Rodd Whelpley manages an electric efficiency program for 32 cities across Illinois and lives near Springfield. His poems have appeared in numerous journals. His chapbooks include Catch as Kitsch Can (2018, Prolific Press), The Last Bridge is Home (2021, Kelsay Books) and Whoever Said Love (2022, ELJ Editions). His first full-length collection is Blood Moon, Backyard Mountain (2023, Broadstone Books). Find him at http://www.RoddWhelpley.com.
You can read Divination in the January 2025 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?
I’m trying to add more discipline and craft to poems – as much as I can manage. Technically, I started with the intention of a short blank verse piece. If you cared to dig, you might see imperfect evidence of that idea in the first couple of stanzas.
But images are more important. When hands, touching, curves and the language of palmistry appeared, the poem seemed to want to want to preference that above all else. By the end, it seems that the imagery related to palmistry and the repetition of curves and circles slipped into stary-ness (pinhole circles of light in the night sky) and the circle of the zodiac. This is where the title, “Divination” comes in. Sometimes images beget other images, and I like to trust that.
As to the poem’s subject, at the risk of becoming too personal, this is an “oldly wed,” empty nest poem. I’m stunned how I’ve been married 30 years and my wife, Lisa, and I have raised a now-adult child. Still, there is so much that occupies her mind that I will never know. And so much that I would say, or do, or mean that I will never be able to communicate to her. In that respect, I’m better (I hope) on paper than I am in real life (where, at best we “press our digits close / to the tip of some emotion”). And so, I think we both may need to use some form of divination to understand fully how we love one another. I think that’s romantic and heartbreaking and irresistible all at the same time. I hope my wife feels that way too, but I’m not brave enough to ask.
Why was the poetic form the best fit for this particular piece of work?
This form fit best because, despite my plan, this is the form the poem insisted on becoming. Or, perhaps more accurately, the is the best way I could figure to display what the poem insisted on becoming.
You’ll see the stanzas start at seemingly random points in the line, by picking up a “dropped” line from the stanza above. Obviously, this is not my invention, but this is a form I use often. It reveals conflict: The poem should be one thing. The poem’s logic should make turns. How best to do both?
Is there a collection of poetry or even a single poem that acts as a touchstone for you?
I came to poetry late – ten years ago. At school I had studied fiction and squeaked through with as few poetry courses as permissible to get a degree. When I turned 50, I felt I was missing something, so I took a free online course called ModPo (Modern Poetry) directed by Al Filreis at the University of Pennsylvania. (Say what you want about the evil internet, but I’ve watched many ivy-league poetry lectures for free, so every coin is double sided, I suppose.)
Dr. Filreis is a proponent of close reading (something that was so passe when I was in graduate school that I was often belittled by English Department theorists when close readings were all I could manage in the early 80s.) Guess what? You CAN profitably close read poems written after 1955.
Since then, I’d say each new collection I pick up becomes a touchstone: Diane Suess, Anders Carlson-Wee, Richie Hofmann, Naomi Shihab Nye, Ross Gay, Adam Clay, Christian Gullette, Ada Limon are among the poets I (and a million others) read last year.
If you didn’t write poetry, how do you think you might access the same fulfillments that poetry offers in your life?
I write because I am lousy at music. If I could play the piano, I’d never write again. I believe poems hope to use words (particularly new juxtapositions of words) to suggest the expression of things or ideas or feelings that words aren’t able to express. The best poem would be music.
As a poet, what does creative success or achievement look like for you?
It would be nice if someone read one of my poems and thought that she had either felt the way the speaker of the poem feels or else felt that she better understood how the speaker of the poem could feel the way he does.
What are you working on now?
I’m picking up scraps in my journal and see if they can make poems.
How or where or with what does a poem begin?
The poem begins at 4:30 in the morning with coffee, headphones and the next blank page in the journal file.
Are there other art forms that inspire or inform your poetry?
Padraig O’ Tuama’s generous and delightful explications on the podcast Poetry Unbound should send any brain off on a thousand profitable pathways. And of course, any composition by Max Richter can offer quiet rhythms that might fall into words.
How do you make space for poetry in your daily routine?
When I’m good, I answer that 4:30 alarm and write before work.
How do you know when a poem is finished? / Is a poem ever really finished?
I said earlier that poems are things that use words to express things that words can’t express. As such, it is a 100% losing game. The poem is finished when I can’t think of any ways to fail better.
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?
I listened to an online lecture by Henri Cole who shared the best piece of advice he was ever given: End on an image and don’t explain it. I’m shocked at how hard that is for me to do. But, when I manage it, I like the poem better.
Do you belong to a writer’s group? If not, where do you find poetry community and feedback?
I occasionally sit in with a local writers’ group. It’s a small mixed group: a poet or two, a creative non-fiction writer, a genre fiction writer, and a literary fiction writer. We spend most of our time wringing our hands about current events. It’s fun for community, but we are probably not equipped to dig deep into each other’s writing.
I crashed a poetry writing course taught by Adam Clay when he was at the University of Illinois at Springfield, and since then I’ve taken a couple of online poetry writing courses taught by Richie Hofmann.
Perhaps the most generous help has come from overworked volunteer editors of literary magazines and poetry presses – some of whom then published my work, but most of whom did not. I’m bowled over by that kindness and treat that criticism as almost something like a sacred gift. It’s much more efficient to send the form rejection letter. But when an editor takes the time to help a piece that she won’t run in her magazine, I always thank her and believe her.
How did you begin writing poetry? Was there a specific inspiration or reason?
A few people (some of them trained professionals) have told me that I don’t know the difference between what I’m thinking and what I’m feeling. I’m still confused about whether the two things are indeed different. It’s a terrible, navel-gazing answer. But I think that’s why I write – to try to sort that out.
In terms of poetic style or craft, is there a big question you are trying to find an answer for?
Apparently, given my history and current trajectory, it looks like I’m trying to find out whether the trial-and-error method will ever improve my craft.