Challenging Truths: A Conversation with Darah Schillinger
“I realize that what we tell ourselves, and what we tell women and children, influences how we think and how we perform,” says Darah Schillinger from her room at St. Mary’s College of Maryland. “And when we keep telling women that they can’t do something, then we are perpetuating the cycle.”
Darah Schillinger, the author of Yellow Arrow Publishing’s next chapbook, when the daffodils die, is passionately explaining the results of a study that she learned about in her “Feminism and Philosophy” class. The study itself is impressive as is Darah’s animated presence as she expresses her desire to support women, putting what she learned into practice. In fact, this study became the inspiration for Darah to write “When Mars and Venus Collide,” included within when the daffodils die. The poem highlights numerous influential women throughout history to now, including Tu Youyou, a chemist who helped find a treatment for malaria, and Susan La Flesche Picotte, the first Native American woman to earn a medical degree. But “When Mars and Venus Collide” is only one example of how Darah uses when the daffodils die to challenge long-standing truths within our society and change perspectives so that her readers can examine the scene from a new angle.
when the daffodils die is now available for PRERELEASE (click here for wholesale prices) and will be released July 12, 2022. Follow Yellow Arrow on Facebook and Instagram for Friday sneak peeks into when the daffodils die. The beautiful yet simplistic cover was created in-house by Creative Director Alexa Laharty after a few conversations with Darah about her vision. Darah notes, “My original design for the cover was simple because my poems tend to focus on finding beauty in the overlooked, and I wanted a simple, yet beautiful cover to reflect that. I also opted to keep the handwritten font (at the editor’s insistence!) because I think it reflects the humanness of poetry. It’s personal, and I wanted it to feel personal the second you see it. I’m thrilled with how the cover turned out. Alexa did a wonderful job bringing my original design to life.”
At the time of this interview with Vignette Managing Editor Siobhan McKenna, Darah was preparing for final exams and her college graduation, but graciously took the time to speak about her path to writing and her forthcoming publication. Within their conversation, they explored the themes that permeate when the daffodils die: humans and their relationships with nature, spirituality, and love.
Growing up in Baltimore County, in Maryland, Darah always loved writing but didn’t see herself becoming a poet. In middle school, she wrote fiction novels because she thought she was going “to do the big book think,” and it wasn’t until high school that she started writing poetry. From there, poetry became a hobby that she quickly realized she loved. Darah was able to expand on her passion by enrolling in collegiate-level creative writing courses and interning for several literary magazines, including with Yellow Arrow in 2021. Over the years, poetry has become a “safe space” for Darah; a place where she can explore her thoughts and ponder the state of the world. When not working, studying, or figuring out her next steps in life, Darah says that she enjoys filling the notes app in her iPhone with short lines or thoughts that she can later develop into complete poems.
Your collection revolves around natural imagery and a relationship with nature: have you always been attuned to nature and was there someone in your life who inspired this?
I’ve always been fascinated with nature. I can’t pinpoint when it started, but I’ve always incorporated natural imagery into my writing. College has also shaped me way more than I thought it would. [St. Mary’s College of Maryland] is a very nature-based campus. We have a pond and a riverside and in spring everything is in bloom. And going for a walk is the highlight of my day on this campus. So, it’s hard not to be inspired by nature here.
[Growing up, I lived in] Baltimore County, which is very crowded and is called a suburb but as close as you can get to the “city” without being a city. Which is why I also think I am so drawn to places like St. Mary’s and rural Pennsylvania because when I do visit those places it is such a stark contrast to where I grew up. There’s so much nature to see that I’m kind of awed by it, and it’s really nice to see places that haven’t been touched as much by humans.
When I was really young, I remember that it would be a big deal when my grandmother would take me to the state park nearby: Gunpowder State Park. We would go on a hike and sometimes go fishing . . . or we would swim in the river and play on the rocks. And my cousins and I would go rock climbing—very small-scale rock climbing, never anything big and those were treats for us! That was something that I looked forward to every summer, every spring. [Those trips] have stuck with me, and I find . . . being outside something special. And I definitely think my grandmother—my Mommom—has been a big influence on that because she adores nature. She loves going on her drives. She’ll go driving and one day, she texted me and said, “I’m out and I just saw 10 deer” and [the time] was 2:00 am! She’ll stay up all night just to see a deer—it’s a really special relationship she has, and I think she gave me a little bit of that.
