1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:03,600 Seán Hewitt: The Glimpse, 2 00:00:05,340 --> 00:00:09,000 Victoria Kennefick: I could actually feel at certain times, my 3 00:00:09,000 --> 00:00:13,050 heart closing in situations, and I realized that's what's happening 4 00:00:13,050 --> 00:00:16,380 when I have that feeling. It's my heart going nope, or I don't want 5 00:00:16,380 --> 00:00:18,360 that, or I'm scared often. 6 00:00:21,240 --> 00:00:23,670 Seán Hewitt: Welcome to The Glimpse. I'm your host. Sean 7 00:00:23,670 --> 00:00:28,110 Hewitt, Victoria Kennefick's, debut collection Eat or We Both Starve 8 00:00:28,290 --> 00:00:31,530 won the Seamus Heaney First Collection Poetry Prize and was 9 00:00:31,530 --> 00:00:35,310 shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize, among many others. Her 10 00:00:35,310 --> 00:00:40,830 second collection, egg/shell, was a PBS Choice for Spring 2024 and BBC 11 00:00:40,830 --> 00:00:45,180 Poetry Extra Book of the Month, Victoria Kennefick is our guest 12 00:00:45,180 --> 00:00:46,560 today on The Glimpse. 13 00:00:50,640 --> 00:00:55,620 Victoria Kennefick's poems are brave, exposing funny and dark. 14 00:00:55,890 --> 00:01:00,330 They take risks, not only in terms of form and language, but in terms 15 00:01:00,330 --> 00:01:04,770 of the real and necessary risks of art: to look directly at difficult 16 00:01:04,770 --> 00:01:08,790 subject matter, to implicate the poet in a mesh of moral and 17 00:01:08,790 --> 00:01:13,920 aesthetic questions. Victoria makes her life into poetry, but not in 18 00:01:13,920 --> 00:01:17,700 the way of transforming it into something pretty or excusing it. 19 00:01:18,090 --> 00:01:21,900 Instead, she opens up even the darkest parts of experience in 20 00:01:21,900 --> 00:01:26,610 order that we might witness and feel less alone ourselves. These 21 00:01:26,610 --> 00:01:30,690 are poems full of the body, of visions, of humor and intimate 22 00:01:30,690 --> 00:01:35,580 hope, raw but never undeveloped, shocking but never untrue. 23 00:01:35,910 --> 00:01:40,860 Victoria's work is exposing and real and generous, and I'm so glad 24 00:01:40,860 --> 00:01:44,160 to have her here on The Glimpse with us. Victoria, welcome. 25 00:01:44,640 --> 00:01:46,680 Victoria Kennefick: Thank you so much, Sean, that was a beautiful 26 00:01:46,680 --> 00:01:47,550 introduction. 27 00:01:47,970 --> 00:01:50,970 Seán Hewitt: You're very welcome. Your new collection. I'd just like 28 00:01:50,970 --> 00:01:53,880 to talk a little bit about it. First, it's called egg/shell it 29 00:01:53,880 --> 00:01:57,600 came out this year. For those people listening, which is 30 00:01:57,720 --> 00:02:01,200 everyone, they won't be able to hear exactly what I'm saying when I 31 00:02:01,200 --> 00:02:04,320 say the title, because there's actually a forward slash between 32 00:02:04,500 --> 00:02:09,270 egg and shell, which speaks a bit to the concerns of the book. Could 33 00:02:09,270 --> 00:02:10,710 you tell us a bit about that? 34 00:02:11,610 --> 00:02:15,450 Victoria Kennefick: That was a very obviously intentional move, 35 00:02:15,960 --> 00:02:22,710 punctually or punctuationally, but also, I think, in terms of what I 36 00:02:22,710 --> 00:02:26,040 envisaged the collection to be about, because it initially, very 37 00:02:26,040 --> 00:02:29,850 much started as a book about fertility, and particularly 38 00:02:29,850 --> 00:02:34,200 secondary infertility, and using the egg rather usefully, and 39 00:02:34,200 --> 00:02:38,910 perhaps obviously, as a method to explore that. Particularly as I 40 00:02:38,910 --> 00:02:41,700 happen to live near a wetland center, which is this beautiful 41 00:02:41,700 --> 00:02:45,300 lake, and swans in it. And the swans breed every year, and it 42 00:02:45,300 --> 00:02:51,240 becomes an almost obsessive experience for the people around 43 00:02:51,240 --> 00:02:54,750 the area to you know, when are the cygnets going to be born? And so 44 00:02:54,750 --> 00:02:58,050 there was something around that energy that spoke to how I was 45 00:02:58,050 --> 00:03:01,350 feeling about my body, and how I was feeling about my journey in 46 00:03:01,350 --> 00:03:05,460 terms of trying to have a second child. And I suppose so that was 47 00:03:05,460 --> 00:03:08,730 very much the initial impetus for the collection, or certainly the 48 00:03:08,730 --> 00:03:11,130 poems I was writing that eventually became the collection. 49 00:03:11,700 --> 00:03:16,800 But as time went on and as life develops, things changed for me, 50 00:03:16,800 --> 00:03:22,590 personally and my former spouse came out as a trans woman, and that 51 00:03:22,590 --> 00:03:27,570 really did put a massive pause on my life for how I thought it was 52 00:03:27,570 --> 00:03:32,160 developing and how I thought it was gestating, I suppose. And that kind 53 00:03:32,160 --> 00:03:39,570 of moment of pause felt incredibly important to show in the book: this 54 00:03:39,570 --> 00:03:43,200 kind of fissure that that appears and everything afterwards is 55 00:03:43,200 --> 00:03:48,420 different. So that kind of allowed me to, I suppose, process the 56 00:03:48,420 --> 00:03:53,940 experience myself as a person, but also as a writer. And then I was 57 00:03:53,940 --> 00:03:57,150 really delighted to find out in my extensive research, because that's 58 00:03:57,150 --> 