#441 Backstory of the Poem “The plum you’re going to eat next summer” by Gayle Brandeis
#441 Backstory of the Poem “The plum you’re going to eat next summer” by Gayle Brandeis
Can you go through the step-by-step process of writing this poem from the moment the idea was first conceived in your brain until final form? This is the first and only poem I’ve written in the Notes app of my phone—it came to me in a flash, and my phone was the only way I could capture it before it fluttered away. This was one of those gift poems that emerged mostly whole (not something that happens often!)
Where were you when you started to actually write the poem? And please describe the place in great detail. I was sitting on a plane, coming home from teaching at an MFA residency at Antioch University. I prefer to have an aisle seat on planes—I feel claustrophobic otherwise—but I was given a window seat for that particular flight. Writing the poem helped me feel less hemmed in, which I’m grateful for—it was one of those instances where time and space disappeared and I fell fully into the poem. I should mention that Kaveh Akbar had given an amazing guest seminar on wonder and bewilderment in poetry at that residency; I think the inspiration of that class was still simmering inside me and led to this poem.
https://www.antioch.edu/academics/creative-writing-communication/creative-writing-mfa/
What month and year did you start writing this poem? June, 2018.
Were there any lines in any of your rough drafts of this poem that were not in the final version? And can you share them with us? The only thing I changed with the poem is to make the first lines work for any time of year. In the first draft, the plum was just starting to grow, but I realized that would only work for certain months. I turned back the clock so the plum wouldn’t exist at all yet, and could resonate whenever a person happened to read it.
What do you want readers of this poem to take from this poem? I was asked to read a poem for a rally in support of a mental health referendum in my town before the November election, and I decided to read this one, because it’s all about hope. There will be a plum waiting for us if we keep moving forward. I lost my mother to suicide, and I want to encourage others to keep going, to look toward the plum that is going to grow for them. I hope the poem also helps readers feel connected to the natural world and to the people who work so hard to grow and harvest food and bring it to market.
BELOW: Gayla Brandeis’s mother Arlene Brandeis in one of the costumes she wore as a supernumerary in the Lyric Opera, and Arlene Brandes in her younger days gracing the front jacket cover of Gayle’s memoir The Art of Misdiagnosis surviving my mother’s suicide.)
Which part of the poem was the most emotional of you to write and why? The last line really got to me. When I finished it, tears sprang into my eyes, both because of the hope of that line and because the experience of being gifted such a whole poem is so rare and special.
Has this poem been published? And if so where? It hasn’t been traditionally published, but a broadside was made of it as part of a solstice ritual kit (someone heard me share it during a Zoom reading in 2021, and asked if they could use it that way.) Cecilia Berkovic wanted to make a broadside of the poem. Somehow Rob Kaplan got hold of an image of the broadside and shared it via his wonderful account @robslitquotes in December, 2024, and it went wildly viral, shared by amazing folks like Maggie Smith and Rebecca Solnit and Ava DuVernay, along with tens of thousands of others (who I’m sure are also amazing, too!) A woman on TikTok recorded herself reading it, and by the time I learned of it, over 200,000 people had watched the video. It’s amazing to me that this little poem I wrote has spoken to so many people. I’m grateful and deeply moved to know it is offering hope so widely at a time when hope can feel in short supply. I hope when people are feeling despair, they’ll remember the poem and look forward to next summer’s plums.
https://www.poetrypoets.com/how-to-make-a-poetry-broadside
