The following is a condensed conversation between past poet laureate Rebecca Diem and the newly announced poet laureate Jennifer Frankum.
Rebecca: We just introduced you to City Council as the new poet laureate. How are you feeling?
Jennifer: I am feeling really energized and excited. Looking forward to more events this month and onward for two years – not quite two years, till the end of 2027.
Rebecca: Yeah, there’s that nebulous time between the poets laureate. What was it like when you knew, but no one else did?
Jennifer: Oh, how did that feel? I felt like I was pregnant. This is a good surprise, and I know people are going to be excited for me because I’ve got such a strong group of friends and writers that are so supportive. But I couldn’t say anything, and they were asking me because they knew I had applied.
Rebecca: I was so happy, especially finding out just after the Poet Laureate’s Community Revue. It felt like everything that I’d worked on was going to continue – that idea of bringing the community in – and I think that you do that so well, you invite people to discover the poetry in their own hearts, and you do it in such an impactful way.
Jennifer: Thank you so much! People may say they don’t like poetry – I think what they don’t like is picking poetry apart bit by bit and analyzing it. But if someone writes a love poem for you? You love that poem.
Rebecca: I really like that conversation around what a poem needs to be. You have so many workshops planned and you create that space for people to sit with that poetry and then to grow their skills, especially with your background as a teacher!
Jennifer: I think it’s a whole other ball game being the poet laureate than being a teacher of poetry in a high school. Because when I would say, “we’re having a poetry unit,” there would be great groans. They had to be turned onto it somehow. Almost every teenager I knew went through this angsty stage and the time when the self-loathing was very close to the bone, and not only did they not like themselves very much, they didn’t like anyone else very much, including their parents. Probably, if they had a dog, they were happy with their dog. As a poet laureate, people are already coming to the workshop ready to listen. It’s like conversational poetry.
Rebecca: And meanwhile, when I got your message, I’d had my grandparents’ 60th anniversary party and then the very next day my mom’s 60th birthday party, and we were in the living room with my daughter and nieces and nephews just, yeah, floor is lava, cake and cookies everywhere, trying to get other foods into their little bodies. It was so intense and then I saw your words about your daughter being grown, and like, I need both the hope that one day that she will be grown and also the reminder to sit with her while she’s young.
Jennifer: It will happen, and it happens so quickly that all you’re left with are the pictures and the memories and your children don’t remember half the things that you remember because their little brains were just forming. They are still so close to me, and I think we must have done something right.
Rebecca: There was something that you said about the freedom of the poet laureate role, and I think that it really solidified something that I tried to do in my term, which was to extend that freedom and permission and validation to others. What did becoming the poet laureate do for you creatively?
Jennifer: It was a great confidence booster, you know? Someone believes that I can do this job. And it’s an honour, and a responsibility, and an opportunity to reach out to different communities. Small communities where people are quite isolated, especially if they don’t drive anymore. It’s very rewarding, and sometimes we just talk. It’s wonderful to have the background in teaching and also to have the background in being counselled by different people. To say: ‘you are creative, you just don’t know how you’re creative. You don’t know how, but you will be creative.’
Past and Present, Present and Past
By Jennifer Frankum & Rebecca Diem
Shall we write a poem
one line at a time?
Your turn now
Though you are likely busy
while I am lounging on the sofa,
sipping my second cup of bliss
scribbling and texting by turns.
My friend,
you’re a balm in the chaos.
This idea is divine.
My world is a constant refrain
of her hopeful voice:
‘Play with me, Mama?’
And so I make the time
to dance silly dances
sing our made up songs
to snuggle, to read,
to stand on our heads.
You may be searching
for toddler socks,
while my daughters’ clothes
are nowhere in our home.
My babies grown
up and away,
and your sprout
you tend to
root, stalk, leaf, bloom
as you listen to the voice
of one you made from your love.
And meanwhile,
I forget the world is turning.
No past, no future
only our collection of now
And when the nowness
is overwhelming
I look to friends like you
And I feel reassured
Easy does it, young mother,
that’s the way to forget
until a far away September.
It’s the growing and the loving
you’ll remember.