The Past Translated
An Interview with Suzanne Frischkorn
The concept of home can mean different things to different people, and the definition that it might have once occupied in the past can take on new meanings in the present. For a collection like Suzanne Frischkorn’s Fixed Star (JackLeg Press, 2022), home resides beyond the mere physical; it is an emotional, poetic space that is built through shifting cultural narratives, honest imagery, and melodic language that drives each individual line, stanza, and page. With sonnet coronas as the foundation for exploring the past, present, and whatever uncertainties and assurances the future might hold, Frischkorn’s layered collection is a moving portrait of a speaker who seeks to understand not only where she came from, but where she will go.
I sat with Suzanne to discuss Fixed Star, the creative process and inspiration, and what it means to examine one’s past with an open mind.
Esteban Rodriguez: I’m indebted to your time, Suzanne. I wanted to start by speaking about form in Fixed Star. While there are prose poems and poems with lines that spread across the page, a majority of the poems are a crown of sonnets, which are both lyrically and narratively engaging with a variety of themes (place, culture, language). When you began writing this collection, did you find that your subject matter influenced the form, or did the form influence the subject matter?
Suzanne Frischkorn: Esteban, thank you for this invitation. I’m so happy to talk about Fixed Star with you. The short answer to this question is both. The sonnet is my favorite received form and lends itself to writing the type of poetry I’m inclined to write — short, tight, lyrics. I had been wanting to write against that inclination for this third book, to write longer poems, and writing the coronas allowed me to do that without completely losing my footing. The subjects of ‘Cuban Polymita’ include personal history, my father’s history, the history of the Cuban exile, and the Cuban Revolution. The constraint of writing sonnets helped me consider what was most essential to include for the success of the sequence. This is also true for the corona in the second half of the book that details my travels through Spain. The sonnet form helped me distill my experiences for the poems individually, and as a sequence.
ER: I was incredibly drawn to the speaker’s views of her body in relation to history and culture, and in particular, I kept coming back to “My Body as a Communist Country” and the following lines:
Castro, you’ve nothing in Cuba like my desire.
My body’s capitalism,
greedy. It’s a slow-jam
in a darkened room
keeping time with a DJ.
Its lyric, the blue light of aging shadows
desire’s waking. Ten years from now
we’ll wonder at this
my body’s exacting power
brooking no opposition.
For the speaker, her body is not bound by the conventions of one ideology; rather, it is seeking independence from categories it has historically been placed in. What did writing about the body lead to, both for your writing and personhood?
SF: It’s so nice to hear why you were drawn to this poem, Esteban, and this is such an interesting question. I don’t believe that writing about the body led to something in my writing, or in my personhood, as much as it reflects where I was as a person when I wrote this poem. Writing about the body here was a late blooming sense of its power. Most of my life I had been distracted by constant messaging in magazines, television and videos telling me my body wasn’t quite right, or rather that it didn’t measure up to the white images I was conditioned to see as ideal. This was also around the time Hilary Clinton ran in the Democratic presidential primaries and all the reasons the patriarchy wants to keep women distracted from their own power were never more apparent. At the same time I was deeply immersed in research about Cuba’s history and the United States’ history with Cuba. All those things coalesced in this poem.
ER: Because I have written about it as well, I’m also drawn to how your speaker comes to the terms with the loss of Spanish, and in “Papaya,” we see a speaker lamenting such loss:
If you speak quickly I will understand if I don’t
try to understand my first language. You must
understand it was stolen–
legend, song, all of it
a fading stain by firing squad.
Did writing about this loss open opportunities for you to reclaim parts of your Cuban heritage? Did it lead to anything else?
SF: I don’t know that I reclaimed parts of my Cuban heritage as much as I discovered my heritage. When I was growing up we were not to speak of Cuba for fear of upsetting my father and in this way my heritage was erased. Writing this collection led me to Cuban poets, writers, artists and musicians. It led me to reconnect with extended family I hadn’t spoken to in many years, and it spurred me to travel in search of answers. It also uncovered the price of assimilation. I understand my parents’ desire for their children to be assimilated, and I know their intentions were good, but I don’t think they fully understood what they were taking from us. To be fair, when I started school my parents were told to speak only English at home. Perhaps if the public schools of that time had another policy I would be bilingual today. Writing these poems also uncovered a grief I had not experienced before— the realization that even if I became fluent in Spanish I would not be fluent in the Cuban dialect, nor would I fully understand its idioms, nuances, or even its slang. As distant as I felt from my heritage I knew my children were even more distant; one thing I hope this collection leads to is that if they wonder about their heritage they will be able to glean a bit of it here.
ER: For me, that reconnection that you speak of is summed up so beautifully in the last poem of the collection, “Granada,” and the following lines underscore that sentiment:
I came to the source, seeking the shape
of my eye, my nose―I passed as a native, and at last
found a way home.
How has your definition of “home” developed over the course of your writing?
SF: That’s so kind of you to say, Esteban, thank you. My definition of home has expanded. Over the course of writing Fixed Star I realized while I had been seeking the people I “belonged” to, they had been there all along, in the writing community.
ER: What tools (motivation, recognition, inspiration, etc.) has the writing community given you to keep writing in such an engaging manner? Did you always know you wanted to become a writer, and what do you wish your younger self would have known that your current self knows now about the process?
