Although the Poetry Foundation works to provide accurate audio transcripts, they may contain errors. If you find mistakes or omissions in this transcript, please contact us with details.

AUDIO TRANSCRIPT

Poetry Off the Shelf: Center Stage

(MUSIC PLAYING)

Helena de Groot: This is Poetry Off the Shelf. I’m Helena de Groot. Today, Center Stage. What I really want to know when I talk to a poet is how they do it. How they take that feeling of wanting to write, and actually, you know, do it, instead of listening to that voice that says, “it’s silly” or “you’re no good” or “who cares anyway.” The poet Jennifer Jean is an inspiration in that sense. She had lived a lot of life, “seen some things,” as they say, but throughout she had always nurtured and made room for her own voice. She uses it however it sounds, and says her piece, however it will be received. You see it clearly in her latest collection, titled Voz, after the Portuguese word for “voice.” So, of course I wanted to know how she got there. But we started at the beginning.

Helena de Groot: So, I have a few questions about your childhood. My first question is, you know, what were you like as a kid? What did you like to do?

Jennifer Jean: Oh, wow. I was very still as a child, but anxious underneath that stillness, because I was very watchful about what was going on. The way I grew up was that when I was born, very soon after, about seven months after I was born, my brother and I were taken into foster care. We were taken from our parents, because they were very unstable, both of them. And so for seven years we were in foster care. And then my mom recovered. She had some issues and she recovered from that. And she got us back out of the foster care system. And so that’s where a lot of the stories I write about my childhood are from, from that time after, right after, because it’s very much like I’m still, I’m sort of hyper vigilant and watchful and waiting and looking around. And just really on guard about everything. So yeah, I retreated into my imagination. I loved to read. I remember loving Nancy Drew mysteries. I loved all these mystery stories. (LAUGHS LIGHTLY)

Helena de Groot: (LAUGHS LIGHTLY)

Jennifer Jean: But I also, you know, found and nurtured a relationship with God. So that’s helped me too. I actually don’t really talk about that too much as, as a, as what kind of helps me process life, because I’ve always needed something solid and something eternal and divine and beyond this world to rely on. And I mean, I wasn’t such an introvert and so still that I didn’t go out and have friends and have fun. I did. But I was very careful. Yeah, I didn’t take a lot of risks. Or if I did, they were super calculated. I was very strategic child, actually. (LAUGHS) Yeah.

Helena de Groot: (LAUGHS) It’s a funny—I’ve never heard those two in conjunction, strategic child.

Jennifer Jean: (LAUGHS)

Helena de Groot: (LAUGHS) And so you said that you were just a few months old when you were taken from your family?

Jennifer Jean: Yes.

Helena de Groot: And how old was your brother?

Jennifer Jean: He was just a year older than I was.

Helena de Groot: Oh, wow.

Jennifer Jean: Yeah.

Helena de Groot: Wow. So you have no sense of the before? Like, your earliest memories are all already in foster care?

Jennifer Jean: Yes, But I mean, I’ve imagined.

Helena de Groot: Sure. (LAUGHS)

Jennifer Jean: To go back to the imaginations, you know, I sometimes have thought, you know, I had this some kind of sense or feeling of it. One time my brother, my mother, and I visited the home where I was born. It was this apartment building, very small, small apartment building in Venice, California. And she pointed it out and she’s like, “Yeah, you were born on the third floor.” And we were just looking at it, and I just felt, “Oh, I remember something,” but I don’t know if I really remember it.

Helena de Groot: Sure.

Jennifer Jean: I could just be filling in the blanks, you know?

Helena de Groot: Yeah. As we do.

Jennifer Jean: Yeah.

Helena de Groot: And, you know, for someone who maybe hasn’t experienced the foster care system from the inside, like, are you taken into foster care and then you’re in a home or something? I mean, like a, kind of like an orphanage, right? Like that kind of home. Or are you, like, immediately placed, or like, how does that whole thing work? And were you and your brother separated? Like, what did that look like concretely?

Jennifer Jean: I don’t remember all of it. From documents that I’ve looked at, it seems that we were placed pretty quickly, probably because we were so young, you know. And we as far as I know, we weren’t separated. And then eventually we were, the tail end of the foster care experience, we were placed in kinship care. We were with our grandparents, our paternal grandparents.

Helena de Groot: Ohh.

Jennifer Jean: Yeah, who wanted to adopt us. And then my mom was recovering by then and they battled it out in court over us. And then,

Helena de Groot: Oh, so you’re saying that your paternal grandparents and your mother went to court?

Jennifer Jean: Mm-hmm.

Helena de Groot: Oh, wow.

Jennifer Jean: Yeah.

Helena de Groot: That was when you were seven?

Jennifer Jean: Yes. Yes.

Helena de Groot: And then how—I mean, as if foster care isn’t enough of an upheaval. A court case between family members

Jennifer Jean: Yeah.

