Ms. Muse is a discovery place for riotous, righteous and resonant feminist poetry that nourishes and gives voice to a rising tide of resistance—brought to you by Ms. digital columnist Chivas Sandage.
The poems of Houstonian and Tuscaloosa, Alabama-born poet, author, podcast host and professor Melissa Studdard have been described as both “light and heavy, all at once”—likened to paintings and magic tricks. Her poems reimagine both the ordinary and the tragic as an extraordinary surrealistic scene, much the way ribbons, washes and spirals of luminous, flickering green and/or purple and/or red that we call the Southern Lights transform any landscape.
Studdard has been compared to Neruda, Whitman and the Romantic poets such as Wordsworth, Byron and Shelley. Her defiant poems embrace magical realism and fearlessly break contemporary literary taboo with their dream sequences and stubbornly passionate optimism.
The Laura Brown of contemporary poetry—she’s strikingly warm and down to earth despite industry odds—Melissa Studdard does not seek to “fit in.” Even at her Houston home, the unapologetic tree-hugger who dedicated a page of her website to photos of her meetings with trees, says her neighbors don’t know what to make of “that tree lady.”
Anyone curious might start by watching this short film based on the title poem of Studdard’s debut poetry collection, I Ate the Cosmos for Breakfast (Saint Julian Press, 2014). “It looked like a pancake, / but it was creation flattened out— / the fist of God on a head of wheat,” the poem begins.
In contrast, grief, rage and resistance rise up out of Studdard’s Philomela poems. “You could mistake grief for a diamond / the way it shines when cut into, like fish / eyes in a boat’s drain,” begins the poem titled “Philomela’s tongue says.”
The princess of Athens, Philomela is a minor figure in Greek mythology. Her father entrusts her sister’s husband to protect her on a journey, but instead he rapes her then demands her silence. She is defiant—so he cuts out her tongue.
I think of the countless ways in which women, especially those considered “minor figures” in the world, have been harmed and then silenced throughout history, and the private torture of not being about to speak the truth. Consider how the same poem ends: “…silence writhes / inside the walls of truth, like a fox thrashing / hot in a hound’s jaws.”
How do you redeem a woman’s worst nightmare lived—or at least one of them? How do you give a mute, silenced or dead woman a voice? These are a few of the questions answered by these poems.
Enter the poet who gives life to a woman’s lost tongue—who empowers that tongue with a resurrected voice. And a sense of humor. Philomela’s tongue becomes an iconic character in “her” own right, one who (in another poem) imagines meeting Van Gogh post ear: “…and it has to be post / because the ear is what she really wants / to talk to him about.”
In “Philomela Speaks,” she also speaks for all women, on one level or another, telling a story as old as Eve:
But after I died I put my clothes back on. Like women do. When everything has been taken. I put my clothes back on and I walked through town with my head in a crown of nettles and starfish and fire.
Some of the Philomela poems are told from the perspective of a Greek chorus, revealing society (think: social media) as a jury of secondary witnesses, for better and for worse. In this way, Studdard portrays the role that a community can too often play in punishing a victim and reinforcing the very assumptions that fuel violence against women. In “What Philomela Wore,” the chorus cries, “We were the fire / that circled her ear.”
Studdard’s website is loaded with links to all five of her books, including: her latest poetry collection titled Dear Selection Committee; work published by NPR, The New York Times, The Guardian and more; numerous awards, readings, videos, interviews, events, collaborations and more.
But I’m thrilled to break some news: Studdard has an album coming out.
Door Out of the Fire (2021) features “four choral ‘messages in a bottle’ based on poems by Melissa Studdard—a kind of time capsule reflecting some of the major worries and issues of our time,” according to the liner notes. COVID, the climate crisis, Black Lives Matter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s life and immigration are all explored in Door Out of the Fire. Commissioned by Nicolò Spera, who is also the guitarist on the album, this collaboration brings together Exigence Vocal Ensemble of the Sphinx Organization, Studdard and composer Christopher Theofanidis’ complete works for guitar. Eugene Rogers is the conductor.
The last movement ends with these lines from Melissa Studdard’s award-winning poem, “Migration Patterns,”: “What we need is a world / anthem that everyone knows the words to, one / that says, Come in, come on, come over. I’ve got you.”
THE POEMS
Glossolalia: A Small Brown Bird
In the ransacked village of Philomela’s mouth, a small brown bird still sings among the debris. It unzips Philomela’s sanity and slips in an egg full of locks and bolts. She wants to say help me. She wants to say Shame belongs to the one who made it. But when the bird unfurls its wings, forbidden words shake dead from its plumage as Philomela’s tongue stands by— an oboe with no holes, broken holy and holding the light of her silence inside a memory that will not open. Who can know how many prisons spring up inside a woman whose boundaries are shattered? Who can know how she carries everything that happened on such a night, a night that still wails like wolves forgetting they don’t know everything about despair?
