Sammy+the+Sophomore

Sammy the Sophomore   For my first interview, I decided to ask my sister about my poem. Samantha ( or Sammy, as she is known at home) is a sophomore in high school, and, to put it simply, is the exact opposite of me. Personality wise, I am completely Type A, with a tendency to lean towards arts and creativity; words and music—she, on the other hand, likes science, getting her hands dirty, being messy in general, is an athlete and—to sum this all up—is in no way an English kind of gal. I thought she would be an interesting choice to interview for this project.  I began the process by sending her the poem via Facebook, where I told her I’d give her two days to read through it as much as she wanted to, and then I’d call her at such and such an hour. Well, being a fifteen year old high school student, I should have known it wouldn’t be this simple, so by the time we actually sat down to do this phone interview, it was three tries and three days later than I had hoped for. But regardless, the interview happened, and I was pleasantly surprised!  I think interviewing my sister lent me this weird sort of preconceived notion of what I was expecting her responses to be like because, as I said, I knew she wasn’t really a poetry kind of person, but I went into this as open minded as I could, and I’m so glad I did. The first thing I asked was for her general opinion on the poem, and this was pretty much what I expected. She said she “didn’t really get it,” but when I asked her what she felt the tone was she immediately said, “she is really sad.” Following on this, I asked her if any images in the poem stood out, and she told me that it was more like a “general feeling” she got, and that when the speaker “talked about Elliot Smith” she knew it was about “being sad over a relationship.” I was so excited at this point that I had gotten this much out of my sister that I had to stop and stifle my HUGE smile. She asked if I was still there, and we continued.  This was the most surprising and seriously astounding part of the interview. I asked her what she made of the last lines, basically, the ending of the poem—the lines that basically state that the speaker is “signing up for vanishing lessons,” and warning the assumed ex-boyfriend that he shouldn’t show up if he’s invited to a windy pier. I asked this question because I genuinely didn’t really understand it. I thought maybe on some abstract level it was about escape, perhaps telling the ex not to show was a sign of some kind of growth, in the willingness to leave the relationship, that wasn’t fully at fruition quite yet, or some other thought along these lines. However, the second I asked my fifteen year old sister what she thought of the ending, she said, again, immediately, and this time with complete confidence—“she’s going to commit suicide.” I asked her to keep going, and she seemed like she didn’t think I was serious—it was as if this was the most obvious part of the poem to her! I loved that! She was confident with her reading of the poem, and it made so much sense to me to look at it that way!  After that portion of the discussion, wherein I did my best to try and conceal my complete giddiness with her answers, I asked her what she thought about the speaker’s abrupt transition from listing all the things the subject meant to her, to talking about the fact that she is afraid of regrets. Sammy said it was “like the natural transition of a relationship—or one that has ended. It’s like she was thinking and thinking about how much he meant to her, to feeling like she regretted whatever she had with him.” Being an older sister, I then probed as to how this was like a “natural transition of a break-up,” and she got a little shy and said “well, you love them, and then you hate them—and back and forth.” I was impressed with her insight, and I firmly believe I am not being biased. J  Since we were on a pretty good roll talking about the poem in portions like this, I then asked her about the title—just some thoughts she had, if any. She said that she was immediately drawn to the title, but noticed about halfway through the poem that the “new girlfriend” had yet to be mentioned. I asked her why she thought this might be the case and her answer was “maybe the author just wanted to use a catchy title to draw the reader in.” I wanted to push her thinking a little bit, so I planted, “Well, what else are titles used for? What do they represent?” And to this she responded, “Well sometimes titles come from just the inspiration of what you’re saying. Maybe the idea of the girlfriend got her writing, but then just never came out [in the poem].” I completely agreed with this, though I hadn’t thought of it until we talked.  Lastly, I asked Sam if she would just sort of give me a run-down of the general “plot” of the poem—how the tone changes, if it does, any progress she feels that it makes, etc. She told me that the poem “sort of cycled through her sadness [of the relationship ending], her him know what he meant to her [and still does], then moved into her anger, maybe about the fact that he has moved on, then a realization of what they had as not meaning as much as she thought [reference to the cake forks line], and then the depression or let down of knowing the truth, then the sort of ‘warning’ or suicidal statement at the end.” I was seriously impressed.  Overall, this interview went so well. I know I talk a lot about the fact that the interviewee is my sister, but I just can’t get over how much insight she had. I think I underestimated her ability to take things like this seriously, and it really opened my eyes to know that wow, she does understand a lot about life despite the goofy front she appears to put up (like almost all teenagers), and that she is able to analyze poetry! This was such an exciting discovery.