The past few years, some of my friends and I have gotten more into herbalism and pagan traditions, and these small practices have helped me appreciate nature in ways I didn’t before.
I took a class on the literature of paganism and witchcraft where we also delved into herbal medicine. I even wrote my final paper on the significance of daffodils in herbalism. I think that [class] has influenced my relationship with nature as well and how healing it can be and how intimate people should be with [nature].
What would happen if I kept the windows down as I drove,
the gray air woven in my hair, the smell of a Pennsylvania winter
clinging heavy in my pores
“winter in Pennsylvania”
In your poem “herbal medicine,” you speak of nature as being able to heal. How have you used nature in your own life to heal?
I’m going to keep returning to it because I feel like it’s true: I think that sitting outside when it’s nice or [listening to rainstorms and thunder can be] healing. If I have the window cracked and I get to hear [the storm] then I can take a break from all the stress. And getting to sit outside and listen to the birds or look at the flowers . . . is healing. . . . I do that a lot [by myself] and I do that a lot with my friends. We sit on our patio and listen to a little music and enjoy the day. And I really hope that more people get to do that. We get so caught up in the stresses of everyday life that we don’t pay attention. And I know this is the stop-and-smell-the-roses [cliché], but it’s so true—if I didn’t take those 30 minutes a day to sit and relax, I don’t know what I would do.
In the last several years, especially among college students and recent college graduates, I’ve seen a resurgence of herbalism and a focus on nature as a belief system on social media. Why do you think that your generation is beginning to take inspiration from pagan ideals and herbal medicine?
I think it is a combination of things. On social media, it has become trendy to be into paganism, witchcraft, and herbal medicine. But I also think that—and this is speculation—a lot of people my age and younger that I know aren’t religious. But I think that for [other older generations] religion always seemed to be something that people found solace in, and it was comforting to believe in something. [Now,] people my age, myself included, don’t necessarily adhere to one [religion], so I think it’s comforting to believe in nature. And I know that sounds very hippie-dippie, but it feels very grounding to trust in nature, to enjoy nature, and to find comfort in it. And while it’s not necessarily an established religion, I think that a lot of people my age enjoy it for those reasons.
Here, let the drops of peppermint oil and patience drip-drip
from your palms like
VapoRub for the rattled soul
“herbal medicine”
In your poem “Eden,” you reference the often-unmentioned biblical figure of Lilith, what was your spiritual upbringing like and how did you learn of Lilith?
I don’t know when I first heard about Lilith. [The story of Lilith] was always kind of something that my mom and I thought was interesting. I grew up Episcopalian . . . and when I fell out of a strict Christian religion, I looked more into other [beliefs] and I brought it to my mom, and I was like “Hey . . . why haven’t we talked about Lilith?” And she was all on board to talk about it because she didn’t know that much about [her and her story] either. So, we looked into the story of the first woman, [Lilith,] who wasn’t made from Adam—and I’m not that familiar with it but based on the research that I have done [my understanding is that] because she didn’t want to obey [Adam] she was cast out [of Eden]. And then another woman, [Eve,] was made from Adam to serve Adam. And [after learning more about her] my question was: why was this myth created if no one wants to talk about it? And I was so fascinated by the story because it is everything that I talk about with my friends and in college and with my mom: women aren’t made to obey people. That’s something I’ve never believed in. My mother always told me that I am my own person. . . . And I think that the basis of the story is that an independent woman is demonized, and I want more women to know about [the story of] Lilith.
Lilith, do you think of Eve, when you run with your night creatures?
When you fly into the dark air, hated but free?
“Eden”
Young love and being in the eye of one’s lover are themes that repeat throughout your poems and is also a timeless theme in poetry. Why do you think that poetry has been a vessel for love for so long?
I think that love is poetic. I know that’s not a great answer, but [love] is something that no one is able to come up with a good definition for and I think that keeps us writing about it. Because, if [you ask someone] to describe love, every single person is going to give a different answer. And [their answers] might be related to each other, but everyone’s interpretation of love and how they love is unique. And I think that keeps [the theme of] love going in poems and in stories and songs because it is something that we can never officially pin down.