Helena de Groot: that are literally fighting over you guys. Do you have any memories of that?

Jennifer Jean: I do. I do have a very key memory of being brought into a court. And I look up at the judge and I, in my memory, he looks like Abraham Lincoln.

Helena de Groot: (LAUGHS)

Jennifer Jean: And I don’t know if he really did. And they asked me, “Who do you want to be with?”

Helena de Groot: Oh.

Jennifer Jean: Yeah, so I remember, again, being very strategic about it and calculating, and I just thought, “Hmm, I’m going to say my mother.” Even though I didn’t really, I didn’t know her.

Helena de Groot: What was the strategy?

Jennifer Jean: I think I trusted my grandparents that they would remain in my life.

Helena de Groot: Ah, interesting.

Jennifer Jean: But I didn’t know about her.

Helena de Groot: Oh, wow. That is very strategic. And so you had no, during those seven years that you were in foster care and at your grandparents’, you had no relationship whatsoever with your mother? There were no visitations.

Jennifer Jean: There were maybe two visitations. I’m guessing. That’s what I recall.

Helena de Groot: Sure.

Jennifer Jean: She actually visited my grandparents’ house.

Helena de Groot: Ah, okay.

Jennifer Jean: And again, this was only at the tail end. The other places, she wasn’t involved. But just when we were with our grandparents, by then, she was ready to, to resume parental duties.

Helena de Groot: Yeah. And did you—before you grandparents jumped in, did you go to a lot of families?

Jennifer Jean: I don’t know. I think we did, but I, I’m not sure. I don’t really remember.

Helena de Groot: That’s so interesting because I feel like one of the things that struck me so much in your collection is how keen your perceptions are. And from a very early age, you know, there are these walks when you were a little kid where you’re taking everything in with like almost, you know, this kind of psychedelic awareness that kids often have.

Jennifer Jean: Yeah.

Helena de Groot: But so, is that your sense that you don’t remember things or just the things that I happened to ask, things that you don’t remember? Because what I’m basically asking is like, what are some of the most vivid memories that you have from that time?

Jennifer Jean: Oh, my grandparents lived in East Providence, Rhode Island, on the East Coast. And so we flew all the way across the country at age seven. And I remember when I was younger, I had straight hair. Very straight hair. And right before we left, I got this haircut, this Dorothy Hamill haircut, which was the skater. And it’s like a bowl coat, basically. And so, I you know, my grandma

Helena de Groot: It’s very ’70s, right?

Jennifer Jean: Yes.

Helena de Groot: Yes. Yes.

Jennifer Jean: It’s a very strange bowl cut.

Helena de Groot: Yes. (LAUGHS)

Jennifer Jean: I looked as good as anybody would with that awful haircut.

Helena de Groot: (LAUGHS)

Jennifer Jean: And right after that, when I arrived in California, my hair curled. I suddenly had this crazy curly hair. And so that haircut looked really idiotic. (LAUGHS) No more straight hair. Yeah. So that’s something that kind of sticks with me, this twisting and curl and like, it felt very symbolic. I mean, of course I’m going to say that as a poet. It was symbolic.

Helena de Groot: Yeah. How could it not be?

Jennifer Jean: Yeah.

Helena de Groot: And so you went to school then in L.A., right?

Jennifer Jean: Mm-hmm.

Helena de Groot: What was it like to adapt to just this very new context, very new weather, right? Like, I can’t imagine two places that are more different than Providence and L.A. in that sense.

Jennifer Jean: Yeah, it was a tough adjustment. My mother thought that I was allergic to things. I mean, it was very smoggy, that air quality was terrible and I was having reactions to it. I remember I got this test, this, on my back,

Helena de Groot: Oh, yeah.

Jennifer Jean: where they put little pinpricks. Turned out I was allergic to nothing, but I was just reacting. (LAUGHS) I was probably anxious and having, like, different reactions. It was super scary. I remember that. And I think, again, it just increased my hypervigilance and awareness of the world. And I was very watchful of the world. Watchful, treading so carefully through the world.

Helena de Groot: Can you give me an example? When would that show up?

Jennifer Jean: Well, I don’t like to curse. And I went from my grandparents, it was just suburbia. It was very cozy and comforting. And it was a Cape Verdean Portuguese community over there. And so everything was nice. And then we go to L.A. and it was just wild. And all the kids are like, “F this,” and, you know, saying like, just cursing. We’d never—my brother and I talked about it. We were like, “What are they saying?” We didn’t know. We were like little innocents, and we’d never heard that language. Adults and kids alike, little kids, like, kids younger than us, cursing us out. And we were just in a, you know, really rough place. And it was so shocking that I just decided I’m not going to talk like that. It was a control. It was a way to control my surroundings in that this is the only way I can, you know, have an effect on the world is to make this decision about language.

