Morrison Avenue

Alia Hamada Forrest

It’s dahlia season, and flower constellations

stitch along sidewalks in front yards.

We walked five miles to buy fancy mushrooms.

We painted each other’s portrait,

You lime green and daisy,

me, burnt orange and blue sky.

We loved interrupting each other,

chiming in with a me too or a song.

I remember lying about being happy,

lying in the field with you, discovering

the end of our world, or the beginning –

asking, why isn’t anyone outside today?

Look at the empty lawns,

decks and porch furniture —

how underutilized they are.

How underutilized are we?

A bush with tiny peppers —

we plucked them from our neighbor’s side yard —

and the green tomatoes

they never noticed were gone.

What could be thrown out or overlooked,

we fried and spiced and salted.

I do not want to forget myself,

though I’ve changed several times since then.

I do not want to forget you,

and the way we weaved

into each other’s lives,

I can still feel the sun from that day

like a concert t-shirt at the bottom of my drawer

or a quilt I’d never throw out.

Interview by C. VanWinkle

February 2, 2022

Will you please tell me what you responded to?

I responded to a beautiful quilt. I think. It was a blanket or a quilt; I wasn't quite sure. I'm not a quilter, so I’m not familiar with knitting or quilting, but it was a beautiful blanket with bright colors and little mushrooms and words stitched into it.

Do you remember your first impression?

Well, I wanted to zoom in on the words. I was like, Oh there are secrets in this quilt. There's a message in here. It didn't just seem like a normal quilt that you'd find at your grandma's house. So that was the first thing I thought about – the words. I didn't even look at what the colors were or anything! I was like, What do the words say?? It said, “I knew who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.” And then I noticed the little mushrooms and I had some of my own thoughts about it and memories of my own.

Oh I see! What happened next? How did you go from that to this?

Then I saw the colors. I saw a lot of flowers in this quilt, and bright yellows and greens. And I thought about my friend Anna, who was my roommate for a year, only for a year. I've written maybe three or four poems that Anna has been the inspiration for. I thought, I'm just going to start writing, but for me, writing has been difficult because I'm never able to sit down and actually write with a pencil or pen anymore. That has always been the way that I've written and I am trying to adapt to this new busy lifestyle. The first thing I did was get out my phone, open the notes app, and start writing about this time I took psychedelics with my friend Anna! [laughs] It was in Somerville. It was a beautiful day and we walked on this street called Oxford Street. I started writing about that experience, but then I edited it several times and it turned into something else. The trip wasn't the final thought. It was just the initial thought.

Was it important to you to use the imagery from the quilt or was the quilt more of just a jumping-off point?

The quilt was a jumping-off point, but the quilt also helped me continue the poem. If I got stuck with my own words and thought, Oh I don't know where to take this next line and I'm just rambling at this point and going nowhere, I would look back at the photos and start writing about something I saw. The mushrooms of course stand out. That’s why I was like, Oh mushrooms! I did those! And I like the look of mushrooms. They're cute, and it's like Alice In Wonderland, and you wake up and you're one person and you're something else afterwards. It's all sort of connected there, right? It's a fairytale, it's a journey of the mind and the physical. But I think the quilt really helped me continue the poem because I was getting stuck.

Did you recognize the text in the quilt? It’s from Alice In Wonderland by Lewis Carroll.

Get out! I didn't know! That’s so cool! I read it, but I don't remember that. But it makes sense.

How about that?

How about that?

In the poem, there’s mention of vegetables growing outside, and lying in a field, and flowers. It's a very summery piece and right now we're both in Boston winter. How do you feel about winter?

I have mixed feelings about winter, as you know as a fellow Phoenician [a person from Phoenix, AZ]. There's still a little bit of mystique about it for me. I went outside today and I think it was the second time I’ve stepped outside during this snow this year, because we've been quarantined for a while. And I’ve never shoveled. I don’t do that. I don't dig out my car, I don't do anything. I have Jake do it. I don't like sledding, either. I do think snow is beautiful. The thing that’s good about winter though is – in Phoenix, I feel like you don't get to actually feel like the bitter cold in your body ever, but you might feel it mentally for whatever reason. For me, I automatically go to my teenage self and think it would have been nice to have winter as a teenager, to relate to the weather around me. The juxtaposition of being bitter and cold inside, in a warm climate, I think creates depression in a way that winter helps me. It's almost like winter is heavy metal. I need it to feel! I need it to feel bad, so that I can get it out and take a walk. So that's how I relate to winter. If it's fitting how I feel, it's a benefit. That's not something that I grew up with. Everybody was always so happy and people were outside all the time. I was like, What's with that? I like Boston because people feel [emotionally] how the outside feels physically.

Maybe in a place with seasons, people are more in touch with their emotions?

