When poet Sophie Salerno started working at a local natural products grocery store, she was already writing poems where the color green was important.
It all started in Salerno’s backyard, which had a wooden fence full of trumpet vines. “One day, I went outside and saw that all the vines had been cut down,” said Salerno, who moved to Indy from Bloomsburg, Pa., in 2021 to study creative writing at Butler University. “Somebody had taken my green away. Where did my green go?”
That loss started a slight obsession with green — searching for it everywhere, exploring its significance and meaning.
Because the grocery store sells vitamins and herbs “to customers who are seeking help for their pain,” Salerno said, she saw it everywhere. “Maybe these people lost their green.”
To learn more about these stories, we spoke to Salerno about her new poetry manuscript, “Evergreen.”
Samantha Fain: How did you search for green in your life as you drafted your poems?
A: I would ask my coworkers, “Do you have any green tidbits?” One coworker told me about a poisonous green. There’s a green fairy I like in the collection “Four-Legged Girl” by Diane Seuss. I also started finding songs on Spotify that are green.
Q: Do you think there’s more green in your life now that you live in Indianapolis?
A: I was only aware of green once I lived in Indianapolis. The move to Indy (from Pennsylvania) was big for me — moving away from family, friends and relationships for my education felt risky. Studying green familiarized me with my new surroundings so that I didn’t feel like I was just floating in space.
Q: What does green mean to you? What other themes are in your poetry?
A: Green, for me, means being okay: feeling safe, feeling like you have a purpose. Exploring the loss of purpose and how to regain it is a topic I write about a lot. Another theme is the body as an archive and the different experiences we carry and release. I’m an internalizer, so poetry has helped me get out of my body and get onto the page.
There’s a quote in “The Glass Essay” by Anne Carson that has influenced my writing a lot:
“You remember too much.
my mother said to me recently
Why hold onto all that? And I said,
Where can I put it down?”
There are two ways I interpret this. It’s how writing poetry makes me feel — like an exhale, and it’s how I understand things in my life.
In another way, those lines have seeped into the contents of my poems, even in the poems I write about working at the grocery store. The customers are looking for ways to feel an alleviation of their pain or stress. Working there, I’m a direct witness to their pain and I’m trying to help them feel lighter.
Q: How do you handle writer’s block?
A: Handling writer’s block is a work in progress. I do a lot of porch-sitting and keep my notebook on me during my work shifts to write down observations. And many times, I’ve noticed that those observations work their way into something, even if they weren’t initially interesting.
Q: What advice do you have for aspiring poets?
A: Be comfortable with observing. The first step for me was taking an active interest in my surroundings. Then, find ways to turn your observation into something more.
Poems don’t have to be huge, transformative pieces of writing, either. Many people like reading about everyday lives and struggles, so don’t get intimidated.
Be sure to read poems too. That’s been one of the biggest things that’s helped me grow as a writer. Reading and talking about poetry with people who are as excited as you are helps a ton.
Entrance to the Gardens
By Sophie Salerno
I warm my stone between my palms. Sit
across from the open gates. The ground:
half snow half green. Squirrels dig in dirt,
run up the dogwoods. I never trusted them.
Their franticness. Their rummaging— darting
for scraps in trash cans. Something about not liking in others
what we see in ourselves. Instinct to bury. Forgetting
what we shoved beneath the wood poppies. Have they forgotten
where they put the bounty? How do they remember
those scattered provisions? No one is coming. No one
comes to help. Alli says if nothing else we must
provision for ourselves. Now I keep wool socks
and canned green beans in the trunk. I speak soft,
mischief coins spilling from my pockets. I think
about the woman at Good Earth who said can you help me?
How her bird felt that seventy-two-degree breeze
and picked her feathers out— raged against her metal
cage in the morning. I feel that itch of the in between—
we are on the edge of spring.
My mouth thawing
Check out Sophie’s “Green” Spotify playlist:
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