Helena de Groot: Did it feel like continuity of a sort? Where you were like, “I didn’t do that in Providence. I’m not going to do that here, because then I can still hear myself.” Like, do you feel like there was something where you were like, “Okay, everything changed, but this thing does not change. I’m going to make it not change.”

Jennifer Jean: That’s interesting. That’s an interesting theory. But at the time, what I’ve determined for myself is more that it’s, I was making a choice not to be like other people. And to fall into what they were doing. And it didn’t feel right, it didn’t feel good either.

Helena de Groot: (LAUGHS)

Jennifer Jean: It didn’t feel like freedom. What I did felt like freedom.

Helena de Groot: See, this is so interesting that, in a way, the time in foster care, you know, it seems like, oh, that was actually pretty good. And then moving to L.A., kind of being reunited with your mother, that was sort of, everything was wild and rough and sort of hard. Like, am I understanding correctly, or?

Jennifer Jean: Yes, you are.

Helena de Groot: Yeah.

Jennifer Jean: Yes.

Helena de Groot: That is really the upside-down story, from how you usually hear it, right?

Jennifer Jean: Yes. But there was a stability to it because there was her. And she was a constant. So that’s the stability, the throughline. Whereas before her, you know, in that first seven years of my life, I didn’t know who was in charge. They might have been all nice people, I have no idea. I don’t, as I said, I don’t remember the early folks. And then it ends with my grandparents who were. You know, they were very nice. But there wasn’t stability. There wasn’t, there wasn’t a constant to rely on.

Helena de Groot: Yeah. And were you right that your grandparents did stay in your life?

Jennifer Jean: Yes, they did.

Helena de Groot: Good. Do you want to get to a poem?

Jennifer Jean: Yes, that’d be great.

Helena de Groot: So I was thinking to start with the poem “Desperado,” which is on page six of Voz. And let me see, I was wondering, should I ask you about it first, or should we just read it? Well, maybe, okay, so your brother’s name is Joe, right?

Jennifer Jean: Yeah.

Helena de Groot: That’s, I think, important to mention. And then, oh, yeah. And then where’s your dad in all this?

Jennifer Jean: My dad’s name actually also is Joe. So my dad was a Vietnam War veteran. When he married my mom, he was already discharged and had been diagnosed with PTSD, very severe, and schizophrenia. So, at the time that we were taken away from our parents, he was in, you know, a mental illness free fall, as was she. And he never recovered. He just stayed very down and out and lived in motels in Hollywood his whole, my whole life, until he passed away. Three years ago. I think it’s been three years, yeah. So this poem does speak to my relationship with him. Yeah.

Helena de Groot: So was he in your life, or?

Jennifer Jean: No, not at all. He lived about 45 minutes away from where I grew up, but I never met him throughout my whole life until I was 18. I set off on my own, (LAUGHS) by the way, based on an English teacher’s assignment. I was a freshman in college and she said, “Do something you’ve never done before.”

Helena de Groot: (LAUGHS) And you just went for the hardest possible thing?

Jennifer Jean: Yes, I did. That was not wise in many ways. But, you know, it turned out all right in the end. But at the time, it really broke me to do that. It was, it was very intense. It was an intense experience. But I would say about 21 years, yeah, actually, 21 years after that experience of meeting him at 18, I found a way to figure out where he was and reconnect and just meet him where he was at. Instead of going with expectations, which I had. Totally unrealistic expectations. He was not fit to parent me in any way, which is what I think I was dumbly looking for at 18. So later when I reconnected, I just was there for him. And I would just visit at least once a year. I would go to his motel and take him out to Denny’s, his favorite place to eat. And we would just have a non-conversation. And I would just be there for him.

Helena de Groot: Uh-huh.

Jennifer Jean: You know, I wanted to, to give back. I mean, I’m here because he lived. You know, he lived through something pretty horrible in his Vietnam War experience. So I can show him gratitude by being there for him and I was, until he passed away.

Helena de Groot: And okay, so when you’re 18, that’s the ’80s, right?

Jennifer Jean: 1990.

Helena de Groot: Okay. So, there’s no Facebook. There’s none of that. How did you even find your dad?

Jennifer Jean: Oh, there was just, he had a conservator appointed by the

Helena de Groot: What’s that?

Jennifer Jean: It’s a, it’s a,

Helena de Groot: Oh it’s like Britney Spears. Is that what it is?

Jennifer Jean: (LAUGHS) Kind of, yeah. Where someone’s appointed, someone who has some kind of certification where they can be appointed to oversee someone’s estate or their affairs.

Helena de Groot: Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Jean: And so through the Veteran’s Administration, they appointed him someone.

Helena de Groot: Right.

