Kim Dower, I WORE THIS DRESS TODAY FOR YOU, MOM
[0:02]Hi, I'm Zivi Owens, the creator and host of the award-winning podcast that you're listening to right now
[0:07]Thank you so much. Called moms. Don't have time to read books
[0:10]It is a daily podcast
[0:12]365 days a year and each day we talk to an author about all of the things related to their career
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[0:29]A memoir of love loss and literature wherever books are sold starting July 1st and my children's book princess charming
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[0:39]But really you're here to learn more about the authors and that is what we're going to do
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[0:54]Kim Dower is the author of I wore this dress today for you mom
[1:02]She is the author of five highly acclaimed collections of poetry
[1:05]Dowers poems have been featured on Garrison Keelers the writer's almanac and tech coosers American life and poetry as well as in many journals and anthologies
[1:13]She was city poet Laureate of West Hollywood from 2016 to 2018 and teaches poetry workshops for Antioch University
[1:20]UCLA extension West Hollywood library and the Hollywood LGBT senior center
[1:26]Welcome, Kim. Thank you so much for coming. I'd love to have time to read books to discuss your view
[1:31]Beautiful poetry collection. I wore this dress today for you mom. It is wonderful to be here
[1:37]I'm a big fan of years that be and I'm thrilled that you want to talk about my my poetry
[1:43]Thank you. It's it's really beautiful and it may be so sad
[1:47]Honestly like it invoked so much emotion as I watched your mother
[1:52]Well, I watched you grapple with your mother's dementia, but then the aftermath of her loss and I don't know this the one moment
[1:59]Where you're talking to the they're you're thinking about what you've done with the lab tech and you're saying like what did I do this weekend?
[2:05]Like and it's just sort of like the loneliness of loss the aftermath of that and
[2:11]Your son being grown up. I don't know. It just may be sad for you
[2:14]I just like wanted to give you a hug and be like oh my gosh. Anyway
[2:18]Well, you know, thank you
[2:22]Happy to have the hug, but you know a lot a lot of a lot of these poems are absolutely come from from the truth
[2:29]A lot are embellished you know because their poetry like fiction
[2:33]It's not all autobiographical, but they do elicit feelings and emotions a lot of people have told me
[2:41]Oh, that that was my situation with my mother, you know, but also a lot of the poems are funny in the book
[2:48]You know, I think that's true, too. Sorry. I said yes
[2:50]I should have said they are multi-dimensional, but yes
[2:53]You know so because I for whatever reason I do find humor in the very same
[2:59]Badest places and there was a lot of humor with my mother's bailing
[3:04]She would have thought it was funny, too. I mean that was you know
[3:07]We're New Yorkers and I there's a lot of New York and these poems and even though I've been in Los Angeles for 40 years
[3:14]My roots are growing up right there on the Upper West side and
[3:18]People make fun of everything
[3:21]But I like tell you
[3:23]Hey, you had the poem about my mother's a lot of mothers or gardeners
[3:26]But like you learn how to take cab because that's I know like you learn how to buy a hostess gift and your mom is the New York City mom
[3:32]So there you go right right right right and you know
[3:35]If the the book is a lot about different kinds of mothers on the mothering that we had what we wished we'd had and
[3:42]You know one of the poems in the book as you talk about is called different mothers and mine didn't know about things
[3:48]You know, I had friends who grew up in the country who grew up in Connecticut or they when I moved out here and
[3:53]They had adventures, you know in the wilderness with their mothers my mother, you know the wilderness was
[4:00]Like getting the bus on Madison Avenue, you know
[4:03]And you think oh, God, I wish I'd had that kind of mother
[4:08]But really it was fine to have a city mom. Oh good because I have a city mom so
[4:15]I read this poem. I wanted to read a couple of them. That's okay. Yes, please okay different mothers
[4:20]I've read about the ones who garden teach their daughters to cut a rose just above the thorns
[4:24]So a fresh bud will pop up like toast and time for breakfast
[4:28]These different mothers show their daughters how to plant tomato seeds in the damp earth
[4:32]Tingle with the first green fruit appears and when they explode into deep red pick them off the vine slice them in their sunny kitchens
[4:40]These are mothers whose daughters learn through smells of lakes weeds pastry dough have memories of lightning bugs and jars
[4:47]Mothers have poked holes into
[4:49]These are different mothers. I am not one my mother didn't know about soil or earthworms city mothers
[4:56]We know about bus routes restaurants Broadway. The people on the eighth floor
[5:00]Mine taught me to accessorize bring the ideal host is gift to have my keys in hand when I enter the building
[5:06]I have no daughter
[5:07]But my son could look anyone in the eye tell them what he's thinking
[5:10]We need tomatoes from the grocery our roses are store bought different mothers sound better
[5:15]And I think about what might have been calling to the birds naming the stars fingers locked together while hiking on hidden trails
[5:22]Cleaning home grown mint before placing it in tea before bed. I'll flag a cab instead
[5:30]I love so many of these. Oh my gosh, this letter to your son
[5:34]I won't read the whole thing you wrote a letter to your son because of measurements in your family about what you'd want to say to him
[5:40]Tell me about that. I mean was this emotional to write?
