A Conversation with Teja Dupree, Author of "La Femme"

JC: I remember you saying the original title for your chapbook was Delta Venus. What made you change it to La Femme?

TD: I was originally going to name my chapbook Delta Venus because that was my favorite poem at the time. I felt like it encompassed what I was trying to express in the whole chapbook because I was focused on femininity. But then I wrote “La Femme.” Dora talked about how cool it was that the narrator was both a participant and an avid observer, which feels more like who I am and is a more honest depiction of my life right now. La Femme still

references femininity and hints at what’s happening throughout the rest of the poems.

JC: Each copy of your chapbook has a different-colored cover, which is interesting because my bright pink version feels different from the deep red and light blue versions. Yet what’s consistent across all of them is the beautiful and simple shell design. Why did you choose that image?

TD: The shell image was inspired by “Delta Venus.” I planned the entire cover with the assumption that the chapbook title was going to be titled Delta Venus, but I changed the title two days before we had to submit our polymer plate designs to Boxcar Press. I kept the image of the shell as a way to allude to Venus on the cover still. It also feels feminine to me, in a subtle way.

JC: We both have fifteen poems in our chapbooks! What was your thought-process regarding the selection and order of your poems?

TD: Most of the poems in La Femme were written this semester for our class. Many were written under my impression that my chapbook was going to be about femininity, so “Explaining Periods to My Younger Cousin,” “La Femme,” and others were inspired by that theme. Only four poems are from previous semesters, five if you count “Near-Touching,” which I revised from its original version.

JC: That’s really impressive!

TD: Yeah, it is because I don’t write that much poetry! It takes me a really long time. In terms of ordering the chapbook, the ordering exercise we did in class was helpful. I paid attention to the pairings people put together and there was a lot of overlap regarding the poems people were putting next to each other. When it came to the nitty-gritty details, I bookmarked each poem with other poems I thought would transition nicely. I looked at the first lines and last lines of poems if I couldn’t group them by theme. I didn’t notice a lot of the connections people mentioned in class. With “La Femme” and “Delta Venus” in particular, I think Renee said they both seemed to have a dominating, suspicious male presence in them, which is why I put them next to each other.

JC: What other poems do you see as pairs in your chapbook?

TD: “Two Friends” and “Melodrama” are also right next to each other towards the end. Both are about disassociation. “Mother” and “Explaining Periods to My Younger Cousin” go together because they’re both about family.

JC: How did you choose “AM & BE” as your closing poem?

TD: I wrote “Two Friends” and “Melodrama” thinking those would be the last two poems in my chapbook. But when I started writing “AM & BE,” I put a lot of emphasis on the first line, “What made you think she was more than a friend?” because my roommate and other Writing Seminars friends have told me recently that my poems are very erotic, even though I don’t intend them to be. “AM & BE” is clarifying that the other poems I’ve written are about friends. They’re not really romantic relationships, though readers may think so as they’re going through my chapbook. I want to make them think about why they believe these relationships are more than friendships.

JC: Do you always capitalize the titles of your poems?

TD: I capitalized “AM & BE” because Dora said they looked like initials. I did it for the others because I liked the way it looked.

JC: How would you describe your chapbook in terms of theme and poetic style?

TD: I really don’t have a poetic style. I guess it’s sensual and focuses on friendships, but I don’t follow forms. I used to have a specific style when I was younger. I was, and still am, really inspired by Mary Oliver. The last poem I wrote for my chapbook, “Sunflowers,” is imitating a form she invented. I finished it the day before I had to print the chapbook! When I’m stuck, I’ll read her.

JC: Even though you don’t typically write using traditional poetic forms, to what extent do meter and/or rhyme influence your poetry?

TD: Not really! This is such a disappointing answer!

JC: I think it’s a freeing answer! I sometimes feel trapped by meter and rhyme.

TD: I occasionally try to write lines that are about the same length in terms of syllable count, but I don’t pay attention to meter really. “Sunflowers” is my most ‘formal’ poem because it’s based off a Mary Oliver style.

