Luke Rolfes: We are thrilled today to talk with Juan J. Morales who is out with his fourth book from University of New Mexico Press, a collection of poems and sueñitos entitled Dream of the Bird Tattoo. Sean Prentiss describes this book as a “memoir-in-poems about his father’s death and the grief that follows.” In Dream of the Bird Tattoo Morales confronts the process of accepting loss, understanding dreams and artifacts of the past, and how does one live in a world that contains a hole where a loved one once stood.
Thanks, Juan, for spending some time with us today. I always like to start broadly with the conversation. Can you tell us about the genesis of this project? You mentioned that you started some of these poems 20 years ago. When did Dream of the Bird Tattoo start to take shape?
Juan J. Morales: Thank you, Luke. I appreciate the chance to share and talk about the new book. LR published some of the first dream poems from this collection, and I can’t thank you all enough for that support.
Dream of the Bird Tattoo started to take shape a little over five years ago when my father passed away and I tried my best to lean into grief. Along with new poems, I revisited dream poems, or sueñitos, that I had been writing for over 20 years. They have been a constant source of inspiration, risk, and learning. The dream poems converged with the newer ones, and I made the decision to work them all into prose poems and the waking world poems appear in verse. This approach helped ground readers. It also helped me finish the book and get through days when I found myself overwhelmed and struggling to write.
LR: Was it difficult to cull poems for such a personal book? More pointedly, did you have trouble making cuts or deciding what should go in or out?
JJM: With each poetry collection, I challenge myself to risk vulnerability and open us in a new way, and this book followed that trend. However, I was so immersed in the grieving process that I did not dwell too much on what I included. I was in the fog of grief while writing most of it. During the revision process, there were places I omitted and pulled back out of respect for other people affected by Pop’s passing. I tried to focus on my own experiences, memories, and efforts to preserve his voice before we lost it for good. When I went through the editorial process, UNM Press and I discussed a handful of poems to cut, but most of them stayed.
LR: Dream of the Bird Tattoo is broken into two unnamed sections. What led you to make that organizational choice?
JJM: Just before I turned in my final edits, the two sections were I and II. I decided to remove the roman numerals to omit a hint of chronology since grief ebbs, flows, and goes in and out of order. I was tempted to have the book appear as one, long section, but I introduced a section break to serve as a hinge for the collection. My intention is to have the first section guiding the reader through the immediate onslaught of grief, and the second represents time lapse and how the growing distance from loss still maintains its weight. And that’s okay if/when it takes longer to heal.
LR: Writing about grief, in my eyes, is not a ubiquitous process. Each writer takes an individualized path. Can you talk about the process of exploring grief through poetry? Was it something that was hard to put into words? Did it come out like a flood?
JJM: My dad passed on Groundhog Day 2019, and then a year later we were entering the Covid era, a time of collective grief we all experienced. Here in Pueblo, Colorado, we were very lucky to be able to get outdoors and find chances to socialize outside and with distance with a pod of friends. Along with therapy, writing, taking up running, and trying to get outdoors more, the grief work was a time of figuring out ways to take better care.
I agree writing grief is not a ubiquitous process. It is chaotic, uncertain, numbing, and helplessly raw. I regularly journal and draft my poems in notebooks people gift me, write them by hand, and then eventually transcribe them. It slows me down, but it also adds layers of reflection and revision. This book accelerated that process with some poems, which led to time when emotions flooded over me. When it proved hard to articulate, I pared back to restrain the voice because readers are smart enough to fill in the gaps. I also worked in dreams and metaphors to help clarify. Like other writers I read during this time, writing about grief affirmed that we are writing to connect and to also remind each other that we are not alone.
I agree writing grief is not a ubiquitous process. It is chaotic, uncertain, numbing, and helplessly raw. I regularly journal and draft my poems in notebooks people gift me, write them by hand, and then eventually transcribe them. It slows me down, but it also adds layers of reflection and revision. This book accelerated that process with some poems, which led to time when emotions flooded over me. When it proved hard to articulate, I pared back to restrain the voice because readers are smart enough to fill in the gaps. I also worked in dreams and metaphors to help clarify. Like other writers I read during this time, writing about grief affirmed that we are writing to connect and to also remind each other that we are not alone.
LR: Was there a particular moment when you decided that these explorations of loss and grief were something that you wanted to share with the outside world?
