Christine C. Rivero-Guisinga works for a humanitarian organization. A member of the SEA Lit Circle, she maintains an informal gallery of amateur photography and short poetry inspired by the haiku form on instagram.
You can read Centre of Mass in the July 2024 issue.
Would you like to tell us a little bit more about your poem? For instance, how or why you wrote it, or perhaps provide some extra context?
During a university math class, the professor told us about a story set in a two-dimensional world where all the characters were shapes. It got me thinking about how the dynamics of a relationship might look like rendered as — or reduced to — schematics.
In the same class, we discussed how a triangle can be considered the most stable shape; yet the visual representation of a scalene triangle seemed to me at odds with that idea of stability.
The poem has been reworked over the years, but it started out as a response to that sense of incongruity.
As a poet, what does creative success or achievement look like for you?
A poem, I believe, isn’t complete until it has resonated with at least one other person. The act of writing for me can be very personal, even meditative, but I think it answers a need that hopefully connects the poem to someone else’s experience or memory. Even if the message received may be something other than what was originally intended, the possibility of creating a shared space with the reader through the poem is humbling; but it’s also what I reach for in my own reading of poetry.
How or where or with what does a poem begin?
It almost always starts with a memory, or the story of a memory. At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, I felt mentally locked in and not only because of the restrictions on movement. I resorted to using writing prompts to try and write again, and I found that it was easiest to write when the prompt triggered a memory.
The impermanence of things and the imperfection of memory has been a recurring theme in my writing probably because I struggle with the idea of absolute loss. The poem is the fragment saved from the rubble, the rusted gate with its missing key, the empty garden once tended by the hands that held ours.
Are there other art forms that inspire or inform your poetry?
I love ekphrastic challenges, and how other art forms can inspire me to explore themes and subjects I might not have otherwise considered. Abstract art is a particular favourite because of the way the work invites new ways of seeing and understanding. Sometimes the engagement with art feels like the acknowledgement of how little we understand one another, but there could still be connection in the recognition of each other’s alienation.
Photography is another favourite and there was a time I dabbled in lomography, which championed analog photography in an era of increasingly more accessible digital photography. There were stories behind each blurry or overexposed image, and we didn’t know which stories were captured until the film was developed. There would also always be this sheen of color, or lack, that came across to me as representative of the filter of memory.
How do you make space for poetry in your daily routine?
While brushing my teeth, I’m holding up my iPad and reading from a poetry ebook or an online litmag. There is so much going on in the day that finding the space for poetry is challenging; but I feel a little bereft if I’m unable to do so. I try to read at least one poem a day because I feel that it connects me back to what’s real — lives instead of spreadsheets, stories instead of statistics.
Finding the time to write is even more challenging because it takes me a very long time to compose or revise a poem. I use a lot of prompts to “force” myself to write; and it’s the times this exercise helps me see past daily exhaustion and come to an unexpected realization that writing poetry becomes both a source of relief and joy.
Have you ever received advice (or has there been something you’ve learned on your own) about writing or revising poems that has made you a better poet? What was it?
At a workshop, poet Karan Kapoor spoke of creating a door in poetry, a way by which the reader can access the poem. I think this is why getting feedback — whether it’s from my husband, my friends, or a formal workshop — is important to me; I need to know if I’m getting a message across, any message. When I’m writing or even revising, I can’t tell immediately if the way I’ve cast words and imagery together could hamper the reading experience for someone else.
Going back to the idea of a door, the poem can be entry or egress; and when I read a poem, I hope to always take something back in passing through.