#446 Backstory of the Poem “My Mother’s Name” from the poetry collection TRACKS IN SNOW by Thaddeus Rutkowski and published by FINISHING LINE PRESS on June 12, 2026.
https://finishinglinepress.com/product/tracks-in-snow-by-thaddeus-rutkowski/
This poem originally appeared in Rigorous magazine
https://www.rigorous-mag.com/v6i2/thaddeus-rutkowski.html
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?
I got the idea when I asked my mother to write her maiden name, Wang. There are several names that have the same sound as Wang, but they have different Chinese characters.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wang_(surname)
I put all of these names together in free verse, and tried to end with a line based on the meaning of the Scandinavia name meaning “tall.” My mother and I aren’t tall, and we aren’t Scandinavian.
Where were you when you started to actually write the poem? And please describe the place in great detail.
I was at my desk in our apartment in New York’s Lower East Side. The desk is made from a hollow-core door laid over two filing cabinets. It is in our living room, which is a corner room in our 1904 building.
My setup is more spacious than my wife’s working area, which is below our loft bed. I feel a sense of imbalance or unfairness; my wife and I need a bigger place to live. Maybe this is why we often watch the TV show House Hunters.
https://www.hgtv.com/shows/house-hunters
What month and year did you start writing this poem?
I guess I started the poem in 2022. I added it to the manuscript of my book Tracks of Snow during a writing residency in 2023. The book came out in June 2026.
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?
I don’t think any lines were written and discarded, but all of the lines were reworked before the poem was “finished.” Of course, nothing is ever finished.
MY MOTHER’S NAME
My mother’s last name is Wang,
but I don’t know the Chinese character.
Does it look like the “king” character,
the “fat-bellied” character,
or the “yellow” character?
She will have to write it for me,
and not just with a finger on the palm of her hand.
She will have to write it on paper,
with each stroke clearly defined,
so I won’t think it’s the rarer Chinese Waan,
the Indonesian Ong, or the Japanese Oh,
all derived from the Chinese Wang.
God forbid I should think it’s the Scandinavian Wang,
derived from Vang, or “meadow,” in Norse:
the name that sounds like Lang,
or Laing or Long, meaning “tall.”
My mother and I are not tall people.
Which part of the poem was the most emotional of you to write and why?
All of the poem is emotional, or it wouldn’t be worth writing, would it? However, the poem builds from a factual recounting of Chinese names, to a rather abrupt shift to Scandinavian names (related only by sound), to the (hopefully surprising, yet true) statement that my mother and I aren’t tall people
https://www.nancy-mercado.com/
https://www.facebook.com/NMercad0
What do you want readers of this poem to take from this poem?
I would like readers to understand that my mother is Chinese, though my own name comes from my father, who was of Polish descent. I don’t expect anyone to remember the details of the names mentioned in the poem.
http://www.thaddeusrutkowski.com/
https://www.facebook.com/thaddeus.rutkowski