Chorus: The Garden in Philomela’s Mouth
We wonder what the mouth was wearing. Lipstick the color of clitoris, blood-rushed with excitement? Or was the lipstick animal and red as a cock’s wattle? And were there piercings on the lips, or beauty marks drawn on with a pencil? And were the lip rings gold or silver, because everyone knows gold means plenty. And what was the mouth’s manner? Busted garden gate unlocked and swinging open for anyone to step through? To come and pick the berries? Berries like that, plump and falling everywhere—they mean it’s warm inside, come in come in, grab your clippers and snip off a hunk of someone else’s summer, break off a ray of the sun. There’s a lake inside the gate, with farmed carp just for the trawling. And who put the fig trees there, we ask you. With such big figs. Certainly, putting the figs there meant take.
Chorus: What Philomela Wore
Gossip stole the falcon’s wings. Flew through the polis with a bag of arrows on its back. Naked except for the blood it wore. Naked except for the clouds it skinned. The tongue was a century deceiving its hours. Truth was a woman crushed beneath a gavel. We were the fire that circled her ear. The shadows of scandal slid into the snake and the snake slithered into us. We spoke of necklines and consent, of short skirts and tempting glances. We carried scraps of slander like half-dead prey across the deserts of our mouths.
THE Q&A
Chivas Sandage: What childhood experiences with language informed your relationship with poetry?
Melissa Studdard: When I was in kindergarten, my teacher read passages from Charlotte’s Web to our class every day. At the time, I was absolutely riveted by the plot and talking animals, but what stayed with me was something far deeper.
I didn’t realize it back then, but what seeded and later flowered in me was the understanding that if Charlotte could save Wilbur’s life with messages spun in her web, that meant language, and writing in particular, could affect change. There were times in my life when I forgot this, and I thought the time I spent writing poetry should be spent on something more important and more active, but I came to realize that poetry is not unimportant, and it’s not inaction. Poetry is the horse that action rides in on.
Sandage: Can you tell me about your process of writing these poems?
Studdard: The Philomela poems were drafted as part of The Grind, which is a writing group I’m totally in love with. I haven’t been able to participate for about half a year now, but when I am participating, which is most of the time, I write or heavily revise a poem a day. Writing a poem each day is an amazing process because it doesn’t allow you to slow down enough to doubt yourself.
If Charlotte could save Wilbur’s life with messages spun in her web, that meant language, and writing in particular, could affect change. There were times in my life when I forgot this, and I thought the time I spent writing poetry should be spent on something more important and more active. But I came to realize that poetry is not unimportant, and it’s not inaction. Poetry is the horse that action rides in on.
Melissa Studdard
Sandage: What do you remember about each poem’s birth?
Studdard: In “Glossolalia 5” I was thinking about PTSD and the fragmentation of self and psyche that linger after trauma—how that self feels like a smoldering village that seems deserted when you first come upon it, before you realize that there’s still someone alive somewhere in there.
In “Chorus: The Garden in Philomela’s Mouth” I was thinking about (stewing over) victim blaming. It’s the first of a series of chorus poems that thread through the manuscript. Like in a Greek tragedy, this poetic chorus is a collective voice, and in the case of this particular manuscript, they are a gossipy, judgmental society.
“Chorus: What Philomela Wore” came from a question: What if there was a brief moment of self-awareness—a moment in which the chorus understood its own venomous complicity in keeping the trauma fresh?
Sandage: Were there particular challenges in writing and revising?
Studdard: In my manuscript, the main character is not actually Philomela, but instead it is her severed tongue (though Philomela is also a character).
So, the greatest challenges have been:
1) characterization (I mean, what would a severely traumatized tongue do when set loose in the world? Does the tongue have an anthropomorphized body? Does she walk or slither? Is she “she” or “it?” Is her name Philomela’s tongue, and if so, is the “T” capitalized? You can see the complications.) and
2) The subject matter itself is difficult. After going deep enough into the nuances of trauma to write about it, I always need a little self care.
What if there was a brief moment of self-awareness—a moment in which the chorus understood its own venomous complicity in keeping the trauma fresh?
Sandage: Do you seek out poetry by women and nonbinary writers? If so, since when and why? How has the work of feminist poets mattered in your childhood and/or your life as an adult?
Studdard: Yes! I seek out poetry by women, including transfeminine and transgender women, and also nonbinary writers, as well as disabled writers, writers of color, economically disadvantaged writers, queer writers, intersex writers, incarcerated writers and other marginalized writers.
I do it for myself, and I do it for my students—to shape us into more complete people, to ensure we’re not deprived of the richness and fullness of the human experience, and to make sure that our connection and understanding reach far and wide.
Sadly this is work that must be done with intention, because the canon has long restricted literary empathy to a repetitive and limited experience of the world. The people we’ve seen privileged by literature are so often those who were already privileged by life. This is not only wrong; it’s dangerous for people whose experiences, and therefore, lives, are not being represented and valued. When our view is lopsided and limited, it has a huge negative impact on our ability to attain the level of mutual understanding needed to treat each other the way we all deserve to be treated.