A lot of my poems are about my relationship with my partner and some of them are fictionalized because I’ve been with my partner for a very long time, and we are very committed to one another. But I also identify as a bisexual woman and I’m in a straight passing relationship. . . . I think there are a lot of ways to love and types of love, and I fictionalize it because I am so obsessed with it. Love is something that I have experienced, and I am experiencing, but there are different types of love that I may never experience, but I am able to explore those types through my writing.
What do you hope your readers gain from reading when the daffodils die or how do you think the poems will sit with your readers?
I hope that they enjoy them, but I also hope that someone, somewhere relates to something I’ve written. It doesn’t have to be that everybody likes it or hates it; I want someone to walk away from it [thinking] I enjoyed myself while I was reading and maybe thought of something in a way that I hadn’t before. Maybe, “I’m gonna look at nature differently,” or maybe, “I saw myself in one of the relationship poems and it made me happy.” I want people to open it and relate [to the poems] in some way.
On cloudy days I’d lay at the very edge of the bed on my back
[. . .]
and wait to see if I could feel the
world stop turning
if I held my breath. it was a good use of the day when the sky was full
to watch the trees sway
and think about abortion rights
or privilege
or poverty
“cloudy days”
You first worked with Yellow Arrow as a 2021 summer intern, helping with publications and writing several blogs, even now. How did you originally find out about Yellow Arrow?
I actually reached out to Yellow Arrow because I was looking up places [near my home in Maryland] that I could intern for . . . I saw Yellow Arrow while I was researching, and they were my top choice because I loved the message. I loved that it’s women-owned, women-run, women supporting women, and it’s not just that, there’s also diversity. It’s not just white women who are having their voices heard and who are getting the chance to be published and talk about how awesome writing is, but all types of women.
From whom or what do you seek inspiration?
Everywhere. All the time. I write very much in the present, so I tend to write about whatever I’m seeing or feeling or reading about in the moment. That’s why I love the notes app on my phone. I’ll be walking back from work, and I’ll see an especially big tuft of onion grass . . . and I just write down a quick note about onion grass, and then it shows up [in a poem] later on. [My writing is] very in the moment and it is usually just snippets of something and later I’ll make it into a broader poem.
I fall in love daily
with the sky and the sea and
the pollen watering my eyes
“marriage”
Do you have a favorite poet?
I had a big Sylvia Plath tapestry for a long time, so definitely Sylvia. I’ve gotten very into Bell Hooks recently, and I was kind of devastated when she passed [a short time ago]. I actually wrote a poem about Bell Hooks’ passing. And over quarantine, I got very into Sappho. So I ordered myself a big collection of Sappho poetry in order to pass the time.
Daffodil imagery is a large presence throughout your chapbook: it’s the name of the book as well as your final piece. Why did you end your collection with the eponymous poem, “the daffodils die”?
As soon as I wrote the short daffodil poem, when I was putting together the collection, I was like this has to be the last one. And I think it’s because I thought daffodils symbolize death, but they also symbolize rebirth and the beginning of spring. But I think that when things end, other things begin so it is very much a cycle; just as the book is ending, the daffodils die, but there is still a continuation.
I have to ask—even though I think I know the answer—what is your favorite flower?
Definitely daffodils. I know—very on the nose. We have the gulch here [at St Mary’s College in Maryland], which is what the last poem is written about, and every March the entire [hillside] blooms and everything is yellow and green and it’s beautiful. [There’s a path on the hillside] that winds down to a hidden beach and it’s just my favorite place to go in March. I just like the idea of daffodils—they don’t even get to see spring, but they announce spring is here.
****
Since this interview, Darah graduated from St. Mary’s College of Maryland with a BA in English and a minor in creative writing. This summer she will work part-time before starting her MS in professional writing at Towson University in the fall. Please show your support of Darah by preordering your copy of when the daffodils die today.
Thank you, Darah and Siobhan, for sharing your conversation. Yellow Arrow Publishing is a nonprofit supporting women writers through publication and access to the literary arts. Yellow Arrow recently revamped and restructured its Yellow Arrow Journal subscription plan to include two levels. Do you think you are an Avid Reader or a Literary Lover? Find out more about the discounts and goodies involved at yellowarrowpublishing.com/store/yellow-arrow-journal-subscription.
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