I think so! I think that might be true. That's not always pretty on the outside. You know, when you watch movies, it's always in California because they want to show a good time.

If winter feels to you like heavy metal, do you think there's a correlation with metal being so big in Scandinavia? They say Norwegian death metal is the real death metal.

Yeah, probably. I think it really is all connected with the land and what we create and the weather. I think it's all connected. And that's like my poem too, right?

Do we sound like we're on mushrooms?

Yes! Yes, we do! And that's what's great about mushrooms. I think they’re therapeutic and you should always do them with a friend that you love and you trust. I think that this poem, although it started out like I'm going to write about this trip I went on, ends up being about how much I miss my friend. [laughs] I love her and it’s kind of like going on a little journey to find that out.

Do you often write about memory like this? Another piece you did for Bait/Switch was about nostalgia and memory of your teen years.

Yes. I do. I think that's the first step of being a writer who's a little bit suffocated right now with my own family and work. What I really want to remember and write about is: What was before this? What did I use to write about? How does one go back? How do I start writing and journaling again? It goes from looking at what's in the present and where that takes you. Often it does take me to places with girlfriends. In that other poem I wrote, it was a different friend that I was hanging out with and a different time. How I miss seeing important friends that are women, and who I either grew up with as a teenager, like my last piece in Bait/Switch, and this one reflecting on my 20s. Both of those friends don't live near me anymore, and I haven't seen them in years. It’s partially pandemic-related, but also it's hard. It's expensive, and nobody lives close to each other, and you grow up and people just spread out. It's tough when you create these friendships and you want to keep them. And one way to do that is through writing.

Are there other ways that this piece relates to the rest of your work?

Whenever I write, I always add food or smells. I try to get all the senses in there, or at least a few. I love smells in poems. And tastes. In this one, there's “burnt orange” and “fried and spiced and salted.” Those are really important senses for me, just to be alive, and to put them in a poem. It's fun to realize that a smell or a taste can make the poem feel totally different without that one word, that one line. When I'm writing, I want to feel that taste. It creates a whole atmosphere for me. So what I find in my own poems is there's always food. Also, I realized that if I'm stuck in writing mode, I end up writing a lot about the indoors and not the outdoors. A lot of times, I write about a mental state and very, I was told once, hermetic poetry. I thought, Yeah that makes sense. So I'm not always the characters in the poems, and the theme of the poem is not outside most of the time, but food is usually part of it in some way.

How is it working with a prompt? Is it more restricting or more freeing?

It's freeing. I need it. I am a prompt/deadline-driven kind of person where I think a prompt is a gift. It's a little push. I think it's helpful for working people. I think it's helpful for people that are stuck at home or have writer's block, people who think, Nothing inspires me. I'm dead inside. That’s sort of how I’ve been feeling! [laughs] So a prompt is an invitation. Like, do you want to come to my party? “I do!”

Yes, I do!

I didn't know how to end this poem because it just kept going on. I stopped somewhere else at one point. What I typically have done, and hadn't done in a while, is gone to my shelf. I think, Who can inspire me right now? I remember during my time in my MFA program, or even my BFA program in writing, I would go to my own bookshelves.

[Chooses a book from her shelf.] I remember this lady, her name's Molly Peacock. I think it's the first poetry book assigned to me by Jill McDonough, my first-ever poetry teacher at Emerson College. I opened it and there is a poem in here about giving away old clothes and how it was hard for her to do. That's kind of how I feel about this memory of being with my friend in this space. It doesn't necessarily have to be about mushrooms at all. Just being with her, stealing vegetables – that wasn't during any certain time, that's just what we did – dumpster diving, getting free food. We worked at cafes and restaurants, and we'd always get food from those places. Everything was so free. It was literally free and it felt free! Giving away clothes, and living far away from a friend, and a concert t-shirt at the bottom of the drawer that probably doesn't fit anymore, but you want to keep it and look at it to remember that time. That's what's great about reading other poets. [thumbs through the book for inspiration] “Hmmm… Oh yeah!” How great is that? It's right on my shelf. The prompt pushes, but to remember that I also have books to look at is nice, too.

And what is your advice to someone else approaching this project?

My advice is to not take the prompt literally, but always go back to it if you do get stuck. Treat it as an invitation. Also, looking forward to who may look at your poem or piece of art later is exciting, and just seeing all the other connections. It's so much about connection. We should be yearning for that anyway, as we're human. But to see it in a book or online is why I love this project. I think it is wonderful. And I'm glad you're part of it.

Me too.

Call Number: C64VA | C65PP.haMo

 Alia Hamada Forrest is a poet, though she often forgets this superpower as she is also a working mother of two young children. She is originally from Phoenix, AZ, but has lived in Boston, MA for half her life. Although Alia loves connecting with people, her favorite hobby is being alone.