Rachna Singh, Editor, The Wise Owl talks to Cynthia Anderson about her cherita collection 'The Far Mountain.'

The Wise Owl talks to Cynthia Anderson about her recently released Cherita collection The Far Mountain.

 

Thank you, Cynthia, for taking time out of a busy schedule to talk to The Wise Owl.

 

 

RS: The Far Mountain explores such a broad range of themes—desert landscapes, health, family, relationships, and dreamscapes. What inspired you to choose cherita as the form to encapsulate these diverse experiences?

 

CA: I find cherita to be a flexible, open-ended form, easily adapted to different kinds of storytelling and subject matter. Throughout my poetry life, I’ve always written short poems with short lines—so cherita felt very familiar, and yet presented opportunities to expand in new directions.

 

RS: How did the pandemic influence your writing practice, especially your turn to cherita? Did it bring about new perspectives or themes in your poetry?

 

CA: As fate would have it, I began writing cherita in January 2020, just before the pandemic. Peter Jastermsky introduced me to the form and coached me through my initial trial-and-error phase. As it turned out, the pandemic was an incredible gift to my writing life. Though I’d written daily for years, all of a sudden a torrent of poems poured out of me and continued throughout the pandemic. Much of that outpouring consisted of cherita—hundreds of them, on every subject imaginable. I didn’t censor what was happening, just rode the wave. I’m grateful to ai li, the creator of the cherita form, for her encouragement and for publishing some of my efforts in her journal, the cherita.

 

RS: ‘The Far Mountain’ is divided into five sections: Desert Vista, What Air I Have, A Long Silence, Fateful Distraction, and Quantum Night. Could you share how these sections came about and what each represents in your journey?

 

CA: My husband and I moved to the Mojave Desert near Joshua Tree National Park in 2008, after decades on the California coast. I made a promise to the desert at the very the beginning: I would write about any creature or natural phenomenon that showed itself to me, and I’ve kept that promise—hence Desert Vista. Though I love the desert, it has challenges as well, and that feeling is reflected in What Air I Have (along with health challenges). A Long Silence touches on family issues, always present; Fateful Distraction does the same for friendships and love relationships. Finally, my nighttime dreams are of paramount importance to me, and cherita on that theme and alternate realities appear in the last section, Quantum Night.

 

RS: Cherita, by nature, relies heavily on brevity. What challenges and freedoms did this form offer you, especially when dealing with deeply personal or expansive themes?

 

CA: I love how short form poetry can say so much with so few words. That is the challenge: tapping into the expansiveness of what is implied, and allowing the reader space to imagine. In the years when I wrote only traditional free verse, I sometimes received negative comments on my very short lines and my choices for line breaks. With cherita, short lines and interesting line breaks are the norm. The challenge becomes, how can a line break add to the story? Which details are essential and carry the weight of emotion? I try not to veer into abstraction, but stick with concrete imagery that becomes larger than itself in the telling.

 

RS: The desert landscape features prominently in your work. In what ways does this environment shape your poetry and your creative worldview?

 

CA: I find that the desert is widely misunderstood or mistrusted, and even sometimes hated. There’s no place to hide from oneself in the desert. Whatever needs to come out will come out. My experience of the desert is that there are few distractions, vast vistas, and vast stretches of time to write. And, no one looking over my shoulder. The home I’ve lived in for 16 years looks nothing like the Sahara. It’s a diverse ecosystem—hilly, high elevation (3800 feet), packed with boulders and juniper trees and Joshua trees, and with cold winters, even snow, as well as hot summers. Geological time is palpable and lends perspective—the long view, as it were. 

 

RS:  Could you share more about the title poem, The Far Mountain? What significance does the image of "walking toward the far mountain" hold for you and the themes of the collection?

 

CA: That poem came from the daily morning walk I took for many years, out my front door and down the dirt road to the open desert with a view across the valley. In the cold of winter, the snow line of the mountains on the other side would be at my eye level. I could walk in that direction, taking in the view—but never get there. Not only was it way too far, but also the desert is deceiving when it comes to distances. Even if something seems reachable, it’s actually farther than you think. That’s an apt metaphor for the poems in this collection.

 

RS: Your cherita seem to go beyond mere observations, aiming to create a felt experience for the reader. How do you balance personal narrative with universal resonance in such a compact form?

 

CA: If I succeed in doing what you said even once in a while, for even one reader, I’m happy. All I can do is start with a sincere intention and proceed as honestly as I know how.

 

RS: Looking forward, do you envision cherita remaining central to your work, or are there other forms or genres you’d like to explore?

 

CA: Yes! I am always writing cherita. Not at the same breakneck pace as during the pandemic, but I expect to continue with cherita indefinitely. I explore all the short forms I can—haiku, senryu, haibun, tanka, sequences... I look forward to never being finished and maintaining a short form poetry practice for the rest of my life.

 

Thank you Cynthia for talking to The Wise Owl about your creativity and poetic craft. We wish you the very best in all your literary endeavours