In 'Broken Houses,' Georgia poet laureate Chelsea Rathburn finds inspiration in her former homes

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Chelsea Rathburn has served as Georgia's poet laureate since 2019.

Credit: Leah Yetter

Our homes are more than just pieces of real estate. They shape who we are. They reflect our hopes and our personalities. And when we leave a home behind, it can become a significant place in our memories — a place we wanna return to, both physically and in our imaginations. Such is the case for Georgia poet laureate Chelsea Rathburn, whose new collection of poetry looks back on moments in her life through the various places she's lived. It's called Broken Houses. She spoke with GPB's Peter Biello. 

Peter Biello: Tell us about the origins of Broken Houses. Did you set out to write on this theme, or were you writing poems, and did the theme kind of emerge? 

Chelsea Rathburn: Both and neither. 

Peter Biello: Both and neither. OK.

Chelsea Rathburn: Anyway, it's complicated. My last book was about motherhood and childhood. And at the very end of that book, I had written a poem about my father's terrible childhood, which normally he would tell this story that would begin, "Oh, you think your childhood was bad? Well, your parents never did" dot-dot-dot. And he had this awful story about going away to summer camp and his parents moved away while he was at camp, and he was dropped off to an empty house. And I was thinking about that story, my dad's childhood and the ways that real estate and houses loomed really large when I was growing up. My family, both my parents grew up extremely poor, and then money was just always incredibly tight. When I was small, we lived in a series of really dismal apartments. And then my parents, through the help of a VA loan, they kind of squeaked their way into a house in Miami. And we were always worried that something was gonna happen and we were gonna lose the house. 

Peter Biello: You write about your mother here as well in some of these poems. One of them I liked, it was — I mean, I liked a lot of them, but one that I really found moving was "In Miniature." That's the one where she orders a dollhouse for you and it doesn't come assembled like the pretty dollhouse you saw in the advertisement or in the store window, I can't remember which. And the finished product has glue dripping down because you tried so hard to put this thing together. And it's a moment where you're looking back and appreciating what your mother has done for you. Can you talk a little bit about that poem? 

Chelsea Rathburn: Yeah, I gave a reading recently. I was teaching in Krakow, Poland, doing a study abroad. My mother happened to come and visit when I was giving a poetry reading. And I read that poem and just said, "I'm so sorry, Mom. I'm so sorry." ... My mother was a preschool teacher. So we spent a lot of time in craft stores and teacher school supply stores and things. And we would go to this arts and crafts store and I just coveted this one dollhouse that was on display. It was so beautiful. And I had these visions of what it would look like in my room and never made the connection that it would come unassembled. And my poor mother — I think I said in the poem — who didn't ask for this, she didn't ask for this. This wasn't her dream, right? But she was the one who organized all of those little pieces of birch wood and hot glue, everything. We painted, we wallpapered. It was hours and hours and hours. And in the poem, I'm thinking about just the ways that our dreams and wishes and expectations don't always — the reality doesn't always live up to those. But that there's a kind of kindness that we do for one another as family. I never complained that the dollhouse wasn't exactly — didn't match up to my dreams, but I think my mother probably knew that. 

Peter Biello: Yeah, you're both there, you both aware of it, but you're not saying it. 

Chelsea Rathburn: Mm-hmm.

Peter Biello: And you're both, I think, trying to enjoy the moment to the extent that you can. 

Chelsea Rathburn: Exactly. 

Peter Biello: Yeah, and I think that sentiment that you both brought to the moment I think made it sweet. Right? And there's another poem that you mentioned your mother. I'd like to have you read it for us. It's the one that's called "The flattened crusts the white skins seeping."

Chelsea Rathburn: That is such an ornate title for a very— 

Peter Biello: There's a balance here.  

Chelsea Rathburn: Yeah, so this is, I still don't understand my impulse, but this is a true story, which is that there was a period of time in elementary school. I think I was in maybe second grade, yeah, second grade according to the poem. Sometimes my poems remember more than I do. But in second grade I just decided that I hated eating these peanut butter sandwiches and I didn't wanna tell anyone. And so I kept bringing them to school for weeks. So this is called: 

The Flattened Crusts, the White Skins Seeping 

I'd like to think it was a stomach flu,
something I could not help, that turned me against
my mother's peanut butter sandwiches—
but after months of identical bagged lunches,
I renounced them at once and absolutely. 
I knew it was wrong to throw good food away,
so I made a project out of ruining them,
sliding the sandwiches beneath one leg,
then the other, until they thinned and fissured—
such quiet violence—and I could return
to my second-grade classroom, my stomach growling. 
This went on for weeks until the guilt became
too much to bear. When I confessed, weeping,
my mother did not remind me how she walked
to school hungry, how she whispered, “free lunch”
to the cashier so no one else would know,
how she said it so quietly the cashier
could not hear her, or pretended not to hear her,
making her repeat “free lunch,” “free lunch” louder,
louder, louder. Instead, my mother hugged me
and sent me back to school with tuna fish. 

Peter Biello: That was such a sweet moment. She could have been outraged, right? She could've been thinking back to her own childhood and been mad about it, but she wasn't. She approached it with love. 

Chelsea Rathburn: Exactly. 

Peter Biello: Yeah.

Chelsea Rathburn: Yeah. My mom's really great.

Peter Biello: One of the poems in this book made my skin crawl. I won't make you read it, but I will read the title. And the title is, "Poem I Wish to Title with the Species Name of My Least Favorite Palmetto Bug but Can't, Because There Are So Many Candidates; or, Another Invasion." I will say, you know, we live in the South here, below the palmetto bug line, which I learned recently was a thing, and I will never put shoes on in the exact same way. That's all I'll say about that poem, but man, you really know how to get under someone's skin in a poem, I'll say. 

Chelsea Rathburn: Sorry. That's a tough one. I really, I love that poem. And I often I think, you know, I probably shouldn't read this out loud if I'm at a reading, just because it does have that ick factor. 

Peter Biello: Well, let me ask you. You've been Georgia poet laureate since 2019. What's the most recent official duty as poet laureate that you've carried out? 

Chelsea Rathburn: The most recent is something that I do every year that I really absolutely love, is I judge a statewide high school poetry contest. And it was founded by my predecessor, Judson Mitcham. And basically we just, we invite students ninth through 12th grade, public school, private school, homeschool, you know, it's open to anybody. And the poems can be any theme. We have length requirements. We choose a winner — I choose a winner — and four finalists and, schedule permitting, the governor's schedule permitting, we have a celebration at the capitol and the students get to meet the governor and it's really special. 

Peter Biello: Yeah, that sounds really nice. 

Chelsea Rathburn: Yeah, I love it. 

Peter Biello: Is that your favorite part of being Poet Laureate? 

Chelsea Rathburn: Yeah. 

Peter Biello: Yeah? 

Chelsea Rathburn: I think so. 

Peter Biello: Working with the kids?

Chelsea Rathburn: Yeah, working with the kids. So many of them are just really incredible. It's always very hard to choose a winner. But it really just gives me a sense of just the incredible variety of voices and things that Georgian young people are interested in. 

Chelsea Rathburn and her latest book will soon be featured on GPB's podcast about books with Georgia connections, Narrative Edge. Find Narrative Edge here or wherever you get your podcasts.