Q&A with Vincent Flannery

Our Editor-in-Chief, Julian Kanagy, recently interviewed our newest featured poet, Vincent Flannery. Join them as they discuss Flannery’s poem, “At Nanny Sadie’s.”

The occasion of this poem has our subject, "the kid," waiting on the farm gate for a particular car's arrival. Does this experience come from your own life or from an observation of the world?  

The poem is written from my own life experience. The piece was inspired from the experience of waiting on someone, wanting them to become reliable and dependable. And waiting in the periphery of their mind. 

Does this poem, "At Nanny Sadie's," stand alone, or is it part of a larger project you're working on at the moment?

I wouldn’t say “At Nanny Sadie’s” is representative of a larger project in the works. At the moment it is a stand alone piece. Although the themes of waiting in one’s desire/want, is a common theme I like to explore.

The consonance throughout the poem gives it a delightful sonic texture on reading - was this something you consciously focused on when writing the piece? 

The sonic qualities were a main focus of the piece. I wanted to capture a type of flowing movement, to help evoke the flowing nature of waiting.

The final stanza more explicitly shows the boy observing himself, hearing himself talk back to the crows, and the third person, narrative perspective of the poem has readers in that same observational mindset.  Do you find that the occasion of waiting enables a more meditative, close analysis of the mechanics of boredom and dissociation? 

The final stanza with the line “he hears himself”, situates the boy in his waiting. Boredom has led him to hear himself again. It echoes that waiting/sitting with oneself and one’s thoughts/ being bored, is a meditative process. Even if the child isn’t aware that’s what he’s doing.