[5:42]I feel like I know it was sort of funny when you're like you don't have to visit me and like just deal me ahead of blackjack
[5:47]But like seriously, what was that like putting yourself in in his shoes after that's one of those poems
[5:53]It's a prose poem which means there's no line breaks
[5:56]It's just a block of of prose and that is one of the poems in the book that is very autobiographical and
[6:03]When I was going through dealing with my mother and her dementia
[6:07]I just I came into my office one day after visiting her and
[6:12]I literally
[6:14]Set down and wrote a letter to my son and I wasn't necessarily thinking of it as being a poem
[6:20]But it was just letting him know look if this happens to me
[6:24]And I don't know that it will this is what I'd like you to know and remember and
[6:28]It was very emotional and I put it away and as a matter of fact about a month later
[6:33]I looked at it
[6:34]I'll put my poems away and revisit a month later. That's sort of the litmus test
[6:39]Is it a keeper or what and I will say that the poem made me cry?
[6:44]I didn't really remember reading it. It's one of those things that came through me
[6:49]You're like and Sexton would say the poems came through her from God and I don't have the god element, but I feel that
[7:00]That feeling sometimes where I don't know where it's coming from and
[7:04]It made me very sad to read the poem, but it is one of the poems that people point out the most
[7:11]It moves them and that's a good thing. It is a good thing and it's a good idea
[7:15]I mean, I know it's it's written from a place of emotion, but it's still
[7:20]I mean, that's gonna be stupid if it would that happens that that would be such a comfort
[7:24]Like I would love that if I found something like that from a parent
[7:28]So I don't know if that was great. I also love this one about the couple next door
[7:33]Who are both on me? Can I read that one? Yeah? The couple next door
[7:38]The couple next door reads all day long
[7:39]I can see them from our adjoining hotel patios high above the sea
[7:43]The couple next door sits at a round white plastic table on hard chairs
[7:47]Their books touching as they turn their pages at the same time. I listen for any sounds they might make soft cough
[7:53]sigh of joy, but I hear nothing except for southbound traffic on the pacific coast highway
[7:57]Justed waves boarding sounds of housekeepers cleaning the grounds below our deck
[8:02]The band's book looks fat. I can see him thick glasses brand new cap staring intently into the page
[8:08]I never see him smile, so I know the book is not funny. I never see him shake his head
[8:12]So I know the book does not confuse him, but he suddenly lifts his head looks out at the ocean
[8:18]puts his hand over his mouth
[8:20]The woman looks content like her book understands her. It's about something she knows too well
[8:25]Bringing up children watching them grow saying goodbye
[8:29]I brought books too, but prefer watching them
[8:32]Wonder how they arrived at this place where reading in silence carries them through the day
[8:38]That's really beautiful
[8:40]It's you know, it's like a love letter to marriage, but also to to books and like
[8:46]You know how you could be alone together and still
[8:50]Yeah, that intimacy that reading provides tell you tell you about that. That that will never have a city at home
[8:55]I mean that is I would used to go to I live out here in Los Angeles and there's a beach town called Laguna Beach
[9:03]About 90 minutes south of here and I would go every summer for a couple of weeks by myself
[9:10]and get this this room
[9:12]With a deck and and I would write I would just write
[9:16]But oftentimes I would just watch I'd watch the surfers below
[9:21]I'd watch the waves and we had an adjoining deck and I would watch this couple
[9:27]They never moved
[9:30]And I just thought wow that's very lovely
[9:35]And oftentimes I start a poem. I don't know where it's going. I don't know how it's going to end
[9:40]I don't know what's going to happen in it. So I just wrote the title the couple next door and
[9:48]That's what happened with this poem
[9:50]You know, so yeah, they were something
[9:54]And then even with your mom who keeps getting mail and wanting to call your mom with a flight lens
[10:00]Oh my gosh, each poem is just it's own little moment.