Jennifer Jean: And so I happened to have the name of that person. I just remembered the name. Maybe I do have a good memory. I don’t know, because I remembered this name from my childhood. My mom would say the name because she would talk with this conservator. And so I figured out where he might be. And I, you know, called 411 and found him. And then asked him about where my dad was and he connected me to him. And that’s how I found out. Yeah.

Helena de Groot: Wait, so you first talked on the phone with your dad?

Jennifer Jean: No, I—did I talk on the phone at first? He was, he would never answer the phone. So probably not. I don’t actually remember. I don’t think I did. I think I tried to. But I think I, I had the conservator tell him that I was going to visit at a particular time. And then I came to his door.

Helena de Groot: Does he look like you or do you look like him?

Jennifer Jean: In a way, he looked more like my brother.

Helena de Groot: Uh-huh.

Jennifer Jean: I have the big cheeks, like these big round cheeks that I have, that comes from my dad. I don’t know what else. When my hair was curly, it’s all, it’s getting straight again. So maybe I’m kind of coming down to life. I don’t know.

Helena de Groot: Oh, my God, your hair is really the bellwether, that’s crazy. (LAUGHS)

Jennifer Jean: Yeah it is, it’s starting to straighten out. But it’s, the curliness because my brother still had more curly hair like his, so I don’t know. A little bit. I do. A little bit.

Helena de Groot: And with all the, you know, the PTSD and the schizophrenia, I can imagine that it’s sort of hard to get to who he is beyond that, you know?

Jennifer Jean: Oh, yeah.

Helena de Groot: But are there still things that you recognize of yourself in him?

Jennifer Jean: Oh, gosh. Wow. I mean, he believed in God. He told me that. That’s pretty much the only thing we had in common. (LAUGHS)

Helena de Groot: (LAUGHS)

Jennifer Jean: Nothing. Nothing. His life was so winnowed down to the simplest elements of life. He lived in a motel room for like 50 years. You know, he moved from one place to one other, because one place was destroyed by a California earthquake. He found another place and he stayed there. And I went to his room and I looked at it. He had barely anything. It was, it was like a monk’s life that he lived.

Helena de Groot: Wow.

Jennifer Jean: He did not have anything. And he had the same pattern. He would walk around Hollywood and visit the same places. And when I went to the Denny’s with him, they all knew him. They were like, “Hey, Joe, what’s up? Oh, you’re getting the, you know, the sausage today. That’s different,” you know?

Helena de Groot: (LAUGHS)

Jennifer Jean: And then I—or the maid at the hotel, she was looking at me and she was like, when I’d say goodbye to him, she’s like, “Who are you?”

Helena de Groot: Yeah, yeah. (LAUGHS)

Jennifer Jean: “Nobody visits him, like, he’s a mystery.” And so I was like—she barely spoke English, actually, so we were trying to have this conversation. She really wanted to talk to me and I really wanted to talk to her to find out more about him. The only thing I could get from her is, because the maintenance guy walked by, and he spoke a little more English, and they were trying to tell me he never turns on the TV.

Helena de Groot: Oh, wow.

Jennifer Jean: And they kept saying, like, “aburrido” or something, this word. And I’m probably saying it incorrectly, but I believe it was “bored.”

Helena de Groot: Oh.

Jennifer Jean: Like, he must be so bored. Because they didn’t hear the TV. They only saw him go out and take walks. Like, he was like a monk. So, I don’t know what was there for him.

Helena de Groot: Did he strike you as bored?

Jennifer Jean: No, he—you know, maybe he was hypervigilant. Maybe that is what I got from him. Because he’d strike me as someone who is just trying to just keep everything very much in line. You know, in a row. And he would walk in the middle of that row and just be very carefully walking through life and keeping everything very simple.

Helena de Groot: Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Jean: Yeah.

Helena de Groot: I mean, for someone who has sort of really rid his life of any upheaval or any change—I don’t mean to, like, take this conversation away from you and to him or something, you know, but it must have been a lot for him too, right? Did you ever get a sense of the way in which your coming into his life affected him?

Jennifer Jean: No, you’re, I think that that’s fine that you’re bringing that up, because, yeah, it did affect him. When I, when I came at 18, it was shocking to him. When I was more aware, more mature, and I came later, he took it better, because I just let him be. I just let him be exactly who he was. I asked nothing of him. And then eventually he, in his way, opened up a little bit. You know, and before he passed away, a few months before he passed away, it was the only time he actually called me. It was, it was a shock. I mean, I didn’t get the—I was like at the gym or something. And I came back and there was his message. And it was very simple. But it, yeah, he, so I felt like, okay, after a couple of years of going every year, yeah, he realized that, you know, we have a connection.

Helena de Groot: Did you know that he was dying?

Jennifer Jean: No. But he didn’t ever go to the doctor. And he ate, like, bacon, eggs and sausage every day, (LAUGHS)

Helena de Groot: (LAUGHS)

Jennifer Jean: like probably twice a day. So I was like, yeah, this, I don’t know how he’s lasted this long.

