“Eating like a Bird, It’s Really a Falsity,” a poem

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Jessica (Tyner) Mehta is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, interdisciplinary artist, multi-award-winning poet, and author of several books. She’s also the owner of an award-winning small business,  MehtaFor, a writing services company that offers pro bono services to Native Americans and Indigenous-serving nonprofits. Her novel The Wrong Kind of Indian won gold at the 2019 Independent Publisher Book Awards (IPPYs) and at the American Book Fest Best Book. Mehta’s Savagery won the Reader Literary Reviews 2020 award for “most innovative collection of poetry.” Selected Poems: 2000–2020 received the 2020 Birdy Prize from Meadowlark Books. Her doctoral research addresses the intersection of poetry and eating disorders.

Publications

The Wrong Kind of Indian (Wyatt-MacKenzie Publishing)
Savagery (Airlie Press)
When We Talk of Stolen Sisters:
New and Revised Poems (Not a Pipe Publishing)

Our Interview

Can you speak about your choice to make the Norman Bates (Psycho) quote the title of your poem? Did your title inspire the poem or come about after writing?

JM: This poem was written in the midst of the worst depths of my eating disorder, although I think that particular quote has always stuck with me. I have been a horror fan from a young age—in fact, there is a photo of me at three weeks old attending An American Werewolf in London with my parents (how the times have changed!). However, considering the inherently obsessive characteristics of eating disorders, this particular quote dug its way out of my consciousness at this time. I also relate the monstrosity of the film overall with the horror of the deadliest of all mental disorders and have also written a short horror piece about a beast called Ed (eating disorder). I suppose we are always drawing upon what we know and what resonates with us, making connections with various facets of our lives and seeing them in new lights with new experiences.

MR: While this poem centers on the speaker’s personal reflections, it begins by addressing the reader. How do you envision the relationship here between speaker and audience?

JM: Oddly, I have never felt (in my creative writing) like I am writing “to” someone. It’s always an anonymous “you,” which is probably really the collective you (including myself). The speakers of my poems have strong confessional leanings, though I am aware of the controversy with this ML Rosenthal designation. I also see poems as a way of building and scaffolding intimacy, and that is done through sharing our darkest secrets much of the time. For me, the “you” of my poems is not a receptacle or a voyeur, but rather an active listener and there are times I imagine a reply is about to arrive.

MR: What influenced your decision to place sensual language alongside the speaker’s eating disorder recovery? For example, “It was a cycle, my own metamorphosis” and “Built up like an orgasm” are very close in proximity. 

JM: My doctoral research is in the meeting point of eating disorders and poetry so there is a lot I can say here. However, I will leave it at this: there are natural ties between these disorders and sexuality. The end result (and sometimes goal, though not always conscious) of the anorectic is a regression to childhood—sometimes including the fear of sexual maturity and pregnancy. This is reflected in the common amenorrhea that occurs as well as the dropping away of the physicality of womanhood for female anorectics (decrease in breast and hip fat). For me, as with many anorectics, we simply cannot separate sensuality and eating disorders. 

MR: What is your connection to the enjambment that shows up in this piece?

JM: Enjambment has always been my “jam!” In fact, that’s what I focus on most when I teach poetry. I’ve always found it to be  my own most powerful tool in poetry—and that says a lot given how many tools there are. All types of art force the audience to quiet and listen, but my choice in line and stanza breaks creates an even more abrupt pause. I like to create these instances in which the audience either has no idea what is coming next or guesses incorrectly because that nurtures a close attention as well as a feeling of discomfort that aligns well with many of my themes.

The end result (and sometimes goal, though not always conscious) of the anorectic is a regression to childhood—sometimes including the fear of sexual maturity and pregnancy. … For me, as with many anorectics, we simply cannot separate sensuality and eating disorders.

MR: What aided you in creating the movement and pace of this poem? 

JM: Sadly, I have no real answer for this. I am not “classically” trained in writing poetry for the most part, and my graduate degrees skirt poetry rather than addressing it head-on. I am one of those annoying poets who need to be “inspired” to write, so when the lines come they are already bursting and desperate to escape. When I try to force myself to write poetry, it’s always a struggle. 

MR: Leading up to the final stanza, the speaker’s voice grows in urgency. How did you land on the lines “fill me with their earthiness until I choke from the grit, / desperate for air, neck arching and jaw flexing, / bones slight and delicate as a song” ?  

JM: The vast majority of my poems are largely complete after the first draft. Tinkering does improve them, but I rarely make large changes. I think these lines are simply a reflection of the urgency in which this poem needed to come out.

MR: How did the length of this poem shift from its initial to final drafts?

JM: Not much! I don’t recall the early drafts (and I don’t save them) but I don’t think this one underwent many drafts at all. This was written during a time when I was writing quite a bit, and many of them were born (almost) just as they were meant to be.

MR: What is it like for you to read this poem out loud?    

JM: I have gotten used to reading my work aloud over the years and my older poems (such as this one) have mostly lost their power over me. I do think my poems are really meant to be read instead of listened to because of that focus on enjambment. I’m not sure how I feel about poets reading their work—it’s often a disappointment (for me at least). I think it also takes away some of that intimacy I mentioned because when we read poetry in a journal or book, we of course “read” in our own heads with our own voice. I’ve also been told I need to take acting lessons and sound more “Shakespearean” (from two completely different people!) so now I also have this fear of not having a “poetic enough voice,” whatever that may mean. In short, I’m mostly indifferent to reading my work at this point but still have that lingering fear of disappointing those who are listening.

A Reading

Resources

1. The website for MehtaFor, Jessica’s company which offers pro bono services to Native Americans and Indigenous-serving nonprofits.