Trish Chaney
The first poem Patricia Chaney remembers writing was a tribute to one of her dogs that had just passed away. "I was completely devastated," she says. "My family and I raised her and her brother from pups (they were Wolf-Hybrids, the sweetest in the world), and they lived a good 14-15 years with us. It was also at a time in my life when many things were changing ... so sometimes you have to lose a lot to allow new things to take their place."
But her poetry really germinated in a slightly unusual way. "The whole poetry thing started in a chat room of all things," she says. "I started a verse about a pirate, having people trying to guess who I was, then someone wrote back, in verse, and we carried on in a story, for quite a while, no one knowing who the other was (male? female?), and then others started their hand in it too. It went on for quite a while and then just kind of slipped away. But by then I had the bug, and it was great. It was fun."
Chaney describes her style as "quirky and whimsical. I like to end a poem with something that is unexpected." She also likes to rhyme. "I don't know why, but I suppose it could be from my acting background. I performed in a lot of Shakespeare festivals (every summer in California), so I have iambic pentameter and trochaic speech patterns embedded in my soul. Plus, with all the singing I do, it seems to just flow out of me that way. I don't oppose using prose; I'm just not very good at it ... yet. Funny thing is, I get really serious when I write in prose, almost depressingly so, so I have to look a bit further into why that affects me in that way."
Poetry is important to Chaney because it is a way to express feelings, describe someone's trials, tribulations or enjoyment. "It's been done throughout history, the Greeks accompanying themselves on the lyre, troubadours in early Elizabethan times, protest songs and poets in the "60s. It's about telling the story and communication."
She is inspired by what she sees around her, whether it's bugs, people or situations. "Or even when I have a problem or angst, I'll think of a phrase to describe the feeling, or how I would think about the "why' of the problem.
"I don't have common themes - I have common subjects or settings - for awhile I wrote about the garden - what lived there, observations about bugs ... flies, mosquitoes, spiders and how their lives affect ours. Oh, and fairies, of course. I wrote poems about Halloween and St. Paddy's Day, too. I have a series I'm working on about the moon - one for each special month, and then some."
Since her poems can be inspired by almost anything – the one printed here was inspired by going on Abingdon's "Haint Tour" – she says her muse "bombards me most of the time. There has been an occasion when I've started writing and then ... nothing, it slipped away." What does Chaney do when that happens? She writes a poem about it.
Chaney's book, "Pet Me" is about people and their relationships with their pets. "It started out as a poem about pets ... how we treat them, love them and how they are an integral part of our lives," Chaney says. It grew into an illustrated children's book.
Chaney majored in theatre arts at Virginia Tech. She moved to California when her husband got a job in Silicon Valley. Chaney says she had to coordinate a lot of "left brain, right brain" activities, because one of her day jobs was at Apple while she was "shopping my acting resume around." While at Apple, they discovered her reading voice, and that started her voice-over career. She began writing poetry while living in San Jose, Calif. Upon her return to Virginia she worked at Barter Theatre for two years. She is a member of the band, Kytchyn Sync, and works at the Washington County Public Library.
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The Haint ... An Actor's Epitaph
Some day ... as I grow older,
I want to be ... a ghost!
And sail along with legless movement,
hovering coast to coast.
I'd be a friendly happenstance,
... a willing confidant ...
to those who'd take the chance to know me
... even those who'd say they ... "cahn't"
and you wouldn't even know t'was me
that tickled at your chin
and think of all the fun I'd have!
... or the trouble you'd be in.
Then I would ne'er be lonely
(well, it's not that I am now)
but it would beat the possibility
of returning as a ... cow!
Yet, if you say we don't return,
what a pickle I'd be in.
Trapped forever "neath the dirt
with no way to make amends?
So let my spirit soar,
and let me practice ... here.
to reach your spirits ... in this life
and give you wondrous cheer.
For I want to make you laugh!
I ... l o n g ... to make you cry.
I want to ... touch you ... in some way,
before I say ... goodbye!
By Trisha W Chaney
Printed with permission