JJM: My writing has always gravitated toward family stories, slice of life, and narratives. I have tried to use this as my way of building connections while playing the music of our lives. I assumed there would be more time to gather my father’s stories and clarify details, and I took time for granted. This experience has humbled me and asked me to accept the gaps in our stories. Poetry requires us to accept uncertainties, and that hits hard every time it lands. Though family, close friends, and fellow writers encouraged me to write this book, it never felt like a difficult decision. Pop was an outgoing person that used to love talking to strangers in grocery stores and making new friends at restaurants, and this book feels like an extension of how he approached his life.
LR: You describe this book as poems and sueñitos (which I believe translates loosely to “little dreams”). Certainly, dreams are discussed throughout the book. Poems such as “Dream of the Flooded Bathroom,” “Dream of the Mummy,” “The Lighthouse Dream,” “Dream of the Rising Sea,” and even “Nightmare of a Bear.” Can you talk about the role dreams play in this book and how they aid in your understanding and processing of your father’s death?
JJM: As mentioned, I am obsessed with dream transcription and writing. I encourage everyone to keep a dream journal and write down dreams before they fully wake up. It’s a great opportunity to play with exposition, symbolism, compression, clarity, and other writing skills we need to hone. When my father started to visit my dreams, it felt so vivid and true. When I was lucid enough, I tried to make eye contact with him to see if it was really him. It was painful to wake but it was also wonderful to see him. When I asked UNM Press, if we could label the dream poems, sueñitos (little dreams), they didn’t question it. Identifying them as sueñitos was my way of verifying what a strong dream poem and prose poem should do—rely on direct storytelling, the deliberate lack of line breaks to contain the world, and a reminder to restrain all excess language that we usually include when discussing dreams. “And then I woke up” and reminders that the dream “was really weird” go away. What remains are cryptic symbols, personal associations, and an invitation to decipher what it all means. The sueñitos also become an arena where speaking with ghosts can be possible.
LR: Some of my favorite poems (or series of poems, rather) are called “Excerpt from Shit My Puerto Rican Father Said.” After reading these vignettes, which are often short and anecdotal, I feel like I know your father. The one that resonates the most with me is when he wants to mow the grass, but his wife won’t let him, so he settles on watching you do it (and mowing a strip when she is not looking). These small poems are interspersed throughout the book. What made you decide to present these pieces in this way rather than all together as a single piece?
JJM: Thank you. These vignettes were another form of affirmation that encouraged me to finish this book. When I read them out loud, it gave everyone a great sense of my father’s voice and person. The night after his funeral service, the family went through old photos, and we retold a lot of these stories. It also reminds other people of all the fathers, mothers, grandparents, and viejitas that we’ve loved and lost. I also enjoyed writing these because they have a layer of ars poetica to them, coming to representing the writing process since my mom and dad taught me so much about storytelling. Your mention of the mowing poem is a prime example of form and structure at work. Even something as menial as mowing a lot requires technique.
When I ordered the poems, I could not find the right location for all these vignettes together as one. Plus, the book’s early draft was super heavy and too depressing for people to finish. To help the reading experience and to fully honor Pop, I knew the humor had to be live alongside the grief and throughout the book. They became the nudge to keep going and keep trying, whether that be in daily life or writing.
LR: A poem I also love is “My Father Looking at Bruegel’s Landscape with the Fall of Icarus.” In it, the Bruegel painting prompts the father to tell a story from his past about tilling a field with a bull-drawn plow. Can you talk about your intentions in this poem and the subtext behind the painting?
JJM: This happened when I gave a craft talk on poetry, art, and ekphrastic poetry at an art gallery in Colorado Springs. My parents were always supportive and they attended this talk. After the event, my dad asked me to put the Bruegel image back up and told me about the process they used in his younger days in Puerto Rico to plough and prep the land for planting. The way he described the memory of field work dialogued so well with Auden’s poem. It also affirmed how our elders carry so many brushes with history that we are sometimes lucky to get it down.
LR: The poem “Destiny” recounts a brother-in-law’s speech at your father’s funeral. His speech illustrates how mathematically impossible it is for people to come together, to form families, make connections, etc. So, he concludes, it must be destiny. I’m curious: Do you see the brother-in-law’s perspective as contrasting with your own? In this book, you seek meaning out of symbols, dreams, images, moments, language, artifacts, etc. Is it an oversimplification to say that you (and people who read) are simply searching to understand destiny or order?
