Discussing the Lit Blitz: Merrijane Rice's "Living Room"

In Discussing the Lit Blitz, previous finalist Annaliese Lemmon talks with the finalists from our most recent contest about their work.

​This interview has been edited for clarity.

Annaliese Lemmon: Welcome everyone to the Mormon Lit Lab podcast. I'm Annalisa Lemon, your host for this series where we discuss the 14th annual Mormon Lit Blitz. Today I'm joined by Merrijane Rice, author of Living Room. Welcome, Merrijane.

Merrijane Rice: Hi. Thanks for having me.

Annaliese Lemmon: Could you introduce yourself and explain what your experience is with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?

Merrijane Rice: Sure. I'm Merrijane Rice. I was born in Oregon, but I grew up mostly in Utah and I'm totally all in faithful member of the Church. And I just love the culture and the people and everything about it. My dad when he was younger, was a seminary teacher for several years before he changed and became a dentist. And so he gave me a really good background in the doctrine of the church and also a lot of the culture from the Central and South Utahan Mormon culture.

Annaliese Lemmon: Nice. And we are here to discuss your poem, “Living Room,” and I really liked the vivid description of the furniture. It told a story itself just in the description, so I was just curious if any of these pieces were based on furniture in real life.

Merrijane Rice: Yes, all of them. That's my living room. It's probably a little bit less poetic looking than the poem sound. But it, everything was based on something that was right there within my range of vision.

Annaliese Lemmon: So does that mean that you write there at that standing desk or where, what does your writing space look like?

Merrijane Rice: I don't actually have a dedicated writing space outside of my office where I do my work that I get paid for. The place that I do a lot of composing is when I'm out taking walks around my neighborhood and on the bike path and that kind of stuff, because I find that walking and moving kind of generates that creative energy.

So I'll do it in my head, generate some phrases, some ideas, some things, and kind of play around with them as I'm going along.

Annaliese Lemmon: Ok. And then when you sit down to write, where does that look like?

Merrijane Rice: Just a quiet place where I can get it down. I used to do things with paper and pencil, but not so much anymore because my poetry composing style is very messy and I would have lots of scratching and writing above and arrows and things. So I do it a lot more on the computer or on my cell phone, even like the little notes program and stuff, whatever makes it easy.

Annaliese Lemmon: So you don't have like one spot in the house, you just go wherever it strikes your fancy?

Merrijane Rice: Now, a nice armchair, someplace with a lot of light.

Annaliese Lemmon: Yeah. I like to write in my bedroom or just on my bed, but sometimes that's taken up with laundry, so I have to go somewhere else.

Merrijane Rice: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Annaliese Lemmon: And I really love how this poem engages with Saints who do not live an ideal life. And sometimes I feel like we just focus too much on ideals and not on some of the real people. So I really love it when we see literature that engages with that. So what ways do you see the narrator mending things like they mention at the end?

Merrijane Rice: Well this poem actually is about one of my children, so I won't go too in depth to it, but I'll explain about the quilt that. That quilt actually was made by my mom for my oldest son for his wedding. And it was the last one I think she made in this life. She was getting quite a bit older and passed away not long after that.

And it was, I mean, she's a good seamstress, an excellent seamstress, or had been before then, but this quilt was a total mess. She sent it to them for their wedding gift, and it was still full of pins like, that she had left in other places and been sewn in, and a lot of things that she tried to sew by hand and missed the seams. And so they were using it on their bed, but they had to be really careful with it.

And then their dog got onto it and made a mess on the, like, I don't know exactly what happened, but made that quilt messy. And they couldn't wash it because they were afraid it would fall apart. And then the marriage broke apart and she ended up stuffing this quilt into a plastic garbage bag and storing it.

And then she didn't know what to do with it. And so she gave it back. And like it’s been in storage for a long time inside of a plastic bag. So, I decided I was gonna sew it enough together that then I could treat the stains and the different things and wash it good, and then finish the repairs. And I did.