[10:04]It's little glimpse into every day scenes that are somehow different
[10:09]because of who is absent and the meaning of that it views.
[10:13]It's just it's really beautiful the way you did that.
[10:16]I feel like she would be so happy.
[10:17]I think she would be really happy.
[10:19]And you know, I'll also say that she would also think some of these are funny.
[10:24]And I would read one of you if you would like, but it's a poem that I end
[10:29]my readings with because people do get a little sad.
[10:33]And I want to say, you know, there's humor in the book too.
[10:37]And one of the things that we all will recognize is how we get irritated with
[10:41]our mothers. I mean, that's just the way it is.
[10:44]You have these conversations and it's like, oh, mom, are you still talking?
[10:47]And you know, of course mine hasn't talked in 10 years because she's been dead
[10:52]for 10 years. But I hear her voice a lot.
[10:55]And she was one of those sort of critical people
[10:58]where you have a conversation and the person would walk away and she'd say,
[11:02]oh, why doesn't she wear more makeup or she wears too much makeup?
[11:08]And I think, oh, God, mom, why do you have to.
[11:11]But now that she's gone, I think I agree with a lot of what she
[11:18]so I thought about my mother. We have conversations now because that's what happens when
[11:23]people pass. You still are connected. So I'll read a poem called
[11:27]My Mother Bakes Sugar Cookies. All right. So My Mother Bakes Sugar Cookies in Heaven,
[11:33]which is funny because she never baked here on Earth. They have you doing that first thing
[11:40]she told me. They have you baking right away. So you'll feel useful.
[11:45]We deliver the cookies to children who've passed. The people in charge of Heaven
[11:50]sounds so thoughtful. I tell her, well, they're angels. But not like you to imagine.
[11:58]Sure, they wear white, have wings, smile, sweetly. But they all talk way too much and their
[12:06]asses are huge. So I love it. That's for my mother, on Mother's Day. Oh, it's really beautiful.
[12:16]So Kim, we met through your work as a publicist. And I would always get emails from
[12:22]Kim from L.A. And who's Kim from L.A. Does she have a last day? What's the deal here?
[12:27]And then we had such a day's time getting together in person into such a rarity in this
[12:31]world we're living in. What is the backstory? How did you go when did the writing intersect
[12:37]with the publicity jobs? I knew you were doing this for a long time, but you're like a total pro.
[12:42]Have you always been writing these poems on the side? Any other genres?
[12:46]Yeah. So I started, you know, when I was a little girl, like so many of us, I would write in my
[12:51]journals and I would write little poems and I was always writing. And so many of us. So that was that.
[12:59]And then when I went to college, it became very serious. I was lucky,
[13:03]write time, write plays. I went to Emerson College in the 70s with phenomenal teachers who were
[13:11]just teachers then and became famous poets. Thomas Lux, for example, was my very first
[13:17]teacher. And we were serious. And I was serious. And when I graduated, I taught creative writing at
[13:23]Emerson, Introduction to Creative Writing. And I looked at it. But honestly, it was Boston,
[13:29]it was the late 70s, it was cold. Female poets were just killing themselves. I mean, literally,
[13:35]it was, it was a different time, very different time. And I didn't want to be absorbed in that
[13:42]world. Frankly, I wanted to move to Los Angeles. But ever, I didn't want to go back to New York.
