12 or 20 (second series) questions with Jenny Molberg

Jenny Molberg is the author of Marvels of the Invisible (winner of the Berkshire Prize, Tupelo Press, 2017), Refusal (LSU Press, 2020), and The Court of No Record (LSU Press, 2023). Her poems and essays have recently appeared or are forthcoming in Ploughshares, The Cincinnati Review, VIDA, The Missouri Review, The Rumpus, The Adroit Journal, Oprah Quarterly, and other publications. She has received fellowships and scholarships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Sewanee Writers Conference, Vermont Studio Center, and the Longleaf Writers Conference. Having earned her MFA from American University and her PhD from the University of Texas, she is Associate Professor and Chair of Creative Writing at the University of Central Missouri, where she edits Pleiades: Literature in Context. Find her online at jennymolberg.com or on Twitter at @jennymolberg.

1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?

When I was studying for my doctorate, I was honored to win Tupelo Press’s Berkshire Prize for Marvels of the Invisible, my first book of poems. It changed my life in that the opportunity opened many doors for me—I was then qualified for teaching positions that required a published book (and thus was hired at my current position at the University of Central Missouri), and the award gave me a sense of confidence in my work. I was thrilled to join Tupelo Press’s catalog of incredible writers, and I was invited to read from the collection at the AWP Conference in 2017. I am so grateful for the award and the opportunities it led to. My first book was inspired by my doctoral studies in historical connections between poetry and medicine; I was writing about my mother’s breast cancer, but also did extensive research on medical literature from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The book interrogates the ways in which gender norms negatively affected the progress of scientific study, as well as my own experience as a woman dealing with medical issues and loss. My more recent work is also research-driven, but through the lens of law. As a survivor of intimate partner abuse and assault, I wanted to confront the ways victims are ignored or subjugated by the U.S. justice system, and looked to outside study to reflect on these issues.

2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?

In a way, I came to poetry last—as a child and young adult, I was interested in journalism; I majored in journalism in college for two years, until I was fired from the university newspaper and switched my major to creative writing. After declaring a creative writing major, I took primarily fiction classes until my last year at the university, when I enrolled in my first poetry workshop. All genres of writing greatly interest me, and I’ve written poetry, too, since I was a child; however, when my wonderful professor Randolph Thomas at LSU gave me permission to take myself seriously as a poet, I knew that I had found my language. As someone particularly interested in music and visual art, poetry seems to make most sense in my brain—the negative space on the page, the lyric, the associative nature of imagery. Dedicating my life to the study of poetry is the best decision I’ve ever made.

3 - How long does it take to start any particular writing project? Does your writing initially come quickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?

I’ve learned to let myself off the hook a bit, in terms of how long a new project takes. The “thinking part” tends to take months, even years. I’ll become obsessed with a field of study or a concept and research, read, and take notes for a long time before I ever approach shaping these thoughts into poems. I’ll fill notebooks and notebooks with ideas, quotations, images, sketches, etc. and then usually, one day, something clicks and I’m ready to write poems. There are some poems that have taken me years to write, and some that have taken an hour. My mentor calls those poems that take an hour “poems from the future”—some future version of myself knew how the poem went and it fell from the sky fully-formed. But I do think that those poems that are quick to appear are actually the product of a lot of thought and study, and many failed drafts of other poems, as if the repeated failure finally gave birth to a fleshed-out form.

4 - Where does a poem usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?

I think that depends—I write many poems that don’t end up in a book, as they’re not necessarily cohesive with a larger thought I might be writing towards. I’ve often had the experience, too, where I write what I think is an essay, until I whittle it down to a poem. Some of my longer poems began as essays. From the very beginning of a new line of thought, I don’t think I am working on a “book” from the start, though I do have several title ideas and concepts for books I’ve never written. I think it’s fun to come up with a book idea, but usually the poems arrive in a shape I never expected, following a line of inquiry that almost shapes itself into a collection.

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?