Helena de Groot: Yeah, it’s a long life.

Jennifer Jean: With that diet, but.

Helena de Groot: How old was he when he passed away?

Jennifer Jean: I don’t know. I think in his mid 70s, mid to late 70s.

Helena de Groot: Okay.

Jennifer Jean: I actually don’t really know his age.

Helena de Groot: So he was pretty young when he had you.

Jennifer Jean: Yeah.

Helena de Groot: Must have been. Yeah. Okay. This is a very long lead up. (LAUGHS)

Jennifer Jean: (LAUGHS)

Helena de Groot: I will let you get to the poem.

Jennifer Jean: Okay.

Helena de Groot: So it’s on page 6.

Jennifer Jean:

(READS POEM)

Desperado

I heard they dumped 96 million black shade balls

into some Los Angeles reservoirs

where Joe and I fainted our first summer back

in Cali. We didn’t know we had to drink water.

We didn’t know we didn’t know

every thirst. I was a stupid kid. I thought I knew

the desperado in Desperado. Desperado

is a driving song. You keep water jugs in the trunk

so the song doesn’t stop when the Chevy overheats

on an ocean bound road

in July. It was the song

on Santa Monica’s carousel when I looked for a daddy

on that spinning pier. A pier is like a hand

reaching out to sea. &, I once sang Desperado at a camp

& watched people cringe

when my smooth speaking voice didn’t translate.

They sucked their teeth on the other side of the fire.

Fuck you, I thought, I need this song.

All the truth I need about my dad is here.

The Queen of spades said so when I was seven.

(Yes, I drink that Kool-Aid

like a shade ball soaking up sun.)

& now, for the sixth time in history, I sit across from him—

I inhale an egg-white omelet. I drink glass after glass,

which is doing nothing.

Watch him eat a burger with a knife & fork.

Watch him cast about at an art deco pattern behind me,

say, “It’s like planets!” It’s like feeling every feeling at once—

my trying not to talk about anything important,

my thinking I’m alone ’cause Joe isn’t here, he’s never

here. Fuck you,

I remember thinking, I want you happy campers to feel me.

I must have sounded desperate. Dry mouthed, on stage.

Unloved. I love my dad but he can’t love me, no matter

how much I let him. I love

to sing in the shower, like all who are lucky

to have one & no voice. As if the pooling water in my throat,

the pooling water at my feet, & my desperate

arrhythmic stylings

are the thirst quenching pacific

of the Pacific.

Helena de Groot: Thank you.

Jennifer Jean: Yeah.

Helena de Groot: Yeah. The desperate—I mean, you know, the title, of course, of the poem is “Desperado,” so you can’t help but think about desperation. I mean, okay, so “Desperado” after the Eagles song.

Jennifer Jean: Yes, yes.

Helena de Groot: And then it goes on into quite some, you know, desperation. And so the lines that really struck me was, you know, “It was the song / on Santa Monica’s carousel when I looked for a daddy / on that spinning pier. A pier is like a hand / reaching out to sea.” You know, even that image of the pier kind of reaching, you know, to nowhere, right? Because like what, I don’t know what the pier gets in return. A lot of salt water, I guess. I don’t know, I think, yeah, the image of desperation is so, it just breaks you open with how beautiful it is, you know? And again, like, do you feel like you were always acutely aware of beauty? Was that something you looked for, you found easily?

Jennifer Jean: Oh, wow. I would say yes. That’s actually where, in natural beauty, I would find a connection with the divine again. I can’t believe how much I’m talking about this.

Helena de Groot: (LAUGHS)

Jennifer Jean: I’m telling you, I never, I never talk about this. But I mentioned how smoggy and polluted the Los Angeles skies were in my youth. I think they’re a little more cleaned up now, but the smog made sunsets gorgeous.

Helena de Groot: Yeah.

Jennifer Jean: They really did. And I remember looking up at the skies and just, even when I felt very down, and just feeling like, okay, this is a gift for me from something beyond this awful world that loves me. You know, something that’s, that loves me, that’s bringing me this beautiful gift of the sky. Even going to the ocean. That just was so sustaining. So yeah, I felt like I was, I was aware of it because I needed to be, too. (LAUGHS)

Helena de Groot: Yeah. (LAUGHS) And where did you live in L.A.?

Jennifer Jean: I lived in the San Fernando Valley.

Helena de Groot: Okay, so it’s pretty far from the ocean.

Jennifer Jean: It is, but, well, it’s still, we would just travel every week. We would just go there every week.

Helena de Groot: Oh, wow.

Jennifer Jean: It didn’t feel far.

Helena de Groot: Okay. And when you say “we,” that was who?

Jennifer Jean: Oh, my brother and my mother and I.

