Mary Ross | Site Director
“Every summer, mayflies swan the shores of Lake St. Clair for a week’s time, before their bodies dry up and scatter like ashes. Set inside the blue-collar automotive town of Windsor, Ontario, Mayflies traces the trajectory of adolescence into adulthood…” so says the synopsis of Cassandra Caverhill’s newest poetry chapbook, Mayflies.
This collection of poetry is inspired by Caverhill’s own life, with themes of young love, family, discovering oneself and much more.
Zilka Joseph, author of Sharp Blue Search of Flame, What Dread, and Lands I Live in describes Caverhill as looking “unflinchingly at darkness, at transience, at when life ‘suddenly splits into before and after.’ This chapbook makes us walk the brink of the abyss, portrays struggle and survival, and the poet pushes us to the edge—we are always “on the verge of breaking open.”
This high praise could support the idea that Caverhill was always meant to be a poet and has continuously worked to publish her work. However, that couldn’t be further from the truth.
“I didn’t know that I wanted to do poetry. That was something that came about six years ago and it came about after leaving a corporate job that was not working for me. It was very draining and not a great environment, so I moved back into the non-profit world and writing kind of just filled the space that was left behind,” Caverhill said about her return to poetry.
Deciding to reengage with her poetry means she left it in the past at one point. This may have to do with the fact that in her youth, Caverhill sent some of her poetry to a local journal in Windsor that requested student submissions. She sent submissions twice and was rejected both times.
“I kind of felt oh so this is something that shouldn’t necessarily be shared with people, this is something just for me. And so that kind of continued into my high school years and I always felt like poetry was written when some kind of situation came around, usually something to do with a boy or like love not working out. That was when it would come to fruition,” she said.
Upon going to the University of Windsor for her undergraduate studying Drama and Communication studies, Caverhill became immersed in the music industry and found herself working for several radio station as an intern during school and a full-time employee after. She admits though she loved it, a felt like piece of her was missing.
“Though I enjoyed it, there was something about it where I felt like I was supporting other people art and I’m not necessarily creating art. And there was this tension with that, where it wasn’t enough for me but I also didn’t have the courage to write anything that was outside of that and I didn’t think I had anything to say, on top of being a critic as well. I was worried that anything I put out into the world would get a lot of scrutiny back.”
When she met her husband, Michael Bradley, he encouraged her to keep writing because as Caverhill described it “he felt like something was there which gave me the confidence to keep going with it”. After this boost of confidence, Caverhill started taking classes and workshops in the Ann Arbor area to develop her poetry and ability to analyze it. This led her to also work on a Certificate in Editing from the University of Chicago, which she received in 2018.
One of the most writing-altering lessons she learned from reengaging with her writing and participating in workshops was the importance of drafting.
“I think the issue I had before I started writing again seriously in my thirties is when I draft something, once it’s one the page, it’s done. And I didn’t realize until I started workshopping with local artists in Ann Arbor that no you have to revise further than that. It’s not one and done,” she said.
It was through these classes and workshops that Caverhill met her mentor, Zilka Joseph, who gave her such high praise of Mayflies. In fact, it was Joseph that realized Caverhill’s collection of poetry was even the chapbook Caverhill has now published.
“When I sat down to write poetry and decided to give it a go, this is just what came out and it wasn’t until my mentor Zilka Joseph read this — she was helping me prepare a portfolio for applying to BG — she said to me this is a chapbook. And I was like ‘it is?’ Because I didn’t know. That was kind of news to me,” Caverhill exclaimed with her arms going out as if to physically ask along with her words.
With Joseph’s help with early edits, Caverhill began sending her chapbook out to competitions held by publishing presses. Simply put, if you win a chapbook competition, your chapbook gets published.
The first chapbook competition Caverhill sent her chapbook to was Celery City.
