The genesis of this poem was unusual. I had developed a concept for a book of poems in advance that I was writing toward; it was to be called Rhizomes and Bones. I had been submitting a poetry chapbook, mostly about bones and death, which had once placed in a contest but otherwise been roundly rejected, so I determined I would try to re-envision it as a full-length book. I already had a couple of poems that used rhizomes as a motif, and I had notes toward several more.

Although I didn’t need many more poems about bones or death, I had also made notes about other bone-related poems I might write. In the past, I have enjoyed writing collage poems, written in short, fragmented sections. Whether focusing on one subject, or weaving together disparate pieces that loosely connect, this disjunctive technique for me has created immediacy, and the poems, when they work (not always), are both evocative and provocative, allowing the reader ample space to grapple with the ideas.

When I looked back at my notes on various bone scenarios, the idea of “bone fragments” rose from the page, which excited me. I thought this could bring something new to the manuscript and began to develop the idea. Because each section addressed entirely different bone-related scenarios (though they all involve family relationships), I worried that the poem didn’t quite hold together and felt something more was needed to thread it together. Eventually, I thought of naming each piece after a bone in the body that related, in some way, to the crux of each section, which I hope is the scaffolding the poem needed.

Annette Sisson’s poems appear in The Penn Review, Birmingham Poetry Review, Cloudbank, and dozens of other journals and anthologies. Her second book was published by Terrapin Books (2024) and her first by Glass Lyre (2022). Currently her third is seeking a publisher. She won The Porch Writer’s Collective’s poetry prize in 2019 and has placed in numerous inter/national contests. Seven poems have been nominated for The Pushcart Prize and six for Best of the Net.