Helena de Groot: And was it kind of like an all day thing? Like you would just pack up for the day and kind of just camp out on the beach, or?

Jennifer Jean: Yes. So she was, when we first rejoined her, she was studying to be a nurse. Or an LVN first and then a nurse later. And so she would bring her nursing textbooks and that’s where she would do her study.

Helena de Groot: (LAUGHS) Smart.

Jennifer Jean: Yeah, it was very smart. And we would pile us, and we would bring our friends in the car and we would all trek down to the beach. Yes, for the entire day.

Helena de Groot: Uh-huh.

Jennifer Jean: Yeah.

Helena de Groot: Yeah. Of course the most arresting part of the poem, you know, is of course the scene at the camp. You know, where you’re taking the stage and singing a song and everyone is kind of sucking their teeth, cringing because your speaking voice doesn’t really translate into your singing voice, as you write. And I think there’s nothing we remember as acutely as like, moments when we were shamed. (LAUGHS)

Jennifer Jean: (LAUGHS) Yeah.

Helena de Groot: Right?

Jennifer Jean: Definitely.

Helena de Groot: But it’s also funny that, you know, we’d been talking about swearing a little bit, you know, and the fact that you try to avoid it. And yet there’s a lot of curse words in this poem.

Jennifer Jean: (LAUGHS) Yes.

Helena de Groot: “Fuck you, I thought, I need this song.” There’s another one. “Fuck you, / I remember thinking, I want you happy campers to feel me.” Again, I feel like, okay, maybe you were shamed. But it seemed like at the time, even, you were not letting yourself be shamed. Is that accurate or am I kind of misinterpreting?

Jennifer Jean: No, you’re accurate. Yeah. Yeah. I, I, to me, the fact that I, because I was aware that I couldn’t sing,

Helena de Groot: Uh-huh. (LAUGHS)

Jennifer Jean: (LAUGHS) I can’t really sing still. But I, I just felt like, yeah, this is part of the story. This is part of what I’m trying to convey. I mean, maybe that was the beginning of myself as an artist, in a way. Moments like that, not that exact moment, but moments like that where this not quite getting it, not getting it perfectly, you know, is part of what I’m conveying. And that’s part of art, you know, that I’m conveying something. I’m transmitting something. That’s a part of being human is that we’re not entirely perfect or we’re in a state of revision constantly.

Helena de Groot: Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Jean: And so,

Helena de Groot: That’s beautiful.

Jennifer Jean: Yeah.

Helena de Groot: We are constantly in a state of revision. That is a very writerly, but very beautiful thing to say. How old were you at the camp scene?

Jennifer Jean: Oh, probably eight or nine.

Helena de Groot: So, like, kind of eking into pre-puberty, kind of.

Jennifer Jean: Mm-hmm.

Helena de Groot: That is so interesting because it’s like, that’s maybe one of the times in our life that we’re most sensitive to the opinions of our peers. And yeah, that you were already like, “Fuck you, I need this.” (LAUGHS) “This is my voice. You’re going to hear it.” And you know, many of us, even in adulthood, have a very complicated relationship with our voice, I think, you know?

Jennifer Jean: Yeah.

Helena de Groot: We cringe when we hear a recording. You know, we don’t sing in public when we think our voice is not good for that. So was there any, like are there, have there been ups and downs in your relationship with your voice do you feel like? What has the trajectory been?

Jennifer Jean: You know what, you’re reminding me suddenly that that is one thing I do have in common with my father is that, we have a similar voice. Not accent, but voice. Like actually the sound and the timber. That is something that was similar. I remember that because he was very, you know, odd looking and misshapen by his torment. But then he would speak and he would speak really smoothly and just very nicely. And I’ve been told, I don’t know if I do have a nice voice, but I’ve been told I do.

Helena de Groot: You do.

Jennifer Jean: Okay, I do. All right. Thank you. (LAUGHS) So I, you know, I often think, I do not care. I don’t feel inhibited as much by what people are thinking or by, I don’t know, narratives in my head that just aren’t true. And so I feel like I can say many things. Not everything. I’m not, I’m not all the way there yet, but it’s definitely more than I was when I was very restrained as a child. And as a young adult, very restrained. So how did I, how did I come to my own voice? I’m thinking about this one thing. I remember I was in college and I attended a workshop that part of it had to do with giving a speech. And I got a C rating or C-minus rating. And I wasn’t, I didn’t open up my voice. And I remember being really upset. And then I, I remember thinking, “I know I can sound good. I know I can open my voice. I know I can do that,” you know, “why didn’t I do that?” And it just really struck me. I didn’t like getting the C-minus grade. (LAUGHS)

Helena de Groot: (LAUGHS) Sure.

