Unconventional poet examines motherhood
Indrani Sengupta
Issue date: 11/17/09 Section: News
Rebecca Wolff doesn't stick to conventional poetry. Indeed, Professor Graham Foust, in his introduction to Wolff's poetry reading last Wednesday, November 11, said she "always remembers that poetry isn't sacred," yet her poems have a way of worming into your life, becoming "folded into the fabric of the world."
Wolff, an award-winning poet, and the editor/publisher of the magazine Fence and the poetry review website Constant Critic, was the sixth visiting writer for the Creative Writing Reading series. She began by reading a few poems from her new book, The King, which "deals with the things that happen when a person becomes pregnant, carries and births." The poems deal with several aspects of pregnancy and motherhood. In one poem, titled "Tonal Pattern," she states, "I am on drugs….I walk the junkie's walk, tilted….yet my baby is protected." In "The Reader," she describes the doubts of a mother-to-be: "are you meant to be born? Were you meant?" Wolff stated that her poems are very chronological, and, indeed, she soon shifted to the issue of postpartum depression with the curiously - or perhaps aptly - named "Where's The Funeral?" in which she likens the body of her newborn to that of a corpse that requires mourning. She ended this part of the reading with a "love poem" from a mother to her child.
Reading slowly and articulately, Wolff would pause for effect, allowing the audience suitable time and space to react. She often stopped to converse casually with the audience about the sound system ("The sound system's really nice for me. Hope it's nice for you.") or the conception of a particular poem. Her poems were short, and loaded with startling images that kept shifting.
In the Q&A session, Wolff talked about her magazine and publishing company, and described how they cater to non-mainstream poetry.
Wolff, an award-winning poet, and the editor/publisher of the magazine Fence and the poetry review website Constant Critic, was the sixth visiting writer for the Creative Writing Reading series. She began by reading a few poems from her new book, The King, which "deals with the things that happen when a person becomes pregnant, carries and births." The poems deal with several aspects of pregnancy and motherhood. In one poem, titled "Tonal Pattern," she states, "I am on drugs….I walk the junkie's walk, tilted….yet my baby is protected." In "The Reader," she describes the doubts of a mother-to-be: "are you meant to be born? Were you meant?" Wolff stated that her poems are very chronological, and, indeed, she soon shifted to the issue of postpartum depression with the curiously - or perhaps aptly - named "Where's The Funeral?" in which she likens the body of her newborn to that of a corpse that requires mourning. She ended this part of the reading with a "love poem" from a mother to her child.
Reading slowly and articulately, Wolff would pause for effect, allowing the audience suitable time and space to react. She often stopped to converse casually with the audience about the sound system ("The sound system's really nice for me. Hope it's nice for you.") or the conception of a particular poem. Her poems were short, and loaded with startling images that kept shifting.
In the Q&A session, Wolff talked about her magazine and publishing company, and described how they cater to non-mainstream poetry.