“The Aesthetics of Dairy Farming” [Listen here] is a poem central to my longer manuscript, Birdsong and Buckshot: An Elegiac Echo, which is an elegy for my father who passed away in 2008 before I entered my MFA program at George Mason.
This particular poem went through twenty to fifty drafts because it started as one of those typical MFA assignment: Read X poet, and try to emulate X poet. I believe I was enrolled in Eric Pankey’s “Mythic Making” and the poet who prompted this poem was Paul Celan, and the original title was the location of my father and uncle’s farm, “Garrison, TX.”
As the years rolled away and the poem sifted into other forms that it wanted rather than the prompts that had urged it into existence, I found I could never quite leave it alone.
Growing up in deep east Texas, we would sometimes hear the rupture of a rabbit in the distance. It’s disconcerting. If you’ve never heard one, here is one version. Anyway, perhaps it was the memories of these childlike shrieks that stood in for the jolt I felt when my father suddenly died of a pulmonary embolism. The doctors thought he was having a heart attack. Unfortunately, a blood clot in his leg, which had gone undetected, eventually traveled to his heart. He died on the operating table while undergoing a triple bypass surgery. A longer poem, traveling through this heightened time, appears in Zone3 titled “Limb.”
When Jeremy told me that he and Rachel would like to publish this poem, I was elated! I had the pleasure of working with his editorial eye to hone a few passages and frame the final ending for readers in a more tailored way. The poem and I are both so thankful for his editorial suggestions.
I’m also very excited to see my poem “Entropy” forthcoming in the next issue of Rhino; it was born in a similar manner to this poem and deals with the same themes. If you’d like to read more of my work, please visit www.ellietipton.com. Also, look for future work under my pseudonym, Bevil Townsend.
Bevil Townsend, formerly published under Ellie Tipton, is a poet, feminist, and political junkie––sometimes in reverse order. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Forklift, Ohio, Pleiades: A Journal of New Writing, Zone3, and Rhino among other places. She grew up in rural Texas questioning the logic of Rush Limbaugh and the differences between Greek mythology and Bible stories to her parents' and teachers' dismay. She currently lives in Washington, DC and teaches storytelling to campaign activists.
Anne Lambelet earned a bachelor’s degree in illustration from the University of the Arts in 2014 where she was awarded the Roger T. Hane award for the top illustration portfolio by a senior. While at UArts, she also received awards in the student competitions hosted by the Society of Illustrators, Creative Quarterly magazine and 3x3: The Magazine of Contemporary Illustration. In 2015 she finished illustrating her first picture book, an educational introduction to the National Park Services, and has since worked with several clients including The Boston Globe magazine, The Progressive and Simon & Schuster.