A shoebox full of family letters and photos served as inspiration for “Darkling”, Anna Rabinowitz’ book-length poem of fragmented memory, published in 2001, and now a haunting opera-theater piece presented by American Opera Projects. Adapted and directed by Michael Comish, with music by Stefan Weisman, a cast of 13 and the Flux String Quartet, “Darkling” fuses singing, music, light, film and video effects and the words of Rabinowitz’ poem, many of which appear and disappear on transparent screens throughout the 80-minute performance.

According to the award-winning poet, “Darkling: A Poem” began as an acrostic connected to Thomas Hardy’s millennial verse, “The Darkling Thrush”.

“It helped me hold together the fragments I was working with, pre-Holocaust letters and unidentified photos. ” Rabinowitz says in the “Darkling” program. “The acrostic is an ancient form used as a devise for remembering…that brings us closer to the mysteries of divinity: that which is hidden from us in plain sight.” She sees her work transformed to theater piece as “a vast undiscovered country of interwoven genres called into service to lift poetry off the page and onto the stage.”

So, what has this journey from page to stage been like for Rabinowitz herself?

She took some time last week, just after opening night, to share her reflections.

DS: what’s your reaction to seeing your poem come to life as a theatrical piece?

AR: It’s the most extraordinary thing that could have happened. Earlier with my poetry, I was trying to do things on the page to connect with visual arts. That’s been leading me. I feel we need to bring all these genres together, break down the boundaries. Animate the words and give them dimension. I was also extremely lucky to have all these people who ate and breathed this poem every day.

DS: When did the poetry journey actually begin for you? How long have you

been writing?

AR: I’ve always written, even as a child in Brooklyn. Then I put it aside, got into editorial work, some public school teaching, later, interior decorating. But after

all that, and raising a family, I felt I needed to get back to writing.

It really started when I went to Columbia’s MFA program in the late 1980’s.

DS: And when did you find this shoebox of letters and photos?

AR: It was before I returned to school. I was going through my father’s things in his house. He’d been a pack rat. What I found in the box was his private correspondence, his letters and others, in Polish and Yiddish. I took them to YIVO to be translated, and then started to work with them at Columbia.

DS: How did the connection to the Hardy poem come about?

AR: I already was ruminating about the letters, and I’d written some poems using couplets. I’ve always been interested in forms. Hardy’s poem had a tremendous affect on me. He was looking back over a century, and I was doing the same thing, using all this material I found in the shoebox. The acrostic idea just came to me, but I thought of it simply as scaffolding, and didn’t tell anyone about it until I got a publisher.

DS: As a poet, you speak of the idea of the fragmentary nature of memory. Was this

book written as your own response to what you found in the box, or a representation

of feelings of your parents/relatives in the letters and photos?

AR: That’s a great question. I wanted to maintain a distance. There’s enough survival stuff around. It was about their feelings at first, but I’ ;m not sure any more.

DS: Did it seem to be something like a channeling?

AR: Yes, I really feel I was a conduit.

DS: What about the idea of putting this poem to music? Have you ever worked with music before?

AR: No, it had nothing to do with me. Someone from my publisher (Tupelo Press) happened to meet Michael (Comish) socially, and showed him my book (“ Darkling: A Poem”) because it struck her that it would work with music. She felt there were

distinct voices in the poem, and I’d always felt it was about disembodied voices myself.

DS: How did “Darkling” become an opera?

AR: Michael was associated with AOP, so it happened that way. They wanted to do something very innovative, and they decided to marry the two. We weren’t sure ourselves for a while what this thing was, but it’s that opera is heightened expression-larger than life. And I think really compelling poetry is also. You know, opera began in the 16^th century, and it was actually invented by poets and musicians.

DS: Were you involved in the development of the project?

AR: I was totally involved, except for the staging, and they honored the book.

I recorded everything and the actors worked with that. I saw lots and lots of new theater, so I could back up my opinions. There was a lot of improv as we went along. All in all, the project took about two and a half years, and I did take a back seat after a while.

DS: “Darkling” deals with memories connected to the Holocaust. Do you see it as a

Jewish work, or does it cross over?

AR: I think it should cross over. And it’s been astonishing, so many non-Jewish people have been involved with this. When the book first came out, it was right after 9/11, so this whole business about memory took on even more universal meaning, and people have become more sensitized to this kind of fragmented memory.

DS: You’ve said “Darkling” deals with “vacancy, displacement and separation”.

What, if anything, do you find hopeful about the piece?

AR: I think the greatest hope is in bringing these people who didn’t survive (the Holocaust) to life. It’s a positive accomplishment. Immediately we find we have fragments, very gnarled, but there’s hope that we will go on and not repeat what was-

that memory can revive people or grow new shoots all the time.

DS: You’ve also spoken about things always shifting. Has the message of this work shifted for you?