JJM: My brother-in-law’s speech and experience emotionally destroyed me, and it was one of the first moments I let Pop’s passing really absorb. Experiences like this instruct me to keep looking for synchronicities, symbols, coincidences, signs, or even paranormal incidents that decipher the universe. We want them because they can tell us that it’s working the way it is supposed to be.
With grief, we seek meaning and want to make sense of loss, but we still have to be overtaken. Looking back, there were lots of signs to rationalize that it was my father’s time to go, but that was probably a coping mechanism. It grounds us a little allows us to pursue the grief work we had to do. I love how writing allows us to reflect, analyze, and attempt to assign meaning when life goes beyond comprehension. It’s a challenge to render into words, but when it works as a piece of prose or poetry, we’re all connected and buzzing in mystery.
LR: I think often about genetics and how they connect us to our ancestors. My grandmother, for instance, loved “dirty” jokes. When my brother announced that he had poison ivy all over his private parts, she and I could not stop giggling. You see a similar connection to your father in the poem “Dad Watching Jackass.” Why are these connections important in your mind?
JJM: I remember reading this poem one time, and an audience member was visibly unimpressed. My dad had a gruff exterior and intimidated people, but slapstick humor was one way he showed his lighter side. It opened him up with uncontrollable laughter. This brand of humor also bucks decorum and gives us a moment where we can be immature and just laugh. Sounds like your grandmother practiced this brand of fun too, no? In trying times like these, we need humor, and our elders are always great at surprising us with this lesson even when they’re gone.
LR: A narrative poem in the middle of the book details your experience in talking to a medium about your father. You present much of this poem “in scene,” with similar instincts to a writer of prose. Will you describe your process in crafting this poem and the narrative choices you made?
JJM: “The Medium Speaks of Birds” was one of the last poems I revised and polished for the collection. I struggled to find ways to maintain clarity of the strange events that night while using the skills you prose writers wield so well. One of my hobbies is to visit and stay at haunted places whenever I travel, and this was a ghost hunt in an old abbey about 45 minutes away from Pueblo. My friend and I went to be scared, to play with the ghost hunting equipment, and to have fun. I didn’t expect anything to happen connecting to my deceased father especially since I went in skeptical about the two medium guides.
Once I figured out I could use section breaks to organize the time and space shifts, dialogue, world building, and the poem’s play on the page together to depict the thin veil of that night, the poem started to make sense. Borrowing devices from prose allowed me to highlight the exploration of grief, the paranormal, and the things we do to look for answers without even knowing.
LR: The poem that crushed me (more so than others) appears near the end. It is called “Of Deer, or Los Venados.” Your mother’s yard is visited by a small herd of deer. You hope that the buck in the group is, in fact, your father coming to comfort your mother. What can you tell us about this poem and how the image of the deer spoke to your confrontation of loss?
JJM: This poem was almost cut. I gave it a heavy revision to make sure it could stay and make a lasting impact toward the ending of the book. My dad passed away four months short of my parent’s 40th wedding anniversary. We all kept looking for signs from Pop that he was watching over us after his passing. When my mom told me about the deer coming to her yard, it worked as a sign. It also reminded me that the grief wasn’t only mine, that we were all experiencing it. I also want the poem to remind us that it’s okay to look for our loved ones and speak to them when we really need them. Hopefully, these encounters lead to answer or question we need at that time.
LR: What’s next for you and your poetry? Any new projects coming up?
JJM: I’m slowly writing new poems that are all over the map, but many of them are close-ups of birds, water, travel, and Pueblo, here in southern Colorado. Place-based writing has always been a focus of mine. I’m also continuing the conversation with my father in prose with an essay collection that builds on the humor, wisdom, and history he carried. If you read this poetry book, you can figure out the planned title for the essay collection. The leap from poetry to prose is a challenge I’m excited to undertake. Appreciate the chance to talk with you, Luke. Thanks for all that you do!
LR: Thanks so much for your time, Juan! This is an amazing book, and I look forward to reading many more of your poems in the future. Check out Dream of the Bird Tattoo from University of New Mexico Press: https://www.unmpress.com/9780826367587/dream-of-the-bird-tattoo/