00:04:00,840 what I do when things happen to me, I research them both 59 00:04:00,870 --> 00:04:06,330 academically and otherwise, and I found that when someone doesn't 60 00:04:06,330 --> 00:04:09,720 realize they're trans yet, they're referred to as an egg, and once 61 00:04:09,720 --> 00:04:13,200 they have that epiphany that they are a trans person, their egg 62 00:04:13,230 --> 00:04:18,240 cracks. And I just found that to be an enormously helpful way for me to 63 00:04:18,240 --> 00:04:21,600 understand what was happening, but also to kind of understand the fact 64 00:04:21,600 --> 00:04:26,610 that things do break, but equally something different but more as 65 00:04:26,610 --> 00:04:30,630 beautiful or completely different in form emerges out of it. So that 66 00:04:30,630 --> 00:04:33,720 was very much, I suppose, how the rest of the collection came 67 00:04:33,720 --> 00:04:37,770 together, and then how I imagined over time the entire book. 68 00:04:38,220 --> 00:04:41,400 Seán Hewitt: Yeah, it's an incredible kind of consonance of 69 00:04:41,550 --> 00:04:45,630 images there, of two very different experiences somehow coalesced 70 00:04:45,630 --> 00:04:51,360 around the egg and and gestation and birth and rebirth, all of those 71 00:04:51,360 --> 00:04:56,250 things. Second collections are funny beasts, in a way, because you 72 00:04:56,250 --> 00:04:59,130 know, when you come out with your first book, you kind of make a 73 00:04:59,130 --> 00:05:02,370 statement of sorts, whatever statement that might be. And then 74 00:05:02,370 --> 00:05:05,430 the second collection either kind of continues that statement or 75 00:05:05,430 --> 00:05:09,210 deepens it, or, in some cases, kind of contradicts it or goes in 76 00:05:09,210 --> 00:05:12,840 another direction. And all of those are, you know, come with their 77 00:05:12,840 --> 00:05:17,370 various troubles and challenges. How did you approach it? I mean, 78 00:05:17,400 --> 00:05:20,880 obviously this is a book that changed as you were writing it. But 79 00:05:21,150 --> 00:05:25,470 how did you kind of conceive of this second collection? Was it 80 00:05:25,470 --> 00:05:28,440 different to writing the first book? Did it feel different? 81 00:05:29,700 --> 00:05:31,440 Victoria Kennefick: I really appreciate you asking that 82 00:05:31,440 --> 00:05:35,640 question, because I had had, ultimately my whole life, to write 83 00:05:35,640 --> 00:05:39,360 my first collection, and though it was slow in terms of how it came 84 00:05:39,360 --> 00:05:44,580 together, there was a certain level of, I'm going to say viciousness 85 00:05:44,580 --> 00:05:49,980 around it, because I was just very, very focused on it being a very 86 00:05:49,980 --> 00:05:56,430 clean, tight, sharp book with no excess. But then I found with this 87 00:05:56,430 --> 00:06:00,900 book, I couldn't bring that same harshness to it, because of what I 88 00:06:00,900 --> 00:06:04,470 was writing about and because of how much I had changed because of 89 00:06:04,470 --> 00:06:09,660 the first book. And so I had much more compassion for the words and 90 00:06:09,660 --> 00:06:14,100 the images and the people in the poem and the experience of the 91 00:06:14,100 --> 00:06:20,880 poem. And I think I, I would use the term perhaps grace that I was 92 00:06:20,880 --> 00:06:26,610 maybe allowing myself a little more grace with mixed results, as you 93 00:06:26,610 --> 00:06:30,330 know, as cleaving your emotions has mixed results. And it was 94 00:06:30,330 --> 00:06:34,200 uncomfortable, but it felt very necessary. So I thought I would be 95 00:06:34,230 --> 00:06:37,380 much longer than I was writing this second collection, but it felt 96 00:06:37,380 --> 00:06:40,980 incredibly urgent, and the poems came very, very 97 00:06:42,510 --> 00:06:46,410 intensely. There was a it was very emotionally intense experience. But 98 00:06:46,410 --> 00:06:49,740 I was very, very cognizant of the fact that while I wanted them 99 00:06:49,740 --> 00:06:53,850 obviously to have that resonance, I wanted them to still be crafted and 100 00:06:53,850 --> 00:06:56,970 to still so then there was something really satisfying about 101 00:06:57,450 --> 00:07:03,000 taking that very urgent emotion and then crafting it, which I suppose 102 00:07:03,000 --> 00:07:07,290 is what we ultimately do, but in a different way to how I had before, 103 00:07:07,320 --> 00:07:12,120 and the trying that out was what was so wonderful and fun in the 104 00:07:12,120 --> 00:07:15,300 middle of this very difficult period of my life. It was the thing 105 00:07:15,300 --> 00:07:20,010 that I think really gave me some separation from what I was 106 00:07:20,040 --> 00:07:23,820 Experiencing, allowed me to have some form of control over it as 107 00:07:23,820 --> 00:07:28,620 well, to curate it and create my experience and maybe own it a 108 00:07:28,620 --> 00:07:30,720 little bit more, because it is obviously when something is 109 00:07:30,720 --> 00:07:34,980 happening outside of your control, like secondary infertility or 110 00:07:34,980 --> 00:07:38,880 somebody that you know has a very big impact on how your life goes, 111 00:07:39,240 --> 00:07:45,240 makes a significant change, you do kind of feel helpless and kind of 112 00:07:45,240 --> 00:07:48,330 like you're you're standing in the middle of a storm being kind of 113 00:07:48,360 --> 00:07:53,460 bent in