Essay Questions

How does this poem demonstrate both the benefits and disadvantages of being a “regional writer” working primarily within the milieu of a culture specific to a particular geographical location?

Because so little direct and unambiguous information is supplied, it would be almost impossible to determine any subtext going on beneath the sparse verse of limited supply. Without that subtext, all meaning is lost and there is simply not context to form any conclusion that gives life to what on paper is a rather uninspiring narrative. Here’s the facts of the poem without access to context or subtext: A farm girl with big feet from a Baptist family is waiting to see a counselor while looking to guidance from a book assigned as part of her psychology class reading to deal with some sort of issue related to the apparently discovery by her mother that she’s fallen in love with another girl. Lacking knowledge that the poet writes primarily about those low-income rural inhabitants of northern Georgia, northeastern Alabama, southeastern Tennessee and common border with South Carolina makes the task of explicating the unspoken coded messages of this poem almost impossible. Even knowing the poet’s body of work is highly concentrated on this population still makes for difficult work if you do not also know that this a part of the United States that is deeply conservative with politics views inextricably tied to fundamentalist evangelic Christian theology that can be trace back through many generations of the same family line. Thus, the poem reveals one of the greatest obstacles that a regional writer faces in attaining mainstream success beyond the reach of that culture. At the very same time, those who are familiar with the cultural, political, religious and moral sense of those inhabiting that region can pick up this or just about any other poem by Bettie Sellers and recognize instantly what’s really going on before someone in Australia has barely had the chance the google the phrase “existential psychology.”

How might the phrase “terra cotta girl” be interpreted in two very different ways?

Terra cotta is a clay-based ceramic used in everything from roofing tiles to tableware to statuary. When a glaze is applied, terra cotta is usually referred to as “earthenware” but it is still the same basic material and that material has two notable and very obvious qualities. First, terra cotta is very easy to identify in use because of the distinctive brownish-reddish kind of golden hue or tones. This would be the most obvious initial interpretation intended to convey the outdoor lifestyle of a “farm girl” who skin would be baked to a semi-permanent golden tan by prolonged exposure to the sun. By the end of the poem, however, when we have a little more about the girl, the other most notorious identifying feature of terra cotta could be equally well applied: as a material for building tiles, bowls and especially larger statuary, it is especially fragile and must be handled delicately in order to avoid breakage.

How are the last four lines of the poem potentially capable of being interpreted as an intrusion of dishonesty into what by all accounts seems to be a notably honest portrait of this moment in time up to then?

A certain undeniably brutal level of honesty has been maintained right from the start: the girl may not appreciate it if she knew a poet were describing her mainly as a farm girl with big feet, much less a farm girl with big feet wracked with guilt by what appears to be her first and probably unexpected encounter with lesbianism. Although in one way a lot of information is held back, in terms of emotional honesty, the poem is a pretty raw example of emotional honesty relative to the paucity of narrative details the reader is provided. And then, suddenly, this honesty is ferociously intruded by four lines that seem to be so tonally at odds with what’s come before that is almost starts to seem like irony. The girl in the waiting room who is so obviously incapable of handling the intense conflicting emotional response to the shock of what may well be her very first love has, the last four lines would have us believe, been brought back to face a “counselor” on the grounds that her mom is afraid of—and only afraid of—never getting to play with grandchildren. Where real unabashed irony exists is that those four lines are just as intellectually honest as anything which came before; no doubt her mom has convinced herself and is well on the way to convincing the girl in the waiting room that this is her one and only concern. Familiarity with the cultural and religious views of many of those populating that region indicates otherwise, however. What is gained in intellectual honesty by virtue of knowing the people she writes about intimately is offset by the emotional honesty that has suddenly dropped out of the poem like a bomb from the bay of a B-52. Why does it matter? Because anyone totally unfamiliar with the social realities of southern Baptists might and likely would easily assume that the emotionally honest tone of the poem does not shift at all in those closing lines. On the other hand, many of those in area reading know exactly when the lie beats the truth out of the narrative because they will recognize themselves in that moment.