But it was so much that it just took a little bit at a time. And found out something about it that I thought was a stained square was actually just a different color square that my mom couldn't see the slight variation in color. So it's actually part of the fabric.

And I kept, I use this as a metaphor for my son because there was a lot of damage done during the divorce process, but also a lot of damage from when he was younger that I wasn't aware of. And when he came back home to us, I felt like that was an opportunity for me to rectify some of the mistakes I made because like it's, this poem is not about him being imperfect. It's about me having been an imperfect mother and I needed to try to help him through this situation because I, in part, had caused it. So, that's kind of where that was coming from.

Annaliese Lemmon: Did you find it healing at all to explore those themes or anything?

Merrijane Rice: I think so, and I had been thinking about it for a long time and I had like built up this sort of imaginary story in my head that once we had repaired the quilt, then everything would be taken care of. Right? And then he could move on with his life. And he kind of laughed when I told him that, and he was like, yeah, I had kind of that same feeling too.

So it was, kind of, like everything's not worked out right. But it was kind of one of those milestones that like graduation or joining the Young Men's program or something. Someplace where you can say, okay, now I'm moving from one stage to another. And we sort of determined that that was a milestone for us.

Annaliese Lemmon: Yeah. One of those things that you learned from and then are able to finally just put it away, I guess. Is that how you'd say it?

Merrijane Rice: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I did just put it away. It's on a shelf because he doesn't have a bed that he could use it for right now. His bed isn't that large. But it is a sound quilt and strong, and you can throw it in the washing machine and it'll be just fine and it looks nice too.

Annaliese Lemmon: Yeah. Do you think he would take it with him when he leaves again or will it stay with you?

Merrijane Rice: I think he'll take it. I mean, for me, he's fine with it. The question would be, when he remarries, you know, is his wife gonna want that around? But for him it's meaningful and he'd take it with him.

Annaliese Lemmon: I'm glad to hear that. And that he appreciates the work that you put into it.

Merrijane Rice: Yeah, I think so.

Annaliese Lemmon: All right. Well, do you have a piece of media, literature that you recommend for our audience?

Merrijane Rice: So I'm gonna recommend a couple of things. The one will be a Mormon Lit thing and the other will be like just a general world thing, stuff that I like.

Annaliese Lemmon: I think a lot of people have done that.

Merrijane Rice: Yeah. Because like, I don't spend a lot of time with Mormon Literature just because I'm not like, immersed in it all the time. And a lot of the stuff that I am immersed in is more like, it's good for me rather than I enjoy it, it's entertainment.

But, I think a really good poet is Darlene Young. And she like, writes the same kind of poetry I write, only she's much, much better 'cause she's just a technically more capable poet. And so if you enjoy the themes of my poetry, I think that you will also enjoy hers. And a lot of times she'll write things that I am like, oh, I wish I'd written that.

In fact, this poem was written… She holds a kind of a month long writing group in February for what she calls MoPoWriMo--Mormon Poetry Writing Month, kind of like the NaNoWriMo that people do for novels. And so this was… We had this goal to write a poem every day, and this was one of the poems that I wrote.

So like, you get to a certain point where it's like, what can I write about? Anything, anything? And this one was just, I sat down and looked around my living room and composed a list. Because I had been reading--and this is a good recommendation too--I had been reading, oh, what was it? The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco, and one of the chapters starts with this quote.

“There is nothing more wonderful than a list, instrument of wondrous hypotyposis.” And hypotyposis means, is just a realistic description, that when when you read it, you experience it as if the moment were happening again. So like, if you do a list of something, people really feel like they're there. But that isn't my second recommendation.

My second recommendation is anything that's a British murder mystery. That's just like, my comfort enjoyment is like Agatha Christie-esque type murder mysteries, especially audio books, because then I can walk and do other things at the same time.

Annaliese Lemmon: Do you have any specific ones that are your favorites or just all of them?