every direction. So I think standing in, in the place of 114 00:07:54,030 --> 00:07:58,500 creating a poem and but allowing myself a little bit more and being 115 00:07:58,500 --> 00:08:04,260 more gentle with the work and myself, which was really difficult, 116 00:08:04,260 --> 00:08:05,610 too. I found it hard. 117 00:08:05,640 --> 00:08:09,990 Seán Hewitt: Yeah, we often think about how poems might change a 118 00:08:09,990 --> 00:08:13,830 reader. You know, this poem changed my life, or changed how I saw 119 00:08:13,830 --> 00:08:17,760 something. But I think for poets, we maybe don't often talk about how 120 00:08:17,760 --> 00:08:21,540 much the poems can change us, the idea that when you get to a second 121 00:08:21,540 --> 00:08:26,250 collection, you might have been actually changed by the first book. 122 00:08:26,550 --> 00:08:29,610 And so that comes with its own complications. You know, you're 123 00:08:29,610 --> 00:08:33,570 kind of witnessing the evolution of Victoria as well as Victoria's 124 00:08:33,570 --> 00:08:37,320 poems. And I hope you'll write loads and loads of collections, and 125 00:08:37,320 --> 00:08:41,790 we'll be able to look back at the evolution of Victoria alongside the 126 00:08:41,790 --> 00:08:45,750 poems. All right, well, the poem you've chosen for us has to, I 127 00:08:45,750 --> 00:08:50,070 think, take the medal for the best title I've read in a long while. 128 00:08:51,060 --> 00:08:56,100 It's called "The Ego is Crushed like a Snail Shell Under a Stiletto 129 00:08:56,460 --> 00:09:00,510 and is Begrudgingly Divested of its Own Smugness." Can you tell us a 130 00:09:00,510 --> 00:09:03,060 little bit about the title and then and then read it for us. 131 00:09:04,230 --> 00:09:07,440 Victoria Kennefick: One of the things that has struck me as I've 132 00:09:07,440 --> 00:09:11,700 grown older and experienced suffering, as we all do in various 133 00:09:11,700 --> 00:09:19,350 guises, is how often the ego is involved, and I've become more 134 00:09:19,350 --> 00:09:27,510 aware of my ego's whisperings or roaring sometimes. And of course, 135 00:09:27,510 --> 00:09:31,710 it's a necessary part of our human experience, and very useful 136 00:09:31,950 --> 00:09:34,980 particularly, I think, you know, if you're a creator, it's always 137 00:09:34,980 --> 00:09:37,170 useful. But I think when you're creating something, you have to 138 00:09:37,170 --> 00:09:41,460 have some sense of an ego that, oh, this needs to exist in some way. 139 00:09:42,450 --> 00:09:49,110 But I was really surprised when a second pregnancy didn't come to 140 00:09:49,110 --> 00:09:53,820 pass for me at the time, and certainly when my marriage fell 141 00:09:53,820 --> 00:10:00,750 apart and my former spouse came out as a trans woman, I didn't realize 142 00:10:00,750 --> 00:10:04,500 that it would impact on my ego, and I think that when all of that 143 00:10:04,500 --> 00:10:09,540 happened, I really had to have a reckoning with my ego, and it was a 144 00:10:09,540 --> 00:10:15,000 really cathartic and really wonderful experience in letting go 145 00:10:15,000 --> 00:10:19,440 a lot of ideas I had around being safe as well. Because I considered, 146 00:10:19,440 --> 00:10:24,060 I suppose, being married to be safe, or, you know, to have a 147 00:10:24,060 --> 00:10:28,710 husband to be safe. And those things are not, unfortunately, in 148 00:10:28,710 --> 00:10:33,900 many cases, necessarily the case. So this poem was an attempt, I 149 00:10:33,900 --> 00:10:36,630 suppose, to explore that. 150 00:10:37,680 --> 00:10:43,710 But it's okay to have those kind of feelings, and, and, and it's okay 151 00:10:43,710 --> 00:10:47,490 to feel the loss of something that your ego enjoyed holding on to or 152 00:10:47,490 --> 00:10:52,140 felt safe having, and that there is going to be a response to that. 153 00:10:52,320 --> 00:10:53,280 Seán Hewitt: Would you read it for us? 154 00:10:53,730 --> 00:10:57,750 Victoria Kennefick: I'd be delighted. "The Ego is Crushed like 155 00:10:57,750 --> 00:11:02,400 a Snail Shell Under a Stiletto and is Begrudgingly Divested of its Own 156 00:11:02,400 --> 00:11:03,270 Smugness." 157 00:11:04,680 --> 00:11:09,360 When you slipped out of your skin, you slip of a thing the skin I 158 00:11:09,360 --> 00:11:15,450 thought I knew you in, it was dazzling and terrifying how I too 159 00:11:15,450 --> 00:11:19,890 had to slough wifehood off my dry arms, scrub it from my violently 160 00:11:19,890 --> 00:11:26,340 blue-white legs exfoliate its unmistakable musk. You were no more 161 00:11:26,340 --> 00:11:32,430 my husband than any other woman. What a thing to miss! And yet, and 162 00:11:32,430 --> 00:11:36,990 yet I try to imagine clinging to you like a 1980s polyester nighty 163 00:11:36,990 --> 00:11:41,160 sparking in the dark, for God's sake, images of bodies reaching 164 00:11:41,160 --> 00:11:45,570 over the mantelpiece and going up in flames, people chimneys burned 165 00:11:45,570 --> 00:11:51,510 on my child brain. Maybe I could do it and clutch all that we made 166 00:11:51,540 --> 00:11:59,700 tightly until my fists shook. Stupid, smug, ego snail. Who am I 167 00:11:59,700 --> 00:12:03,390 now without you, but what I've always been, a white feather in the 168 00:12:03,390 --> 00:12:07,590 wind. I told you that when we met and you cupped me in your hands 169 00:12:07,830 --> 00:12:12,630 loosely, and the wind could blow at any gale, get knotted and sure, I'd 170 00:12:12,630 --> 00:12:17,970 toss a bit and shiver, but I could mull that over in the dark, in the 171 00:12:17,970 --> 00:12:25,200 dark, in the dark did you know? Did you know? They all ask, questions 172 00:12:25,200 --> 00:12:29,760 like prodding fingers? Have they stripped their spouse's skin clean? 