But reading doesn’t have to be passive. In the choices we make about what to read and write and share, we can work towards growing our conception of literature to shape the world we want to have, rather than merely accepting the world we are handed.
To answer the second part of your question, my early adult life felt like a struggle to break free of various, unspoken contracts I’d never signed but to which I felt bound. Not only did I feel the horrible obligations to be demure, predictable and quiet, I felt silenced by authority figures, partners, fear, manners, well-meaning family members, shame, doubt, insecurity, patriarchal hierarchies, religious and social conventions and on and on and on. Feminist works have been indispensable to my liberation as a person and a poet.
Audre Lorde said, “We can learn to work and speak when we are afraid in the same way we have learned to work and speak when we are tired. For we have been socialized to respect fear more than our own needs for language and definition, and while we wait in silence for that final luxury of fearlessness, the weight of that silence will choke us.”
I’m not yet all the way brave, but reading Lorde shook me up and startled me out of a sort of debilitating over-politeness. She made me realize that it’s not only my right—it’s my responsibility—to speak my truth.
Contemporary writers like Diane Seuss, Suzanne Frischkorn, Rita Dove, Kelli Russell Agodon, Sandra Cisneros, Akwaeke Emezi, Joan Naviyuk Kane, Martha Silano, Jennifer L. Knox, Vievee Francis, Victoria Chang, Stephanie Burt, Kirstin Valdez Quade, Jeannine Hall Gailey, Jennifer Jean, Niki Herd, Zoë Brigley, Lois P. Jones, Elena Karina Byrne, Jessica Cuello, Simone Muench, Donna Baier Stein, and so many more continue to inspire me with their bravery and ingenuity. I list some of my favorites here in hopes that women unfamiliar with their work will find it and read it and draw power from it.
The poetry world needs more opportunities specifically oriented to older women, or that at the very least are inclusive of older women. Women are often just getting started in their 30s, 40s, 50s, and beyond, and these women have just as much to offer as young people.
Sandage: How have you been affected as a woman and/or writer by the current political divide in the U.S., the pandemic, the Black Lives Matter movement, and/or climate change?
Studdard: Like so many others, I’ve spent a lot of time trying to get my head around what’s happened in recent years with the pandemic, the quarantine, politics, climate change and social justice issues. Things have been hard for a long, long time—historically—for so many people, and some periods add even more to that load than others. This is one of those periods. There’s been so much divisiveness and separation due to politics, illness and brutality that at times it feels almost unbearable.
Yet, we are all living through this strange moment in time together. Ironically, worldwide we’re experiencing isolation, loneliness and disconnection together. That makes poetry feel even more relevant because poets are able to articulate these experiences in ways that help people endure.
Sandage: As a woman, and as a woman who writes, what do you need to support your work? What opportunities, support, policies and actions can/could make a direct difference for you—and for other women and women writers you know?
Studdard: Thank you for asking this! The poetry community is extremely youth-oriented, ageist even. Many women spend their early adulthood caring for others, and, often by the time a woman’s kids can be left alone for more than 15 minutes without sticking a fork in a light socket, or by the time a woman can finally afford to hire someone to help with the elderly parents she’s been caring for, she’s too old to submit to the under 30, under 40, and under 50 contests, residencies, publications and so forth.
The poetry world needs more opportunities specifically oriented to older women, or that at the very least are inclusive of older women. Women are often just getting started in their 30s, 40s, 50s, and beyond, and these women have just as much to offer as young people.
The other thing that would help poets would be payment for our work. Not only is it true that most publications do not pay poets, it’s also the case that poets are asked to judge contests, give readings, guest-edit magazines, speak at schools, give workshops and so much more—for no pay. When a poet asks about a stipend, they are so often told, “There’s no pay, but it’ll be good publicity.” I have a lot of friends working in other disciplines—dance, music and visual arts—and most of them have never been asked to work for free.
Sandage: What’s next? What upcoming projects or plans excite you?
Studdard: Regarding projects, I’ve basically got two writing modes right now: collaborations and solitary projects.
I’m working on an oratorio with a dear group of friends and a song cycle (commissioned by Nicolò Spera) with a poet I really admire, Robert Pinsky, and the wonderful composer Christopher Theofanidis. It’s exciting to see how everyone’s different talents and ideas meld to make something beautiful and communal.
But it’s also exciting to be up working in the deep hours of the night or the earliest sliver of morning, alone, with nothing but my own mind and cup of wine or tea. I’m always working on at least one poetry collection, no matter what other projects I have going.
Regarding plans, I just released a new poetry collection, Dear Selection Committee, so there’s a lot of excitement around that right now—readings, festivals, talks, prize nominations (fingers crossed!), reviews, interviews, panels, workshops and so forth. I really love it all and am so grateful to be living this creative life.
The great mystic poet Hafez said, “Stay close to anything that makes you glad you are alive.” I’m staying close to poetry.
Up next:
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