Jennifer Jean: I was also like an A student all the time. So I really, that bugged me. So I just thought, “Okay, I’m going to try”—again, it’s like a strategy that I put in place—“I’m going to try to, you know, when I know I can do something, to actually do it and not hide,” not try to be less than I am, but to be exactly who I am, exactly where I’m at. So whether it’s faulty or it’s really great, be exactly where I’m at.” And that included speaking in front of people and speaking out and yeah. And even in my writing, too, like, not try to hide and crunch my, my voice down in my writing, even. I try to work that out there, too. And I think that that, that tendency of women especially, to say like, “Oh, no, I’m not, you know, I’m not so much,”

Helena de Groot: “I’m sorry,” (LAUGHS)

Jennifer Jean: Yeah, “Oh, I’m sorry,” yeah, all that stuff, that gets in the way of growth, actually. It’s okay to say like, “Wow, I, you know, I messed up here. Okay, what am I going to do to make it better next time?” And just, just keep going with it. It’s, life isn’t interesting otherwise, to shrink down isn’t so interesting to me.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

Helena de Groot: So on page 63, there’s a poem, “Brief History of Breath.”

Jennifer Jean: Oh, wow. You’re bringing me back!

Helena de Groot: (LAUGHS)

Jennifer Jean: I have not thought about this poem in so long. When I left California, I wrote this poem. In um, 20, 20-something years ago.

Helena de Groot: When you went to Boston?

Jennifer Jean: Yeah, right before I went to Boston, I wrote this poem. But it mentions Nor’easter winds. I don’t know, I think I was, I must have been preparing to come here. I just, yeah. Or maybe this was completed when I was over here. I don’t know. Anyways, what other things? Oh, it mentions music a lot. And I was thinking about breath a lot in terms of music because my husband was studying musical composition at that time. He was in school for that. So that’s where a lot of the breath stuff comes from. And I hadn’t even started doing yoga, which kind of, when I think about it, kind of plays into it, because that’s all about breath. But I was definitely thinking about when a musician is playing, horn players are playing and they’re using their breath, and how we’re instruments and things like that. But you know what? I’m going to have to read it to know even more because I’ve forgotten, actually. (LAUGHS)

Helena de Groot: Sure. Let’s talk about it later.

Jennifer Jean: You know?

Helena de Groot: Yeah.

Jennifer Jean: Okay.

(READS POEM)

A Brief History of Breath

In the beginning, Nor’easter Winds breathed into flaccid bodies till
each solar plexus thrust love up through crowns billows mist, into
the providence for the start of sound—
till we exhaled venom in a long fall away from the Other and east;
then, in Siberia, pining for the Father, heartbroken herders
remembered the Mother by folding their throats into two tones
for eons till flutes and yidaki arrived in mind, in hand, as the holy
bones and whittled trees
we broke from Her body; later, Saxon monks on Britannia penned
songs and psalms scops learnt by heart by breathing a brace of
waddling vowels, by breaking all ranks in half—
like the arm of a monster broke by the huffing grunt of a hero—
like the sob of a peace-bride taken by brothers; soon, Sinatra
stretched all chords as if trumpeted by Dorsey and famously
mobsters from every shade reveled in this air while a million moll
wannabes swooned—their brains deflated into first faints, into
minor forms of first love; and here I am,
a breathless Fool—a pregnant Fool
and my child’s major first love form; my form: slung over
the earth, over that mother
like an inverted sousaphone, spread wide like that gentle wife
of Tuba—here I am, into my tenth month, upturning lies I teach
my child with every short-of-breath that lets fear of love lock
my ribs against His second-wind.

Jennifer Jean: (LAUGHS) Sorry, I have to laugh. I, it’s like an old friend!

Helena de Groot: (LAUGHS)

Jennifer Jean: I totally forgot about that nice little poem there.

Helena de Groot: It’s nice, right?

Jennifer Jean: Yeah! (LAUGHS)

Helena de Groot: Good friend.

Jennifer Jean: Yeah, I remember, that’s the kind of poem that I tend to write now, which is heavily researched.

Helena de Groot: Huh.

Jennifer Jean: I’m talking about Beowulf in that poem. Yeah, the Saxon monks in Britannia, I don’t even know what that is!

Helena de Groot: (LAUGHS)

Jennifer Jean: That’s something I researched. And the two-tone singers.

Helena de Groot: The throat singing, right?

Jennifer Jean: Yeah, the throat singing. I researched that. It’s a good thing I’m a poet in the age of, like, the internet.

Helena de Groot: (LAUGHS)

Jennifer Jean: Otherwise it would take me forever, or I’d have to be much smarter than I actually am, because I don’t know all the references, even. I just like putting these things together and making them click, click, click, click, click. And then having the soundscape happen. This was fun.

Helena de Groot: I mean, sonically, it’s amazing, right?

Jennifer Jean: Well, if I do say so myself, yes. (LAUGHS)

Helena de Groot: Yeah, let me see, “Saxon monks on Britannia penned songs and psalms scops learnt by heart by breathing a brace of waddling vowels.” I mean, it’s so good, right?