173 00:12:29,790 --> 00:12:36,930 Have they watched something fall away? A lie? No. A pretense, no. A 174 00:12:36,930 --> 00:12:43,170 realisation, yes. An epiphany, definitely. What a ridiculous 175 00:12:43,170 --> 00:12:46,860 question, though, when you didn't know and dressed as best you could 176 00:12:46,860 --> 00:12:48,240 in what you thought you should. 177 00:12:49,260 --> 00:12:53,640 We were just playing, I suppose, until it was clear that it was 178 00:12:53,640 --> 00:13:01,110 serious as murder. The end of us, I mean. The dream of us. Not your 179 00:13:01,110 --> 00:13:06,480 slinky escape from your chrysalis, not your beautiful fluttering into 180 00:13:06,480 --> 00:13:07,140 the light. 181 00:13:09,270 --> 00:13:13,740 Seán Hewitt: Thank you. It's such a brilliant poem. I love it. You, you 182 00:13:13,740 --> 00:13:18,810 can't tell where it's going at any given point it slips just into new 183 00:13:18,810 --> 00:13:23,790 territory every time it's about to stop, and I think I love the way it 184 00:13:23,790 --> 00:13:29,250 just kind of evolves and grows through itself. One thing I'm aware 185 00:13:29,250 --> 00:13:32,370 that listeners might not realize from that poem is something about 186 00:13:32,370 --> 00:13:35,460 the shape of it. Would you tell us a little bit about the shape? 187 00:13:37,080 --> 00:13:39,420 Victoria Kennefick: So when I was writing it, it went through many, 188 00:13:39,420 --> 00:13:44,100 many different forms, but the one it really ended on, which is, I 189 00:13:44,100 --> 00:13:47,670 suppose you would call it centered. It's almost, yeah, like a tree 190 00:13:47,670 --> 00:13:53,400 maybe, or maybe the egg cracking, just that, that sense of it being 191 00:13:53,400 --> 00:13:59,340 wider rather than being long. So that was kind of the sense of it. I 192 00:13:59,340 --> 00:14:05,760 really enjoy playing with form in my own, my own restrictions, not so 193 00:14:05,760 --> 00:14:08,850 much when I have other peoples placed on me. 194 00:14:09,090 --> 00:14:12,450 Seán Hewitt: One of the things that came to mind when I was reading 195 00:14:12,450 --> 00:14:18,150 this poem was a line from Sharon Olds in "Stag's Leap," actually the 196 00:14:18,150 --> 00:14:23,940 title poem of the book; she has this brilliant moment that always 197 00:14:23,940 --> 00:14:29,460 comes back to me. She says, "When anyone escapes, my heart leaps up. 198 00:14:29,790 --> 00:14:33,930 Even when it's I who am escaped from. I am half on the side of the 199 00:14:33,930 --> 00:14:39,480 leaver." And it seems to me to kind of speak to a lot of the tension in 200 00:14:39,480 --> 00:14:46,110 this book, which is, you know, wanting to retain two things that 201 00:14:46,110 --> 00:14:52,050 are intimately intermeshed. One person and another person, and the 202 00:14:52,080 --> 00:14:56,070 actions of one person affecting another person, but still not 203 00:14:56,070 --> 00:15:00,750 wanting to begrudge another person, even though you might be upset and 204 00:15:00,780 --> 00:15:04,440 discombobulated, and you know, have your ego crushed, and you know all 205 00:15:04,440 --> 00:15:10,020 of that turmoil, there's still a sense of celebration even in the 206 00:15:10,020 --> 00:15:13,140 language. You know, you can feel the warmth and tenderness of the 207 00:15:13,140 --> 00:15:16,950 language, and you know your beautiful fluttering into the 208 00:15:16,950 --> 00:15:22,140 light. So it feels like a generous poem in the way that it approaches 209 00:15:22,170 --> 00:15:22,500 that. 210 00:15:23,310 --> 00:15:27,270 Was that tension between, you know, these two quite opposing things. 211 00:15:27,270 --> 00:15:29,760 Was it at the forefront of your mind when you were when you were 212 00:15:29,760 --> 00:15:32,430 writing, trying to get the balance between this tension? I mean, 213 00:15:33,510 --> 00:15:35,400 Victoria Kennefick: Thank you for saying all of that, because I think 214 00:15:35,400 --> 00:15:42,930 that was very much what I was hoping.Because I think my project 215 00:15:43,320 --> 00:15:49,020 in my life, maybe and certainly in my work, is self-actualization, 216 00:15:50,190 --> 00:15:56,430 that sense of to thine own self be true, and that's something my mom 217 00:15:56,430 --> 00:15:58,830 always said to me when I was growing up, and something I always 218 00:15:58,830 --> 00:16:05,490 found really desperately difficult in some situations and impossible 219 00:16:05,490 --> 00:16:06,600 to ignore in others. 220 00:16:07,080 --> 00:16:16,020 And so I think when somebody tells you what they need to do in order 221 00:16:16,020 --> 00:16:22,230 to be their true selves, you cannot help but admire that. And you 222 00:16:22,230 --> 00:16:27,870 cannot help but just say, yeah, like, if that's what you need to 223 00:16:27,870 --> 00:16:32,670 do, that's your step forward into being more yourself, which is, I 224 00:16:32,670 --> 00:16:41,940 think perhaps our only purpose, if we have any. And so I think that 225 00:16:41,940 --> 00:16:48,420 was a huge part of my experience, on the best of days, and even on 226 00:16:48,420 --> 00:16:53,610 the okay days, and then other times, obviously, kind of thinking. 