Episode 29: Molly Peacock
Rachel Zucker speaks with poet, memoirist, essayist, and teacher Molly Peacock about authenticity, performance, fear, a woman’s presentation of an authentic self, confessional poetry, constructing art from the material of life, female crafts, photography, the relationship of constructedness to privilege, teaching, formalism, her friendship with poet Phillis Levin, watching the light change in a room, Mary Delany, Molly’s decision not to have children, giving up perfectionism, psychotherapy, the idea of the sympathetic witness, how to construct a life in which you are there for yourself, how to teach with generosity and enthusiasm while still maintaining energy for one’s own creative life, and how to foster boldness.
Books by Molly Peacock
The Analyst (W.W. Norton, 2017)
Alphabetique: 26 Characteristic Fictions (McClelland and Stewart, 2014)
Paper Garden: Mrs. Delany Begins Her Life’s Work at 72 (Bloomsbury UK, 2012)
The Second Blush (W.W. Norton, 2009)
Cornucopia (W.W. Norton, 2004)
How to Read a Poem…: and Start a Poetry Circle (Diane, 1999)
Paradise, Piece by Piece (Riverhead, 1999)
Original Love (W.W. Norton, 1996)
Take Heart (Vintage, 1989)
Raw Heaven (Random House, 1984)
And Live Apart (University of Missouri Press, 1980)
Other books, writers, artists mentioned in the episode
Poetic Meter & Poetic Form by Paul Fussell (McGraw-Hill, 1979)
Poetry Handbook: A Dictionary of Terms by Babette Deutsch (Harper, 2009)
Other relevant links