Merrijane Rice: Right now I'm reading a series by P. D. James, the Adam Dalgliesh series. And he is a detective who is a poet, which is what kind of drew me in and interested me at first. I will warn people, though, that if they wanna try those out to be aware that they're very bleak. And so, you know, if you're not into like, really depressing murder mystery fiction, that maybe that's not for you.

Annaliese Lemmon: Yeah. And so I know that you do write a lot of poetry even beyond this, MoPoWriMo that you said. So like, how did you decide this one poem to, well, I guess you have it up to three that you can send it in to the Lit Blitz. So how did you narrow that down?

Merrijane Rice: I never know what they're gonna go for, so I like pick three of my favorites. Of course you have to look for something that's gonna appeal to Mormon audiences and so I look for things that are like that. And this is, I think that other members of the church are just like me, like nobody's perfect. Everybody's got something going on. And to be a little bit vulnerable with people and just say, “Hey, this is what's going on in my background,” speaks to people.

And one thing that I have found is instead of writing about grand, large themes, the more specific you can get about the tiniest little bits of your life, the more people of all varieties will relate to it. 'cause in that, those concrete images, they see themselves. So it's, I usually look for something like that, that's very personal and very concrete, and has those Mormon themes and this fit the bill.

Annaliese Lemmon: Yeah. I've heard that paradox explained in prose as well, just the more concrete you create a character, the easier it is for people to imagine it and relate to that character. So, yeah.

Merrijane Rice: Yeah.

Annaliese Lemmon: All right. So I know you have several poetry books out. Can you, you want to tell us about those and any other projects you're working on?

Merrijane Rice: Yeah, I've been working on a very, very long-term project that started right before the Come Follow Me program came out. I undertook to help me study and increase my own responsibility for my learning. I undertook this project to write a poem every week that went along with the lesson that week, inspired by something in the scriptures.

And so the first four years I wrote poetry, wrote poetry, wrote poetry. And then these next four years I've been publishing the books and recording a podcast episode every week to go along with it. I'm publishing the final book. So next month sometime. I think we just got the picture for the cover, so I'm working on that.

But, the books are the Follow series. The first one is Grace Like Water. The second is, I forget which order they go in. The second one is Out of the Dust. The third is Like a Fire Burning and the last one will be Not in the Wind, which is Old Testament poetry.

I am gonna be so relieved when it's all done and feel very accomplished. But yeah, those are all available.

Annaliese Lemmon: Huge undertaking.

Merrijane Rice: Yeah, it was. I'll be ready for a break. They're all available on amazon.com through there and the podcast is called Follow: a Latter-day Saint Poetry Podcast. You can get it on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And then I also have a Facebook page called “Follow: Latter-day Saint Poetry.”

And then just my own personal website for general things that I'm doing, MerrijaneRice.com. And my name is spelled really weird 'cause my parents thought they were super creative.

Annaliese Lemmon: We'll put the links in the show notes as well. So that people can find it easily.

Merrijane Rice: Well, thank you. Yeah.

Annaliese Lemmon: Thank you so much. Is there anything else you'd like to share about this story or anything else?

Merrijane Rice: No, just that I appreciate what you've been doing and I really appreciate the Mormon Lit Lab. I first got to know James like 15 years ago, and I think this has been a great way for people to feel like the literature and the poetry that they write about the Church is gonna go somewhere where people appreciate it, where they're not just gonna say, oh, you really shouldn't write about that, because nobody cares.

Annaliese Lemmon: Yeah, I think, before the Lit Blitz, you know, I was under the impression that Mormon literature was all like scripture, retellings, or romance, and that wasn't something I was interested in, but here I've been able to really find stuff that is really interesting and different.

Merrijane Rice: A lot of experimental stuff. Just I am amazed by the imaginations of people and their willingness to try new things just to see.

Annaliese Lemmon: All right. Thank you again, and look forward to seeing more of your poetry.

Merrijane Rice: Thank you.

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