227 00:16:53,610 --> 00:16:59,100 But what am I going to do? What will become of me? How will I 228 00:16:59,310 --> 00:17:06,480 gather the wreckage of what I perceive to be a break. And breaks 229 00:17:06,480 --> 00:17:10,410 can be very positive, and breaks like the cracking of an egg, can 230 00:17:10,410 --> 00:17:14,760 have positive outcomes, but still, something has to shatter, and 231 00:17:14,790 --> 00:17:18,780 somebody has to maybe clean up, and somebody has to kind of see what's 232 00:17:18,780 --> 00:17:22,680 emerging, and somebody else has to maybe clear away the fragments and 233 00:17:22,680 --> 00:17:30,750 so on. So I think I couldn't ever in my work, certainly escape from 234 00:17:30,750 --> 00:17:35,220 the fact that what was happening was a manifestation of someone's 235 00:17:35,220 --> 00:17:36,600 true self. 236 00:17:36,720 --> 00:17:40,530 Seán Hewitt: Yeah, you know one thing I think this book does really 237 00:17:40,530 --> 00:17:46,020 well. And you know, we sometimes don't see enough of of this dynamic 238 00:17:46,020 --> 00:17:51,990 is acknowledging the difficulties of our interdependence on other 239 00:17:51,990 --> 00:17:59,910 people. We often, I think, read books or talk about books as though 240 00:18:00,180 --> 00:18:06,420 people are atomized, completely insulated, and that "I have the 241 00:18:06,420 --> 00:18:11,250 right to my story," but it's quite hard. You know, when your story is 242 00:18:11,250 --> 00:18:15,510 someone else's story, and there's no real delineating line where one 243 00:18:15,510 --> 00:18:21,660 stops and the other starts. And you know, we often think about poems as 244 00:18:22,920 --> 00:18:28,320 ways of tracking experience or holding experience, you know, kind 245 00:18:28,320 --> 00:18:34,350 of frozen moments in time or looking back in time. But this, 246 00:18:34,380 --> 00:18:39,480 this seems, in a way, a poem about having to rewrite experience or 247 00:18:39,480 --> 00:18:42,210 seeing a different version of the past that was not the one you 248 00:18:42,210 --> 00:18:48,570 thought you were in. Is that a kind of propulsive force in the book? Do 249 00:18:48,570 --> 00:18:49,080 you think? 250 00:18:49,500 --> 00:19:01,440 Victoria Kennefick: Yes, what I did in the work was try and look at how 251 00:19:01,470 --> 00:19:10,290 I had to take responsibility myself for where I was when I wrote the 252 00:19:10,290 --> 00:19:15,660 book. And I mean, I went through all of the maybe more challenging 253 00:19:15,660 --> 00:19:19,410 and difficult emotions in that regard, but I think most usefully 254 00:19:20,220 --> 00:19:24,480 coming to the realization that there was something around the 255 00:19:24,510 --> 00:19:30,030 dynamic that protected me from something in myself that I found 256 00:19:30,030 --> 00:19:35,490 challenging, and now was time to meet that part of myself and get 257 00:19:35,490 --> 00:19:41,040 another chance to heal that part of me or allow that part of me to 258 00:19:41,040 --> 00:19:44,550 grow, or even just acknowledge it. And so obviously there is a weird 259 00:19:44,550 --> 00:19:48,030 sense of the person that I married doesn't actually exist anymore, 260 00:19:48,330 --> 00:19:55,620 legally, or any paperwork or and the person that is now co-parenting 261 00:19:55,860 --> 00:20:00,300 our child with me, and we get on exceptionally well, really a great 262 00:20:00,300 --> 00:20:03,090 person, but is a different person? 263 00:20:03,660 --> 00:20:06,360 Very similar in lots of ways, very different in other ways. And not 264 00:20:06,360 --> 00:20:09,960 just, I mean, not just physically, of course. But looking back and 265 00:20:09,960 --> 00:20:13,860 kind of going, well, who was that and, but who was I? And I think I 266 00:20:13,860 --> 00:20:18,360 found that much more helpful to look at well, how have I changed? 267 00:20:18,390 --> 00:20:23,100 And how would it best benefit me to look at this from a perspective 268 00:20:23,130 --> 00:20:27,810 that helps me to grow and helps me to change and helps me to explore 269 00:20:27,840 --> 00:20:33,150 in my work, through my writing, ways that we can meet our former selves 270 00:20:33,150 --> 00:20:36,540 that acted in ways that maybe were like maybe we could have done 271 00:20:36,540 --> 00:20:38,910 something different there, but ultimately lead us to where we 272 00:20:38,910 --> 00:20:43,050 should be, which is at another point where we can choose, I think, 273 00:20:43,890 --> 00:20:44,520 to grow. 274 00:20:44,790 --> 00:20:50,220 Seán Hewitt: Yeah, you know, the poem is a way of empathizing with 275 00:20:50,220 --> 00:20:56,400 various versions of yourself. It's such a great poem, Victoria. 