This Strange and Wonderful Existence by Bethany Jarmul
Bottlecap Features, 2023
Elliott Lay: Many of your pieces blur the lines between fantasy and reality. A few examples that come to mind are the hundred-year flood (and the people who deny it) and the speaker finding the bird with her child’s nose. What inspired you to incorporate magical realism in this chapbook? And what is its thematic significance?
Bethany Jarmul: When I write, I allow myself to be open to all possibilities, allow my mind to wander wherever it wants to go. That’s where my mind took me when I was writing these pieces.
Fabulist or surreal elements can surprise the reader in a way that makes them pay attention to what’s going on, and hopefully make metaphorical connections between the “magic” and its possible meanings or implications.
I’m interested in the speaker’s toddler son in “Wonder,” which contrasts the speaker’s recurring angst with her son’s wonder. Could you say more about the tension between wonder and angst in the chapbook?
I think every parent of young children experiences both joy and angst in raising them. Parenting is the hardest, most life-changing, yet rewarding thing I’ve ever done. Much of this chapbook was written to wrestle with the chaos, the frustrations, the joys involved in parenting.
Sometimes our children teach us something. Sometimes we see ourselves in our children, or see a version of ourselves that we want to be, or a childlikeness we want to return to.
Is “If My Toddler is a Hummingbird, Then Maybe I Am Too” a sequel or a revision to “Maybe My Toddler is Neurodivergent and Maybe I Am Too”? What sparked this continuation? And how does this version better fit the themes and structure of your chapbook?
It’s a revision, prompted by feedback I received from a critique partner. Honestly, I’m not sure that it fits better or that it is better. I think both versions have strengths and weaknesses. The idea behind the change to the hummingbird was to leave the meaning up to interpretation instead of telling the reader what it was about.
Reading your previously published piece made me consider how questions and conversations about neurodivergence thread through the chapbook. How does the speaker’s fear and wonder at her son’s neurodivergence reflect broader themes of fear and wonder in the whole chapbook?
I’m not sure he is neurodivergent, which is why the title included the word “maybe.” I think the chapbook has more to do with the fear and wonder of parenthood and of life in general than it does specifically speak to neurodivergence. But perhaps you’ve uncovered a theme that I wasn’t aware of when I was writing it. That’s the beauty of writing something and putting it out there in the world. Readers gets to interpret and participate in the work as they read it.
There are so many birds! On the cover and everything. What inspired this? And how do birds connect to the fear and wonder?
Poets famously write about birds, almost as often as the moon. I’ve always lived in places where encountering songbirds was a regular part of my life, and I enjoy visiting the National Aviary in Pittsburgh, seeing all the birds of various sizes and colors and personalities. I didn’t plan to write this many pieces that incorporate birds. It was a happy accident. Birds represent both fear and wonder to me.
The speaker and her relationship with her body and the bodies of others seems important in the chapbook. Could you discuss its exploration of the beauties and complications of corporeal, somatic existence?
Great observation. I believe that humans are mind, body, soul, and spirit—and that all parts are equally important and designed by the Creator. But getting that belief from my head to my heart is a struggle for me. I think because I’m an emotional and intellectual person, I tend to value the soul, spirit, and mind more than the body.
As someone who has been overweight my entire adult life, struggled with infertility due to a medical condition, and was recently diagnosed with a lifelong autoimmune disorder (ulcerative colitis), I often don’t feel proud of my body. I sometimes feel trapped by my body or trapped inside my body. However, I am thankful for what my body is able to do and the children that I was, ultimately, able to carry. I’m learning to appreciate my body for what it is instead of comparing it against some cultural idea of what it should be.
I’m interested in the significance of the division of your chapbook into two parts. I sensed there was a shift from exteriority to interiority, from the exploration of relationships to an exploration of self. Is this an accurate reading? What are other reasons for the division of the chapbook?
That’s an accurate reading, yes. In my mind, the division was between “parenthood” and “self”—but I like the way you worded it better. I’m not sure if the division is necessary for readers, but it was helpful for me when I was trying to put together all these disparate pieces.
The tension between Nature and Civilization seems important in your chapbook. And I sense this is operating on multiple levels. Could you talk about how you’re inviting us to think about the wild and civilized parts of ourselves? How are the speaker’s relationships with these parts of herself reflective of the questions you’re asking?
Those are great questions. I’m not sure I know the answers to them, but I’ll try. I think this chapbook includes many poems where I was trying to work through something about myself—wrestling with my past, my fears, my beliefs about myself and the world. Readers are welcome to come along with me on the journey or take that journey for themselves, if they’d like.
The speaker seems to express angst for both Nature and Civilization in some pieces but praises them in others. Were you thinking about Nature and Civilization when you chose pieces for the chapbook, or fear and wonder, or something else?
Nature is a common theme in my work. So common, I don’t often think about it, really.
As this is my first chapbook, the process of putting it together was trial and error. I had all these wonderful prose poems that seemed to touch on similar themes. Was there a way to put them together into a cohesive collection? I wasn’t sure, but it was worth a try. The themes of fear and wonder emerged organically as I was trying to see how all these little puzzle pieces fit together.
I want to end with a question about genre. You classify your pieces as poems. What makes these pieces poems rather than flash fiction? What makes these distinctly poetic for you?
I’m not at all bothered by you (or anyone) calling them flash fiction or micro fiction. Much of my work borders between prose poem and flash fiction or flash CNF. My intention when I wrote these pieces was to write prose poems in the vein of surrealist prose poets like Russell Edson, and the amazing poet Jose Hernandez Diaz, who was kind enough to blurb my chapbook.
I agree with you that the works in this chapbook could also be considered fiction. I tend to write narrative poems that have at least a bit of a plot. Prose poems don’t have to have plot, but they sometimes do.
Another reason I chose to categorize this chapbook as poetry is that I intended to include a few of them as part of my full-length poetry collection, Lightning is a Mother, which is forthcoming in 2025 from ELJ Editions. That collection includes poetry of many different forms, not just prose poems.
–
Bethany Jarmul is an Appalachian writer and poet. She’s the author This Strange and Wonderful Existence (poetry chapbook, Bottlecap Press, 2023), Take Me Home (nonfiction chapbook, Belle Point Press, 2024), and Lightning is a Mother (poetry collection, ELJ Editions, forthcoming 2025). Her writing was selected for Best Spiritual Literature 2023 and nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, Best Small Fictions, Best Microfiction, and Wigleaf Top 50. Connect with her @BethanyJarmul.
Elliott Lay is an English teacher and Appalachian writer whose work has appeared in Duck Duck Mongoose and Speaking of Marvels. Elliott lives in Caryville, TN.