{"id":422,"date":"2015-02-04T09:14:34","date_gmt":"2015-02-04T14:14:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/?p=422"},"modified":"2015-02-04T09:14:34","modified_gmt":"2015-02-04T14:14:34","slug":"mar-asks-molly-spencer-answers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/mar-asks-molly-spencer-answers\/","title":{"rendered":"MAR Asks, Molly Spencer Answers"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_424\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-424\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/molly-spencer.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-424 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/molly-spencer.jpg\" alt=\"molly spencer\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/molly-spencer.jpg 600w, https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/molly-spencer-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-424\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Molly Spencer (photo \u00a9 2013 Ted Weinstein)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<blockquote><p>Everyone watches a girl unfold<br \/>\ninto a woman, and I hid<br \/>\nin the shade<\/p>\n<p>of my thorn-dark hair<br \/>\nwhen my father&#8217;s friends looked at me<br \/>\ntoo long.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This is the the opening of Molly Spencer&#8217;s poem, &#8220;Aubade with Book and Angel,&#8221; which appears in our latest issue of MAR 35.1. Molly&#8217;s here to today to answer some questions about the poem and talk about revision, writing and motherhood, and persistence.<\/p>\n<p>Molly Spencer\u2019s poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in <em>Beloit Poetry Journal<\/em>, <em>Linebreak, New England Review<\/em>, <em>Quarterly West<\/em>, and other journals. She\u2019s an MFA student at the Rainier Writing Workshop and a teaching artist with California Poets in the Schools. She lives and works in the San Francisco Bay Area. Find her online at <a href=\"https:\/\/mollyspencer.wordpress.com\/\">https:\/\/mollyspencer.wordpress.com\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Quick! Summarize your story\/poem\/essay in 10 words or fewer. Extra points if your answer rhymes.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Portrait of adolescence as Luke Chapter 1<\/p>\n<p><strong>What can you share about this piece prior to its MAR publication?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I wrote the first draft in early 2009 after having read some of Mary Szybist\u2019s work in <em>The Iowa Review<\/em> (those poems later appeared in her book <em>Incarnadine<\/em>). Szybist\u2019s poems were, like mine, reinterpretations of the Annunciation. I interpreted it fairly widely &#8212; annunciation as the onset of womanhood.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What was the worst\/best feedback you received on this piece (either in the writing\/critiquing process, post-publication, or otherwise)?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>At one point I brought it to my writing group with the line, \u201cAll girls learn to fight, to flee.\u201d A person in the group really took issue with that. She argued that not all girls learn to fight; that some girls learn to just \u201ctake it.\u201d Changing that line to \u201cSome girls learn to fight, to flee\u201d complicated the poem and its speaker, and is truer, I think. Another big shift occurred when I decided to give this poem a contemporary setting, rather than an historical setting.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>You\u2019re at a family reunion and some long-lost relative asks about your writing. What do you say?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Verbatim every time (though mostly with other moms on the playground rather than with long lost relatives):<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Yes I\u2019ve been published.<\/li>\n<li>I haven\u2019t kept track of how many times.<\/li>\n<li>No I don\u2019t have a book yet.<\/li>\n<li>Yes, I\u2019m working on one.<\/li>\n<li>It\u2019s about the body, memory, motherhood, and language.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>What do you consider your biggest writing-related success? <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Keeping at it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Your biggest writing-related regret?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>When I was younger, I thought I had to make a choice between motherhood and the writing life. I didn\u2019t think I could manage both since both are so intense and all-consuming. I had my babies and tried to avoid poetry\u2019s allure for several years \u2013 but of course it didn\u2019t work. I wish I had those lost years back. I wish I had done both all along.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Do you have another favorite piece of writing in this MAR issue? If so, name it and tell us why.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I really love Sarah Burke\u2019s poem \u201cThe Rock Has No Children\u201d for all of its beautiful, rough images and its oblique approach to infertility. Her lines \u201cBut you refused \/ to lie down, little one\u201d really touched me. For me, these words speak to all the things in our lives that take root in poor soil, that hold on in spite of it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Can you show us a photo of you holding your MAR contributor\u2019s copy?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Molly-Spencer-2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-425\" src=\"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Molly-Spencer-2.jpg\" alt=\"Molly Spencer (2)\" width=\"211\" height=\"282\" srcset=\"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Molly-Spencer-2.jpg 480w, https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Molly-Spencer-2-225x300.jpg 225w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 211px) 100vw, 211px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Thanks for the interview, Molly!<\/strong><em><br \/>\nLaura Maylene Walter, Fiction Editor<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Everyone watches a girl unfold into a woman, and I hid in the shade of my thorn-dark hair when my&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-contributor-interviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=422"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":428,"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422\/revisions\/428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}