Jennifer Jean: (LAUGHS)

Helena de Groot: It’s a whole song. And then, you know, what’s it like to be revisiting your, because your son is how old now?

Jennifer Jean: He’s 20.

Helena de Groot: Oh, wow. So, okay, so what is it like to revisit you pregnant with him?

Jennifer Jean: Yeah, it’s, it’s interesting because I actually tend not to write about my children. It’ll, I’ll probably write about them when they’re moved out of the house, in the same way that I am now living in Boston, and this is when I’m obsessively writing about Los Angeles. I certainly wasn’t writing about it when I was in California. Or if I was, it wasn’t obsessively, I should say. I was just kind of like, “Hmm, what material do I have? And then I would write about it.” But now it’s like, really, I’m caught up in that landscape. So I’m guessing with my children the same thing will happen. I’ll be caught up. I mean, I write things down that they say, but I can’t find in myself to, to write about it. I’m seeing that person that—it’s a persona for sure to me now. This persona was concerned about what she’s passing on to her child, what she, the way she breathes in her body. It’s interesting that it’s pre-yoga because that’s very yogic, where your breath is, you know, clears out your body, clears it out of all the tension and the anxiety. And that’s kind of what that poem seems to be addressing. Like, “Oh, I, you know, I have this tension and I, you know, the way that I breathe and the way I hold myself, and what am I passing on?”

Helena de Groot: Yeah.

Jennifer Jean: Yeah.

Helena de Groot: I mean, that’s what I like so much about the poem is that, you know, there’s this grand arc of what we pass on as human beings, right? And it starts with “Nor’easter Winds breathed into flaccid bodies till each solar plexus thrust love up through crowns billows mist, into the providence for the start of sound.” And then you go into all these other ways in which people have used sound, you know, in Siberia, you know, the Saxon monks all the way to Sinatra, (LAUGHS) there’s the big jump.

Jennifer Jean: Yeah. (LAUGHS)

Helena de Groot: You know, “And here I am, a breathless Fool—a pregnant Fool
and my child’s major first love form.” And then you describe that form like “an inverted sousaphone,” which I think is just so beautiful, you know? I mean, like, I can’t think of a better image of, like, protection. Right? An inverted sousaphone is kind of like a turned upside-down cup that you kind of protect your child in. But then a cup that’s resonant, you know, with sound.

Jennifer Jean: Yes.

Helena de Groot: And so, yeah, I’m wondering, you know, since you were think—this was on the eve of you becoming a mother for the first time. What were you thinking? Like, okay, this for me is important that I do or that I pass on. Do you remember?

Jennifer Jean: Wow. There’s so many things. But the way that I can narrow it down is to go back to the poem. So the poem is a history, and it’s essentially it’s God breathing life into humanity. Now, I don’t know if that’s how it really happened, (LAUGHS) but it’s a great image. It’s beautiful. And to think of life beginning with breath. And then from breath comes sound, comes voice, to bring us back to that. From the beginning of things, that that leads all the way down to, like, in this case, my son, that’s something I wanted them to know about, is that they’re part of something rooted, you know, something stable, something historic. (MUSIC PLAYING) This is kind of how I see myself, I’m a historical being. You know, I’m part of something great, just like everybody. So not greater than others, but I’m part of something great, part of history. And, you know, I have a responsibility to the past and to where I came from to honor that and then also to the future, to my children. And that’s, I think that, again, that’s not the main thing that I teach them. But just to bring it to the poems. That’s definitely something that I imparted to them. And I think that that does help them to see themselves like that, that they’re part of history. I know so much was kept from me when I was younger, stories and that I had to research. That’s why I liked Nancy Drew, as I mentioned at the beginning, to investigate and research things. And I don’t have my children do that. I tell them the stories of, as many stories as I know to root them in their history. And it provides cohesion to their lives. And they’re very happy kids. They’re very hopeful. Like even they get anxious or angry or whatever, but there’s always this underlying stability, which is what I craved, and that’s what I wanted to pass on to them.

(MUSIC CONTINUES)

Helena de Groot: Jennifer Jean is the author of six poetry collections, including In the War, about her father, the Vietnam war, and its long wake. She also wrote Fishwife, The Fool, Object Lesson, and her latest, Voz. She’s been awarded fellowships from the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop and the Massachusetts Cultural Council. And she received an Ambassador for Peace Award from the Women’s Federation for World Peace. Jennifer is an organizer and co-translator of Arabic poetry for the Her Story Is collective. To find out more, check out the Poetry Foundation website. The music in this episode is by Todd Sickafoose and Eric van der Westen. I’m Helena de Groot and this was Poetry Off the Shelf. Thank you for listening.

(MUSIC FADES OUT)