276 00:20:56,940 --> 00:20:59,760 And I think what you know, one of the things that that is so great 277 00:20:59,760 --> 00:21:04,260 about it and all of your parents, even though they come from very 278 00:21:04,260 --> 00:21:11,130 specific personal circumstances, I think you you have a way of of 279 00:21:11,130 --> 00:21:17,430 allowing them to be universal.It's quite easy to kind of say, "No, 280 00:21:17,430 --> 00:21:21,420 here's a bad thing I did," or "here's, you know how I feel about 281 00:21:21,420 --> 00:21:26,190 something," but to say that when it begins to enmesh every everything 282 00:21:26,190 --> 00:21:26,910 around you, 283 00:21:28,170 --> 00:21:31,980 there's real bravery, and I think you've done it beautifully. Yeah, 284 00:21:32,460 --> 00:21:37,200 okay, we're going to take a quick break now, and when we come back, 285 00:21:37,200 --> 00:21:41,850 you're going to tell us about a poem that inspired you, in which a 286 00:21:41,850 --> 00:21:47,580 woman puts a heart in a freezer. So we'll take a break and then we'll 287 00:21:47,580 --> 00:21:48,030 come back. 288 00:21:48,420 --> 00:21:51,060 Victoria Kennefick: That was so lovely. Thank you so much. 289 00:22:00,960 --> 00:22:03,420 Cathy and Peter Halstead: We hope you're enjoying this second season 290 00:22:03,420 --> 00:22:07,800 of The Glimpse. It's just one small part of the Adrian Brinkerhoff 291 00:22:07,800 --> 00:22:12,660 Poetry Foundation. We're the founders Peter and Cathy Halstead. 292 00:22:13,110 --> 00:22:18,270 Our goal is to make great poetry more accessible to everyone, and we 293 00:22:18,270 --> 00:22:22,980 do that in a variety of ways, through partnerships, our film 294 00:22:22,980 --> 00:22:29,550 series, this podcast and our website, brinkerhoffpoetry.org. We 295 00:22:29,550 --> 00:22:34,080 hope these works will lure you into a parallel universe, the way a 296 00:22:34,080 --> 00:22:38,520 Möbius strip brings you into another dimension without leaving 297 00:22:38,520 --> 00:22:41,580 the page you're on. Thank you so much for listening. 298 00:22:43,860 --> 00:22:46,620 Seán Hewitt: Welcome back to The Glimpse. Victoria Kennefick you've 299 00:22:46,620 --> 00:22:51,690 chosen a poem by Carolyn Kizer. It's called "Hearts Limbo." Do you 300 00:22:51,690 --> 00:22:55,050 want to tell us a little bit about it before you read it for us? 301 00:22:56,340 --> 00:23:00,990 Victoria Kennefick: So I think if I were to characterize 2024 for 302 00:23:00,990 --> 00:23:05,490 myself, there have been many interesting moments, but overall, I 303 00:23:05,490 --> 00:23:12,150 think my general focus for the year was keeping my heart open. And I 304 00:23:12,150 --> 00:23:19,080 hadn't realized at all how often I closed my heart. And as someone who 305 00:23:19,080 --> 00:23:22,080 would have considered themselves previously, to be an open-hearted 306 00:23:22,080 --> 00:23:25,830 person or to be an open person, I realized that in many ways, that 307 00:23:25,830 --> 00:23:29,250 wasn't the case at all. And that really fascinated me, because I 308 00:23:29,250 --> 00:23:33,510 could actually feel at certain times my heart closing in 309 00:23:33,510 --> 00:23:37,440 situations, and I realized that's what's happening when I have that 310 00:23:37,440 --> 00:23:40,860 feeling. It's my heart going "nope," or "I don't want that," or 311 00:23:40,860 --> 00:23:45,660 "I'm scared," often. And so when I came across this poem, it actually 312 00:23:45,660 --> 00:23:50,190 really moved me. And I suppose in many ways, it has a levity to it, 313 00:23:50,460 --> 00:23:54,810 and when it's dealing with something that is, I think, one of 314 00:23:54,810 --> 00:23:58,380 the bravest things that you can do in your life. And so when I read 315 00:23:58,380 --> 00:24:05,910 this poem, I cried, I laughed and I gasped at how brilliantly Kizer 316 00:24:05,940 --> 00:24:10,200 talks about the heart and what we do to it. Yeah. Would you read it 317 00:24:10,200 --> 00:24:11,820 for us? I'd be delighted to 318 00:24:13,590 --> 00:24:16,410 "Heart's Limbo" by Carolyn Kizer, 319 00:24:18,150 --> 00:24:23,490 I thrust my heart, in danger of decay through lack of use, into the 320 00:24:23,490 --> 00:24:28,560 freezer compartment,deep among the ice-cubes, rolls ready to brown 'n' 321 00:24:28,590 --> 00:24:34,170 serve, the concentrated juice. I had to remember not to diet on it. 322 00:24:34,440 --> 00:24:38,220 It wasn't raspberry yoghurt. I had to remember not to feed it to the 323 00:24:38,220 --> 00:24:43,530 cat when I ran out of tuna. I had to remember not to thaw and fry it. 324 00:24:44,040 --> 00:24:47,160 The liver it resembled lay on another shelf. 325 00:24:48,300 --> 00:24:53,310 It rested there in its crystal sheath, not breathing, preserved 326 00:24:53,340 --> 00:24:59,430 for posterity. Suddenly, I needed my heart in a hurry. I offered it 327 00:24:59,430 --> 00:25:04,890 to you, cold and dripping incompletely thawed. You didn't 328 00:25:04,890 --> 00:25:10,110 even wash its blood from your fingertips. As it numbed them. You 329 00:25:10,110 --> 00:25:15,180 asked me to kiss your hands. You were not even visibly frightened 330 00:25:15,240 --> 00:25:17,550 when it began to throb with love. 331 00:25:19,140 --> 00:25:22,320 Seán Hewitt: That's such a great poem, and in some ways it reminded 332 00:25:22,320 --> 00:25:27,360 me of some of your poems in Eat or We Both Starve, they're really 333 00:25:27,390 --> 00:25:32,280 bodily and intense and almost kind of a sort of body horror comes 334 00:25:32,280 --> 00:25:35,760 through them. Is that something also that kind of pulled you into 335 00:25:35,760 --> 00:25:42,420 this poem? You know the lack of fear about things bleeding and 336 00:25:42,450 --> 00:25:46,710 throbbing and going in the freezer and being thawed. 