[13:49]I had family out here. And I came out and it was great. And it was fun. And I had jobs here and
[13:55]there, but landed on a job as a publicist for a very small publisher, Jeremy Tartcher, who
[14:03]has also passed. But in those days, you did all the new age. It was really ahead of this time.
[14:08]Women who loved too much was one of his books, drawing on the right side of the brain. And I thought,
[14:13]wow, you could get a job. There's a job of just like picking up the phone and talking people
[14:21]into reading a book. No, you know, no computers back then. But I could read a book and then get
[14:28]people to get excited about it, write press releases. It was my dream job. And I got the job.
[14:36]I stopped running poetry. I started my own company, came from LA 35 years ago, got married, had a
[14:44]baby, and basically stopped writing seriously for about 20 years, poetry. But, you know, Zippy,
[14:51]it was like there was something deeply missing. There was something always missing. And I had
[14:56]little notes in pads and pockets, which I found years later. I used to Sunday on Tyrone Power's
[15:03]grave at Hollywood Forever Cemetery, big slab of marble. And, and I wrote Sunday on Tyrone
[15:10]Power's grave. And I found it that note in a pocket years later. And I titled my book before this
[15:16]one. So it was always going on. But when my son went to college, as will happen to so many of us,
[15:24]there was that big gap and a sadness and missing. And then the poem started coming back,
[15:31]flooded with poems. And I went to a writing workshop every morning. I went all over the country to
[15:40]workshops. I became very serious. And five books in 13 years. Yeah. And I'll tell you, the writing
[15:51]poetry informs my publicity business. They really go hand in hand. I understand my authors. I
[16:00]know what they're going through because I've gone through and I've been to the bookstore. And the
[16:04]books didn't arrive. Or there were two people and both of them were homeless. And they were just there
[16:10]because it was warm inside. You know, I've been through all of it. And I also know what they want
[16:17]and what they need. So it's finally come together in a nice way. That's wonderful. That's really
[16:24]great. Are you working at your next collection already? Well, yeah, I write almost every day. And so
[16:30]the poems pile up. I have a folder on my computer called poems in play. And I just put them in there.
[16:38]And when this is over because I still have some cities I'm going to and readings. When this dies
[16:43]down, as you know, it's very exhausting. It's stimulating, but it also drains you. So you're excited
[16:52]and stimulated and drained all at the same time. It's a lot to unravel. And when you finally get home,
[16:59]it takes about a month to feel normal again. And at that point, I'm going to print out everything that's
[17:07]in my poems and play folder and see what's in there. No, be something. That's amazing. What poets
[17:17]do you read or what do you love to read? Oh, there's so many poets that I love. There's the old
[17:23]dead poets that inspired me at the beginning. I'm a huge William Carlos Williams fan. So much
[17:30]depends upon a red wheelbarrow glazed with rainwater beside the white chickens. And what that poem
[17:36]means is just to be able to see things and report on what you see. No ideas, but in things.
[17:43]But I'm also madly in love with Franco Hera and the whole New York school of poetry.
[17:48]And then the day lady died and Franco Hera would say a poem is like a phone call. That's what it
[17:55]should be like, a quick phone call. And I love his poems that New York. And I love Thomas Lex's poems
[18:02]and the surrealists. And and then all the poems alive and writing today share an old Kim at Anizio
[18:11]Ellen Bass. I mean, these women are amazing. And I teach them all the time. And Maya Angelou and
[18:19]there's just so so many so many, you know, people will say on a lot of these interviews, you know,
[18:26]I don't like poetry. I never really liked it, but your poems are so accessible. And I think
[18:33]wow, that's a shame because so many poems are accessible. And, you know, for for us to say we don't
[18:40]like poetry is to say we don't like food, you know, there's something for everyone. And I hope to open
[18:48]that door for people. If you read my poems and connect and find the accessible, find other poets
[18:54]because they're out there. It's just another way of organizing the words. Right. The story could be
[19:01]it's beautifully written sentences organized in an artful way. But you could take the words,
[19:08]you could make it short little essays or you could call them something else. I mean, it's a lot
[19:13]about the form. Right. It is exactly right. It's a lot about form and poetry is, you know, as
[19:20]T. S. Eliot says, the most concise form of language. So you do have to chop away, keep it really
[19:28]concise. Every word has to have meaning and prose, you get to, you know, poetry is like dancing,
[19:35]prose is walking. And the but the story is there. The connection is there. And you could read
[19:42]a poem a day like a vitamin and just feel just feel infused with a connection or feeling or an
[19:49]emotion. And that's an exciting thing. That is an exciting thing. Yeah. Each one is like a little
[19:55]gift. Right. It's like a little offering. They should really give you
[20:00]It's just like slide you a poem with your bill.
