributors: Christopher Gaumer

It’s always wonderful to have a graduate of our MFA program in Water~Stone! What sparked the creation of your poem, “On a Farm in Iowa?”

Hi, Jenn! It’s wonderful to be close to Hamline again through Water~Stone!

My family lived in Perry, Iowa until I was nine. My mom took my two older sisters and I to a farm just outside of town. I recall this being a trip where we were being given a bag of corn from church friends. At some point, we all stood in the long gravel drive beside a field of corn and watched a snake slowly consume a rather big frog. What I remember clearest is that the frog’s head was inside the snake’s mouth, the frog was not totally dead, and it took a very long time to swallow the frog. We maybe even left before the meal was complete.

The line, “old gravel road corn field killing, church friends,” lingers in my mind with this sharp edge. Can you talk about why you placed these phrases beside each other, and about the layered relationships that appear in this poem?

This is a description of the literal action of the moment and also, I realize, an image that begs one to draw more associations. This type of layering is why I love poetry. I crave ideas that are clear on the literal level and deeply suggestive. 

There’s a theme of consuming within this poem—the snake and the frog, the corn, Seth and the narrator. How did you develop this thread in your work? What other themes do you find that your work revolves around?

The honest answer is that I did not consider this theme during the writing or revising of this poem. This is how I like to work in general: revise until the poem is surprising and a bit beyond what I understand.

You teach at Randolph college. What is a piece of writing advice that you always give to your students?

Risk huge leaps of logic because they activate the reader’s imagination to invent narrative connections. 

What stories or books inspire you? Who are some of your favorite authors? 

Bianca Stone, Diane Suess, Gary Dop, Karl Ove Knausgård

What are you currently working on?

I have a completed poetry manuscript titled M O N S T E R on submission. Writing wise, I’m working on a feature film script and ramping up, with a whole crew of people, to direct a music video for a band, New Boss, out of Charlottesville, VA. 

Christopher Gaumer‘s poetry and creative writing appear in The Southern Review, Sugar House Review, No Tokens, The Cortland Review, McSweeney’s and elsewhere. Gaumer won the 2019 Poetry Society of Vermont’s National Poetry Prize and has fiction in the Best Microfiction 2019 anthology. Gaumer writes and directs films and music videos. He is a founding director of the Randolph College MFA and a graduate of the Hamline University MFA program.