The Orange & Bee are delighted to publish Laurel Benjamin’s poem, ‘Woman of the sleeping mountain’ (Issue ten).
Laurel Benjamin aligns fairy tales with family traditions, ghosts of relatives, as well as mirror poems that bring back what has been damaged or disappeared. She founded and leads Ekphrastic Writers, a group dedicated to writing and community.
Where did your poem, ‘Woman of the sleeping mountain’, come from?
I am drawn towards folktales of my people and other cultures. My mother was a children’s librarian and my father a family social worker. Thus, the poem comes from several ideas:
Mistakes or failures are inseparable from identity, how one was raised, how this haunts us our whole lives;
Where I live, in the San Francisco Bay Area, Mount Tamalpais is a tall, stunning mountain that houses so much wildlife and is visible from much of the area. I was fascinated to read that ‘The Sleeping Maiden’ is the Miwok mythological name for the mountain, as the profile of the mountain resembles a reclining woman who died of a broken heart. Then I read that the myth was a story devised by a writer. At this point I had worked it into my new manuscript. Also, having grown up in the shadow of the mountain, and being named after the laurel trees that cover much of the slopes, I decided to stick with the myth.
For the structure, the poem goes back and forth in stanzas between the mistakes and how the mother names things, names the speaker: these are woven together in real time and in dream sequences.
So much of my work is ekphrastic, and this poem is no different. In addition to the folktale of the mountain and the mistakes, the poem also is a response to Manuel Mendive’s painting ‘Río de Amor’ (Cuba 2002), in which a woman with three breasts is having water poured over her. The painting has its own folktale!
In dreams everything comes together: someone saying ‘You are not your mistakes’; the bruises hurting, suckling on the breast, living in nature. This is the titular poem of a California-centered collection I am currently working on.
Using just six words, can you describe your writing process?
Morning, Prompts, Process, Walks, Feedback, Revision.
What’s your favourite thing about being a writer?
Being in a community of writers where individuals understand how to serve each other and support what each of us is trying to do in our writing. This, in the end, elevates our writing. I love losing myself in the act of creation, discovering aspects of craft like enjambment and the poetic leap, yet it’s the connection with others that has grown to be the most valuable. I started an ekphrastic writing group in 2021, which calls on the writer to value community as much as sharing drafts of new poems.
What’s the best advice you’ve been offered?
The best advice comes from my mother: invite everyone to your event. I don’t always follow her advice.
If you were not yourself, who would you be?
I have had several careers, including being a temp, working in bookstores, and teaching English at a community college. Those are many hats with some overlapping skill sets. My brother used to tell me to open a restaurant that served only chocolate cake and lasagna, so maybe I’d be a baker. For years I made my own dresses and skirts, made jewelry, among other things; that can feel like transformation.
Read Laurel Benjamin’s poetry published by The Orange & Bee:
Thank you, Laurel, for providing the background for what inspired your poem. Yesterday I had a heartfelt conversation with my daughter about mistakes I'd made and those my mother made, which still affect me. Because of this, I especially resonated with your poem today.
PS: O&B I really like reading these authors interviews--thank you for including them! :)