[20:02]You know what?
[20:03]You could always like see it at a restaurant.
[20:05]I was like, you just take it with you and like,
[20:07]how nice would that be?
[20:08]If I had a restaurant, that's what I do.
[20:10]And I'll listen, you know,
[20:11]the poetry society in America does a book
[20:13]every year called poem a day.
[20:15]And if you belong, you get a book
[20:18]and you can tear the poems out.
[20:21]And I would often do on Thanksgiving and other holidays.
[20:25]I'd make my poor family.
[20:27]I think they like it now,
[20:28]but everyone would have a poem in front of their plate
[20:32]and they would have to read it.
[20:34]I would order it, you know, read it aloud.
[20:37]And at first it's like, oh, mom, yeah.
[20:40]And then everyone likes doing that
[20:42]because you read the poem in it
[20:44]and you literally are flooded with feeling.
[20:49]And we would talk about the poem.
[20:51]So I love the idea of a poem a day
[20:53]and handing people a poem.
[20:55]That's great.
[20:57]That's nice.
[20:58]I like it.
[20:59]Kim, this is so lovely.
[21:00]I wore this dress today for you, mom.
[21:02]How else can people find you?
[21:05]Where should people find you as your website?
[21:07]What can they do to track you down?
[21:10]Well, I have a website like we all do.
[21:12]W-W-W-W-W-Kimdowerpoetry.com.
[21:16]There's the website.
[21:17]There's poems from other books.
[21:20]There's way too much stuff on that website.
[21:22]Yeah.
[21:23]Like, oh boy.
[21:25]But it's all there.
[21:27]And of course, this book should be available
[21:29]in all the great independent bookstores.
[21:32]If it's not, they'll order it.
[21:33]I'm a big indie bookstore fan.
[21:36]But for those of us who like to push buttons,
[21:41]it's right there on Amazon.
[21:43]I wore this dress today for you, mom.
[21:45]I love to hear from people also.
[21:47]So through my website, there's an email
[21:50]and tell me what you think.
[21:52]You know, I heard from a second grade teacher
[21:55]who read my poem, bottled water to her class in the Midwest.
[21:58]And they were all arguing about,
[22:01]is it a funny poem or a sad poem?
[22:04]And what kind of bottled water do they drink?
[22:06]And when I got that, I just thought, thank you.
[22:11]Nothing else matters, but this correspondence, no?
[22:15]That's beautiful.
[22:17]Well, Kim, thank you so much.
[22:18]Thank you for the poetry.
[22:20]I'm gonna give this to my mom, I'd better say, actually.
[22:22]Just so, thank you for that too.
[22:24]And, well, thank you.
[22:27]Thank you for everything you do for books and writers,
[22:29]which is a lot.
[22:31]It's my pleasure, seriously.
[22:33]It really is.
[22:34]All right, well, thank you.
[22:35]And I'll have to see you soon.
[22:37]Take care.
[22:38]Bye, bye, Kim, thank you.
[22:41]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time
[22:44]to Read Books.
[22:45]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at zebi Owens
[22:48]and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[22:50]Also sign up for my newsletter at zebiowans.com
[22:52]and sign up for my virtual book club
[22:54]and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week.
[22:57]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan,
[22:58]in fact, Texture Sound for the Sound Editing.
[23:01]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions
[23:02]for providing this fantastic intro and outro music.