What I love about readings is the connections I am able to make with new people, especially when they relate personally to something I have written and I can see that they have been touched or inspired in some way. I still keep in touch with many people I’ve met at my own readings or the readings of other poets. Also, though, I don’t know that I necessarily enjoy readings, as I’m introverted—as a southerner and as a woman, I think I’ve always been well-trained to be sociable and outgoing, but being on a stage and the social anxiety that comes along with readings can be draining. I have encountered the work of so many poets I love because I first saw them read, too, so I believe community and sharing work is integral to the creative process, especially considering poetry as a part of a larger dialogue. 

6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?

I recently wrote a piece for the LSU blog where I explored some central questions of my most recent work. Here’s a brief excerpt that addresses some of the central theoretical and craft questions I’m asking with The Court of No Record: “While writing The Court of No Record… I found myself asking: When legal rhetoric is manipulated to exhaust, damage, and financially and emotionally drain people, especially disenfranchised people, how can one reempower themselves with language? How can one write about unfair legal proceedings without setting themselves up for more?… Even though poetry, as Auden attested, “makes nothing happen,” can it give evidence that will never be heard in a court of law? Can metaphor, though it distorts, also serve and protect in a way the law fails to do?”

Here is a link to that post: https://blog.lsupress.org/metaphor-as-shelter-in-the-court-of-no-record/

The theoretical questions are always evolving, but my work has always been concerned with what it means to say the unsayable, what it means to live in a female body in the world, both politically and in literary spaces, and how poetry can get to deeper truths in order to look toward positive systemic change.

7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Do they even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?

I think the writer has a responsibility to listen, to analyze, to challenge, and to dream. Like scientists, writers must interrogate history and articulate the present in order to imagine a future that is more inclusive and open to evolutions, both in language and in culture. Because words matter, and words last, I believe writers have an enormous responsibility to be empathetic, to challenge oppressive systems of power, and to be open to new ways of seeing.

8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?

For the most part, I find it essential and not difficult. My editors at LSU Press are fantastic, and I think they see my intentions and concerns really clearly. I also have a few friends who are my trusted readers—I think it’s important to get others’ perspectives in order to fully be considerate of the reader.

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?

From my mom: “one thing at a time”. I say this to myself nearly every day.

10 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?

As a professor and editor, it’s often difficult to keep a consistent writing routine for myself—I typically find larger chunks of time in the summer, or at a writers’ residency, to really dedicate to craft. I try to write and read something every day, but I need long periods of time to reflect, read, and imagine in order to create more than little scratchings on a page.

11 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?

I like to visit my local museum, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, or read fiction, which always renews my sense of imagination.

12 - What fragrance reminds you of home?

Sunscreen, gasoline, chili, fresh-cut grass.

13 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?

Yes—I am heavily influenced by visual art, music, and scientific study, especially (but not limited to) works and studies that progress our thinking about restrictive binaries of gender.

14 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?

There are so many that it’s difficult to list. Writers I surrounded myself with while writing my most recent book include: Muriel Rukeyser, bell hooks, Maggie Nelson, Carolyn Forche, Natasha Trethewey, Vievee Francis, Shara McCallum, Anne Carson. Writers I’m always looking towards as guides: David Keplinger, Kathryn Nuernberger, W.B. Yeats, Seamus Heaney, Sylvia Plath, Audre Lorde, Adrienne Rich.

15 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?

There are things I’ve done that I would like to do more, like travel, campaign for causes I care about, and spend more time with my grandmother. I’ve always dreamed of going along on a scientific research expedition of some kind.

16 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?

I always wanted to be a marine biologist. If I could do it all again, I think I would go to medical school.

17 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?

I really think I have to write. No matter what my job is, I’ll always be a writer. At one point, I was working four jobs, barely making rent, and then, as now, I don’t know who I would have been if I hadn’t been writing.

18 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?

Brotherless Night by V.V. Ganeshananthan, The Galleons by Rick Barot. I just saw the film Orlando for the first time, and can’t stop thinking about it (1992, starring Tilda Swinton).

19 - What are you currently working on?

I have recently been awarded a studio residency at the Charlotte Street Foundation in Kansas City, and I’m excited to embark on a project that blends poetry with visual art, working with visual artists in my cohort.

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