SF: I had the great luck to feel embraced by the writing community from the very first time I read at an open mic. I’d never experienced acceptance like that before in my life. From the friendships and support I found there I was eventually motivated to send out my work for publication, and found some early success which kept me motivated. I was also fortunate to attend a few weekend workshops and retreats where I met many talented writers who were incredible teachers. I don’t think most of them know what an impact they had on me, or how critical a time it was for me—I went to these seeking permission to write poetry. The instructors, and the other participants, gave me permission wholeheartedly and with tremendous kindness. If I’d encountered something other than encouragement at that particular point in my life I would not have had the confidence to pursue writing poetry.
I’ve gained so much from the poets I’m acquainted with, or I’m friends with, and poets who have proved to be mentors over the years. They’ve gifted me with their feedback and close readings. They’ve shared opportunities with me, and given me the gift of responding to all of it in kind. I’ve also learned and found community from poets I’ve only read. Sometimes it feels like I actually knew Emily Dickinson, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Louise Bogan, Elizabeth Bishop, Silvina Ocampo—the list goes on—because of the amount of time I’ve spent with their work and learning about their lives. Mary Oliver forever holds a place in my heart for writing the first poetry craft book I ever read, A Poetry Handbook, and some years later selecting my chapbook, Spring Tide, for the Aldrich Poetry Award. I felt a full circle embrace when that happened. Much of what it means to be a good literary citizen I’ve learned from observing Eduardo C. Corral, Diane Seuss, Rigoberto González, Carmen Giménez, Francisco Aragón, Ruben Quesada, and Simone Muench—all of whom are brilliant and accomplished poets, yet still make time to mentor, amplify, curate, edit, support, and create community. These are the poets who inspire me and who I try to emulate when I have the opportunity.
I definitely knew by high school that I wanted to be a writer, and I know the idea of being a writer began with a love of books and reading. I was drawn to books before I could read and would spend hours trying to puzzle out the words in a Mother Goose nursery rhyme book I had at home. I have a vivid memory of the first time I was taken to the public library and left to wander the children section while my mother went upstairs to the adult section. Above me were a string of certificates with gold stars and the names of children who had earned them through the summer reading program. I never wanted a certificate more, or since, in my whole life. I loved the library from that very first visit and spent many summers reading my way through the children’s section. As a child I would also linger in the stationary aisle at the grocery store while my mother shopped, and I couldn’t tell you why I was so entranced with paper, notebooks, pens, and pencils at the time, only that I was entranced. Once I entered middle school it became apparent English was my best subject. It was the only class where I was singled out for praise by my teachers. This continued in high school where I wrote for the school newspaper and won an essay contest. I was very pragmatic and went on to study journalism in college. While I had read some poetry by Emily Dickinson, William Blake, and Theodore Roethke in college, when I began to write poems, I wasn’t quite sure they were poems, and this uncertainty is what brought me to that first open mic.
What I wish my younger self knew is that the best part of being a poet will always be making the poems. Everything else is icing.
ER: I love that sentiment. I feel that the writing community has embraced me in much the same way that it has you, and it has given me confidence I didn’t know existed, at least not outwardly. What relationship do you see Fixed Star having with your previous two collections, Girl on a Bridge and Lit Windowpane, as well as with your five chapbooks? What relationship do you foresee it having with your future work?
SF: Great question! In thinking about it I found that the relationship between these three books is transformation. In Lit Windowpane it’s the transformation of the natural world and the speaker’s transformation after overcoming great loss. Girl on a Bridge explores transformations in girlhood and womanhood, and in Fixed Star it takes form in the journey seeking answers to heritage and identity. This goes for the chapbooks as well, as several poems from the chapbooks made their way into the books. The manuscript I’m currently working on departs from transformation. These new poems are more centered in the present—the past half a decade or so in the United States. In many ways it’s a book of witness.
ER: The past few years have been quite the roller coaster, and the oscillation between the positives and negatives has no doubt strained us in some shape or form. Still, through it all we have discovered more about who we are as people and what brings us joy. Besides writing, where do you find joy in your everyday life?
SF: They really have been a roller coaster. I feel like I’m just getting my equilibrium back, but that may be because I’ve consciously been avoiding the news. In my everyday life I find joy in the landscape where I live. In 2016 we moved from an old industrial city to a small town with open space and protected land. Prior to this I had never lived in a rural area. This landscape and its wildlife astounds me with its beauty all year long. It’s the first place I’ve ever seen an eastern bluebird, and a scarlet tanager—or a bobcat, or opossums meandering through our yard. Just the other day I watched a gorgeous red fox run circles around the lawn. This small town tucked away in the forest means a long trip to the nearest grocery store, but I have found living here restorative.
Art museums, live music, and poetry readings also give me joy. Those were the first things my husband and I sought out when we were able to return to the world at large. We went up to Boston and saw the Titian exhibit at the Isabella Gardner Museum – breathtaking. We went to the Guggenheim to see the Kandinsky exhibit – overwhelming. I also spent time at some of the Connecticut museums: The Brandt Foundation of Arts, the Aldrich Museum, and Yale Art Gallery. We attended an outdoor concert and found an open mic night with fantastic regular musicians. We went to several great poetry readings, too, and I found myself overcome with emotion hearing people read their work. I always loved doing these things, but the impact of being in the presence of art, music, and poetry after being cut off for so long was incredible.