JC: Some of my favorite poems in your collection are “Alabama Witch Tree” and “Explaining Periods to My Younger Cousin.” Both are poems you wrote this semester. Were they inspired by the trajectory/theme of poems you already decided to include? If so, in what way?

TD: I decided on the theme for the chapbook around the time we were submitting our applications for the class. This semester I was focused on writing about femininity and the different relationships between women, but I also wanted to mention things that were prominent in female lives, as well as my own memories. I wrote “Explaining Periods to My Younger Cousin” when my roommate and I were complaining about periods. I went to her and said, “Hey, how would you describe your period?” and she thought it was super weird! I guess that poem is dedicated to my roommate. I didn’t change my first draft of “Alabama Witch Tree” because you guys liked it! It’s a true story about when I was really young in Alabama, was very gullible, and had a crazy imagination. I honestly believed there were people trapped in trees and I thought I found one. For the chapbook as a whole, I looked at the poems I had and made a list of subjects and poems I wanted to add. Periods was one, the relationship between two friends was another, and so was writing a poem about strangers.

JC: You evoke striking images of human bodies in poems that also explore abstract and complicated relationships. How do you find that balance? I’m thinking of how the lovers in “Near-Touching” stretch their limbs to touch each other, but “never met.” They embody their own disconnect.

TD: When it comes to metaphors, I won’t realize the things I’ve done until I’ve read it back or someone’s pointed it out to me in class. If I like it, I’ll write towards it.

JC: The line breaks in your poems “Fig and Brie Sandwiches” and “Sunflowers” give those poems such unique shapes on the page. What inspired those decisions?

TD: “Sunflowers” is written in a form Mary Oliver created! I don’t really get it and I’ve never seen it before, but she does it all the time. “Sunflowers” isn’t actually complete yet. I wrote it so late, I think I wrote six, four-line stanzas even though Mary Oliver’s versions have nine, four-line stanzas! I had the poem’s last line from the very start. I don’t always write my poems in linear order, so I had to find a beginning and write towards it. I got to the end of the sixth stanza, but couldn’t get to the ninth. It’s ‘to be continued’ for my next project. I wrote “Fig and Brie Sandwiches” on paper as a prose poem. But I wanted it to have line breaks, so I broke it up, didn’t like how it looked on the page, and then tried to make it more aesthetically pleasing.

JC: Are there any poems that you struggled with in the editing process?

TD: “Sunflowers,” because I still have to finish it! “Dolly” was hard. I wrote “(You)” my sophomore year and my professor gave me an A for it. When I read it back for this class, I sent it to my roommates and was like… “What the heck am I doing in this poem?” because there’s a rhyme scheme, but it’s gone by the end of the poem. In the end, I just left it and didn’t change anything.

JC: Which is your favorite poem in your chapbook?

TD: I have a soft-spot for “Delta Venus.” I wrote it pretty quickly and I’ve read it so many times, I was worried during our Tudor and Stuart reading that I would start reading “Delta Venus” instead of La Femme first because I have it memorized! “Sunflowers” resembles how and what I used to write.

JC: Before this Creating the Poetry Chapbook class, we were in two fiction classes together. I think your short stories are so original and wonderful. Do you prefer one genre over the other?

TD: I say I do both fiction and poetry, but I think I was always a poet and will always be a poet. Even when I write fiction, it’s sort of poetry. Every single workshop I’m in, someone says my story is “so dreamy.” I’m definitely a poet, but I still like fiction.

JC: What’s next for you and your poetry? Are you interested in any new or specific topics?

TD: I think I’ll always unintentionally write about femininity because I grew up in a basically all-female household and I have a lot of female friends. But I’m excited to maybe write a tribute to Mary Oliver. For my birthday, I received her most recent collection (Devotions)! It’d be nice to go back to writing about nature because I used to love that so much.

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Teja Dupree will graduate from Johns Hopkins University with a Bachelor of Arts in Writing Seminars in 2019. She is the author of La Femme (2018).

Josephine Chun received her Bachelor of Arts in Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University. Born and raised in New York City, she currently resides in Queens, NY. She is an incoming analyst at Kobre & Kim, LLP and a proud supporter of her local public library.