"Theory" describes an incident of bullying I experienced as a ten-year-old. I tried to write this poem for decades, but the previous poems were terrible! Then I realized Judith Butler was writing their book Gender Trouble at the same time as this happened, and it opened up so much connection for me. Suddenly, I wasn’t isolated in this experience anymore, even in the past.
Miller Oberman on "Theory" |
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"Following the Poet’s Path: A Daughter’s Journey to Japan In Search of Closure"
"When my mother was dying in New York, in December 2020, the city was in its eighth month of lockdown with no vaccines. The hospital waiting room where I’d taken my own children for stitches and reassurance was now a row of taped-off chairs. I walked out of the sliding doors and circled the long hospital block like a sheepdog. My mother was a poet, Jean Valentine. Or maybe she was the poet, Jean Valentine, who also happened to be my mother."
via LITERARY HUB |
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What Sparks Poetry:
Matt Broaddus on Building Community
"A major interest of mine, in terms of bringing in historical reference, is just trying to acknowledge that where I am is not the be-all-end-all and won’t be the be-all-end-all. What I mean by that is that where I’m writing from is just a blip, you know, and my writing and my literary self on the page is in many ways an outgrowth of historical forces that are beyond my control. I think that one way I can feel like my art is engaging with these forces is to write about them and to move the past into the present." |
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