337 00:25:48,750 --> 00:25:52,170 Victoria Kennefick: It's such a great way of, I think, describing 338 00:25:52,920 --> 00:25:57,570 the internal workings of our emotional bodies, because it's 339 00:25:57,570 --> 00:26:04,530 really difficult to describe that experience, especially, I think I 340 00:26:04,530 --> 00:26:07,710 don't know, obviously, how other people feel, or how they experience 341 00:26:07,710 --> 00:26:11,160 feelings in their bodies. And somebody said recently, "your 342 00:26:11,190 --> 00:26:16,230 issues are in the tissues," which I thought was an amazing, an amazing 343 00:26:16,230 --> 00:26:21,180 line, and how, I suppose, as we get older, we move our bodies less and, 344 00:26:21,450 --> 00:26:26,130 you know, we expect them to be able to hold all of these experiences 345 00:26:26,130 --> 00:26:31,320 that are, you know, emotion is e-motion. So they get stuck and 346 00:26:31,440 --> 00:26:39,600 they freeze up, and they get rusty. And I was really struck by how 347 00:26:40,920 --> 00:26:45,240 banal it is as well that, you know, she's just plopping her heart there 348 00:26:45,240 --> 00:26:47,610 in the freezer, next to the liver, which is also there. And that's 349 00:26:47,610 --> 00:26:50,520 another poem, probably about something, but also next to the 350 00:26:50,520 --> 00:26:53,910 rolls and the concentrated juice and like, Oh, don't, don't feed it 351 00:26:53,910 --> 00:26:58,920 to the cat, or don't do that. Yeah. I loved that. It was integrated 352 00:26:58,920 --> 00:27:03,990 into a very domestic scene, and that in giving this other person 353 00:27:03,990 --> 00:27:08,880 her heart, it wasn't like, you say stylized, it wasn't, you know, she 354 00:27:08,880 --> 00:27:12,150 didn't take time to thaw it out and maybe, like, I don't know, give it 355 00:27:12,150 --> 00:27:16,350 a rub down, or slap it around, or tenderize it. She's like, Oh, here 356 00:27:16,350 --> 00:27:16,920 it is. 357 00:27:17,490 --> 00:27:21,360 Seán Hewitt: Yeah. I mean, even the act of receiving that heart, you 358 00:27:21,360 --> 00:27:25,260 know, the other person is there. And it seems for the speaker, such 359 00:27:25,260 --> 00:27:29,760 a terrifying idea to give the heart, you know, the expectation 360 00:27:29,760 --> 00:27:34,500 seems to be repulsion, kind of wanting to throw it away or give it 361 00:27:34,500 --> 00:27:40,020 back. And there's something quite moving about the surprise of the 362 00:27:40,020 --> 00:27:44,730 poem at not being rejected. You know, in that way, that's a lovely 363 00:27:44,730 --> 00:27:49,080 thing about the ending. One of the words that really stands out to me 364 00:27:49,320 --> 00:27:55,590 is, "As it numbed them, you asked me to kiss your hands. You were not 365 00:27:55,620 --> 00:27:59,580 even visibly frightened when it began to throb with love." It's the 366 00:27:59,610 --> 00:28:04,710 "visibly" there, which I think puts a sort of doubt, still in the poem. 367 00:28:04,890 --> 00:28:10,260 It's almost wanting to believe that the person isn't frightened. But 368 00:28:10,680 --> 00:28:17,040 "visibly frightened" seems to me to leave a doubt that the person might 369 00:28:17,040 --> 00:28:22,410 still be internally frightened. So I can kind of see two frightens 370 00:28:22,560 --> 00:28:26,520 you know, well, it's a scary thing. 371 00:28:26,700 --> 00:28:28,440 Victoria Kennefick: It's terrifying. 372 00:28:28,950 --> 00:28:30,540 Seán Hewitt: And, you know, sometimes I think we don't 373 00:28:30,690 --> 00:28:35,130 appreciate the responsibility that we're putting on other people as 374 00:28:35,130 --> 00:28:39,240 well. You know, we make demands of people. And I think this poem does, 375 00:28:39,270 --> 00:28:43,200 does both of those things. It kind of reminded me of the quote that 376 00:28:43,200 --> 00:28:46,770 Has been doing the round from I think it was Hilary Mantel's 377 00:28:46,830 --> 00:28:50,400 interview with the Paris Review. As she says, "The question is, not who 378 00:28:50,730 --> 00:28:56,280 influences you, but which people give you courage?" And I wonder if 379 00:28:56,280 --> 00:28:59,190 that feels kind of closer to your experience of this poem. Does it 380 00:28:59,220 --> 00:29:00,510 give you courage? 381 00:29:01,590 --> 00:29:08,280 Victoria Kennefick: I think so. I think when you're wondering how to 382 00:29:09,000 --> 00:29:15,150 self-actualize and to maybe be your true self as much as is possible, 383 00:29:15,150 --> 00:29:18,570 given the world that we're living in and so on, but it seems like 384 00:29:18,570 --> 00:29:23,280 quite a rebellious thing to do, or quite a radical thing to do. But 385 00:29:23,280 --> 00:29:30,300 what it really means is trusting yourself to be open, because the 386 00:29:30,300 --> 00:29:35,850 opposite of love is fear, and the fear can often be about your own 387 00:29:35,880 --> 00:29:42,000 inability to cope with being hurt, or your own perceived inability to 388 00:29:42,000 --> 00:29:47,220 cope with being hurt. And in resisting that hurt, we obviously 389 00:29:47,220 --> 00:29:53,250 resist all of the things that bring us joy. So even though the heart is 390 00:29:53,280 --> 00:29:57,930 not, you know, table-ready and is dripping on this person's hands, 391 00:29:59,070 --> 00:30:02,640 this person accepts it, because that is, ultimately what love is. 392 00:30:02,640 --> 00:30:04,290 It's, it's acceptance, 393 00:30:04,320 --> 00:30:07,530 Seán Hewitt: Right? You know, you've let go of your own 394 00:30:07,950 --> 00:30:11,040 responsibility for your own ego, and you've, you've entrusted it to 395 00:30:11,160 --> 00:30:15,390 to another person. You know, I think, really, you're probably one 396 00:30:15,390 --> 00:30:21,240 of these people now, which might be a courage giver to other people or 397 00:30:21,240 --> 00:30:25,800 other poets through your poems, but I wonder who, who your courage 398 00:30:25,800 --> 00:30:29,310 givers or permission givers have have been poetically. 