Three Questions for Samantha

What inspired your choice of genre(s) and/or form(s) for your work?

“This American Currency”: This blackout poem calls back to a  2023 comment by Charlie Kirk. This is a quote from a longer segment where he defends the use of guns, ending on the note “If our money and our sporting events and our airplanes have armed guards, why don't our children?”

“Mortgage Lifters”: This flash fiction piece is a snapshot from an in-progress novel, On Leaf Creek. As one partner falls deeper into dementia, the other must reckon with both the outside world and their own rich, yet tumultuous, history of living together for decades in the hills of Eastern Kentucky. For me, a poet, flash fiction has been an accessible entryway into novel writing through small realistic snapshots.

What was your creative process?

“This American Currency”: This work is a part of a greater series from my in-progress full-length collection Common Wealth, a collection that examines how technology and politics shape our artistic limits. During my thesis work at the University of Kentucky, it was my goal to merge experimental poetic forms with current events to make sense of media double speak and to reveal hidden meaning.

“Mortgage Lifters”: I won a writing contest that granted me the opportunity to attend the Oak Ledge Writing Residency, a week-long stay in the renowned James Still Cabin at the Hindman Settlement School in Eastern Kentucky. This remote Hindman Kentucky cabin was the home of two Appalachian short story authors. Built by Lucy Furman, first director of grounds at Hindman Settlement School, the cabin was later home to Kentucky poet, James Still. I spent my time considering the lost history of queer Kentucky. Many writers in this area never “came out” but lived peaceful, independent and often nonconforming lives. Rurality and queerness are complicated and often layered identities.  I wrote this piece at James Still’s desk, and I swear both of their spirits were with me while I wrote, whispering the next line. 

What is the significance of this work to you?

“This American Currency”: This work is a meditation on societal erasure and empty morality, asking who benefits from America’s relentless pursuit of manufactured war and violence. The red blackout and conflicting arrows attempt to build chaos on the page, and the repetition works against the form to embody our fragmented experience with wealth and worth.

“Mortgage Lifters”: This work is dedicated to the many courageous queer folk who have lived fulfilling openly out lives in the hills throughout the decades. It attempts to question our definitions of what “being out” looks like, especially as it relates to aging and independence.

Samantha Renee Ratcliffe (she/they) is a second-year MFA candidate in poetry at the University of Kentucky. An Eastern Kentucky native, her writing centers queer life and the complexities of rural survival, as well as the intimacies of hunger, land, and body. Her work is forthcoming in Vagabond City Lit, Dogyard Mag, Corporeal Magazine, and others. Find more at SamanthaRatcliffe.com