“They had a guest judge who contacted me directly right after and he was like ‘I’m sorry we didn’t pick this as a winner, but this chapbook really spoke to me’. He encouraged me that there was something with that manuscript that felt like I should keep going with it”. That name of that judge was Joe Gross. Little did he know that his encouragement was what kept Caverhill trying again and again to win chapbook competitions.
“I think because I had that really encouraging rejection the first time and because it has been a finalist on my fourth or fifth try, to me, that signaled to me that it was close. And so it just maybe wasn’t necessarily someone’s style, or there were other things they wanted to — sometimes you just aren’t the best book, there are other books out there, but that doesn’t mean your book isn’t good, so it can just be really competitive. Just getting those rejections made me feel like I was close so I should just keep trying. I think if I hadn’t received those, I would have second guessed that and maybe played with the manuscript a little longer,” she remarked.
It was about ten chapbook competitions later that she finally received an accepted manuscript from Finishing Line Press.
“I didn’t win their contest, but they accepted it anyways, which kind of shocked me. I was like wait did they make a mistake? Did they give me an acceptance through submittable when they meant to give me a rejection so I was unsure about it I think until they sent me the contract that it was real. I was like this has to be an error, I wasn’t even in their finalists. Why would they say yes if I wasn’t there?”
After coming to terms that Mayflies was indeed being published when the contract was finally sent her way, Caverhill knew it would be about a year before the chapbook would be sent to press and available for people to buy. Though the chapbook was accepted in September or October of 2019, not much happened until April or May of 2020 when Finishing Line Press started to send Caverhill the galleys, a publishing term that refers to the proofs of a book to be reviewed prior to publishing.
In the midst of all sending her chapbook to these competitions, Caverhill was also gearing up to begin her MFA program at BGSU. Considering that her husband and her had made Ann Arbor their home base and wanted to stay in the area, she wanted a small-town vibe that she experienced at the University of Windsor and a collaborative nature of the program rather than a competitive nature, BGSU’s MFA program in poetry was the best option for her. In fact, it was the only program she ended up applying to.
“BG was the only one I applied to. I kind of felt too like I manufactured a situation where it would be fake like if I get in, then I’m meant to do this, but if I don’t then maybe I’ll see if I want to apply again. I got in, first try, only school which is kind of wild. I’m very thankful to be a part of the program. It’s great,” she said.
Through her time at BGSU, Caverhill has grown as a writer in more ways than one. The person Caverhill says is her most influential instructor has been Sharona Muir.
“She has been instrumental in pushing me beyond my comfort zone. She’s my thesis advisor right now and I chose her because I was like [Sharona’s] going to give me the direction that I need to go in. I always agree with the feedback she’s given me even if I feel like it’s a crushing criticism to receive. I’m also I really see the accuracy in that, so I really trust her eye as an editor.”
The Mid-American Review also shed light on new ways to look at poetry and writing.
“The sheer amount of submissions you receive and have to review, I feel like I was learning so much through osmosis, like what to do, what not to do,” she said. “So even though I couldn’t necessarily articulate what I was getting from looking at all those different poems, I enjoyed the discussions we had and the ways that other people would read something that maybe I didn’t see the first time around or perhaps had overlooked.”
Overall, being in BGSU’s MFA program has helped Caverhill grow in confidence and in her writing.
“The program has really helped me with that. Now I feel confident going out into the big writer world once school is over to know how to diagnose my own poems to some degree as much as I can before sharing it with other people to see what their feedback is,” she said.
With everything she has learned, Caverhill wants to not only continue creating her own writing, but also inspire and assist others in their writing.
“I wanted to help people get their ideas to the page too… that’s where I kind of want to go with writing after. Just like helping people with their manuscript, book coaching, just to help people sound more like themselves on the page. It’s been kind of this nice marriage to write and to help other people with their writing.”
To learn more about what Caverhill has to say about her own poems, writing style, and writing process, check out the following article:
An inside look at what Caverhill says about her writing style, writing process and poems
To order Caverhill’s chapbook Mayflies, click on the link below or visit her website at cassandracaverhill.com.
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