Why Bother Re-Printing Published Work?

When I read the call for The Elpis Letters from Kayla King, my thoughts turned to my adopted sister, Tina. If you’ve read my poem “I wanted to be your wall,” (earlier versions published as stand-alones and an extended version in Tangled by Blood, my memoir-in-verse), you already know Tina and you’re already familiar with this poem.

What you might not know is that when I first wrote this poem, it wasn’t a poem.

It was an essay.

And it wasn’t written from the POV of Tina.

It was written from the POV of my bedroom walls.

It opened like this: “Pale blue like a time somewhere before sunrise, they drip with tears. ‘Did you notice your sister’s sacrifice?’ they ask.”

When I revised this work, I switched the POV to third person and fictionalized my childhood trauma. I couldn’t capture the “story” this way either. Perhaps because it was still too far removed.

Perhaps because it felt like someone else’s story.

Poetry became my key, allowing access to my difficult experiences and, after studying with Brian Turner, Lee Herrick, Laura Wetherington, Gailmarie Pahmeier, and Patricia Smith at the University of Nevada, Reno during my second MFA, I found my way into my history, into my body-story, into my heart.

“I wanted to be your wall,” turned into an offering of agency and autonomy for Tina, for me, for other victims of childhood sexual trauma. The poem granted Tina a voice, me my voice, and, it is my hope that it gifts a voice to those who’ve been silenced far too long.

Why bother sending this poem for a re-print in an anthology once it has already entered the world?

Why bother reprinting any piece of writing?

I’m not comparing myself to anyone as gifted and brave as Ilyse Kunitz or Brian Turner, consider this only an example. We—Ashley Kunsa and Shaneen Harris and myelf—the editors of When There Are Nine (Moon Tide Press, 2022), opted to re-print (with permission) Brian Turner’s, “Milh” and Ilyse Kusnetz’s “Harbinger.” In doing so, we curated collected poems and created a conversation. Both Brian’s and Ilyse’s poems continue to live on and in a new way within this anthology.

Every time a poem is set or read alongside another body of work, including music and visual art, it shifts, altering the way we observe and absorb the words. It transforms how the poem enters the world and our hearts.

Offering “I wanted to be your wall” as a letter—an opportunity to share space with many other difficult and beautiful letters—changes the way the poem reads and feels. It also keeps the conversation going—the #metoo, #survivor, #childhoodabuse, and more.

So, even if you’ve read my poem a hundred times or once, I hope you’ll gather a few quarters, order The Elpis Letters, sip a cup of tea or glass of wine, nibble from a platter of cheese and olives, and read and re-read the letters within the pages of this gorgeous anthology.