399 00:30:30,210 --> 00:30:32,040 Victoria Kennefick: I would love the idea of being a permission 400 00:30:32,040 --> 00:30:37,920 giver. That sounds amazing. I've had so many, and I'm always 401 00:30:37,920 --> 00:30:41,820 searching for more, and it's just interesting the idea of permission, 402 00:30:41,820 --> 00:30:48,000 because we have it already, yeah, certainly, I think very early on, 403 00:30:49,110 --> 00:30:53,790 Yeats, I think, gave me permission to be passionate and maybe a little 404 00:30:53,790 --> 00:30:58,140 bit nerdy and embarrassing in my passions. Kavanagh gave me 405 00:30:58,140 --> 00:31:04,020 permission to be grumpy and cantankerous and made it okay to 406 00:31:04,080 --> 00:31:09,660 for me to maybe see that I might necessarily feel like I fit in, but 407 00:31:09,660 --> 00:31:14,400 I don't know, does anyone? And then, of course, I think for the 408 00:31:14,400 --> 00:31:18,870 dramatic two very different writers: Sylvia Plath, obviously, 409 00:31:18,870 --> 00:31:24,570 who felt like coming home when I read her, and Flannery O'Connor, I 410 00:31:24,570 --> 00:31:29,700 think both of them for the drama, the drama and the religion and the 411 00:31:30,210 --> 00:31:36,240 the I think particularly with Plath taboos that I would have thought 412 00:31:36,270 --> 00:31:40,860 were in place for me, around things I could or could not write about. 413 00:31:41,340 --> 00:31:44,880 And I think with Flannery O'Connor, the sense of her being, you know, 414 00:31:44,880 --> 00:31:47,730 problematically in many different ways now looking at her 415 00:31:47,730 --> 00:31:53,760 from this perspective. And indeed, then you know a southern woman, you 416 00:31:53,760 --> 00:31:56,880 know, conservative background, Catholic and writing these 417 00:31:57,090 --> 00:32:03,720 incredibly violent stories. I think, too Sally Rooney. I'm just 418 00:32:03,720 --> 00:32:06,720 really interested in how she writes about relationships and about the 419 00:32:06,720 --> 00:32:11,280 heart and about interdependence. And in a sense, watching reading 420 00:32:11,280 --> 00:32:15,570 normal People, and certainly watching the show at a very 421 00:32:15,570 --> 00:32:20,610 particular time in lockdown and in the kind of beginning of this 422 00:32:20,640 --> 00:32:26,010 disintegration of things at home. That sense of wanting 423 00:32:26,010 --> 00:32:29,220 interdependence, actually craving it, and realizing it's something 424 00:32:29,220 --> 00:32:34,170 that rather than keeping your heart in the freezer, it's far better 425 00:32:34,170 --> 00:32:40,020 served, and you are in your life by allowing it to be passed around. 426 00:32:40,050 --> 00:32:44,430 Maybe not willy nilly, per se, but certainly taking a risk and 427 00:32:44,880 --> 00:32:49,740 allowing yourself to be shock, horror, loved, 428 00:32:49,980 --> 00:32:51,090 Seán Hewitt: Yeah, yeah. 429 00:32:51,600 --> 00:32:54,420 Victoria Kennefick: for who you truly are, the whole messy, gooey 430 00:32:54,450 --> 00:32:55,050 lot. 431 00:32:55,080 --> 00:32:58,350 Seán Hewitt: Yeah, and it's often not as scary to other people as we 432 00:32:58,350 --> 00:32:59,880 imagine it might be. 433 00:33:00,150 --> 00:33:01,800 Victoria Kennefick: I hope not. I hope not. 434 00:33:02,280 --> 00:33:06,810 Seán Hewitt: I'm just nearing the end of Intermezzo now, and I'm 435 00:33:06,870 --> 00:33:14,040 really enjoying it. So big thumbs up for Sally Rooney, okay, so before 436 00:33:14,040 --> 00:33:18,510 we leave, I'd just like to ask you, what's next? If you can tell us, 437 00:33:18,540 --> 00:33:22,860 are you working on anything? Are you having a break? You know what's 438 00:33:22,890 --> 00:33:24,780 what's going on? Everything is okay. 439 00:33:24,810 --> 00:33:29,400 Victoria Kennefick: I don't do breaks. Seán, I really mean to and 440 00:33:29,430 --> 00:33:35,160 yeah, I yeah, I'm working on maybe doing more breaks. And I'm working 441 00:33:35,160 --> 00:33:40,080 on essays at the moment, and I've had a few published, one in The 442 00:33:40,080 --> 00:33:45,870 Stinging Fly. Olivia Fitzsimons commissioned me to write about 443 00:33:47,010 --> 00:33:52,800 being a writer with ADHD, and that was an extremely interesting thing 444 00:33:52,800 --> 00:33:57,300 to do. And there are a few things I suppose, that I'm really interested 445 00:33:57,300 --> 00:34:02,580 in exploring in essay form that don't seem to be packaged in poem, 446 00:34:02,970 --> 00:34:06,960 in poem in my head, they're just not poems. I've been working on 447 00:34:06,990 --> 00:34:11,640 on some of those. Dabbling a little bit with maybe longer fiction, 448 00:34:12,510 --> 00:34:18,450 which I find really daunting, and it's like starting again and 449 00:34:18,510 --> 00:34:26,220 procrastination, which is part of the ADHD rainbow of symptoms, and 450 00:34:26,220 --> 00:34:29,190 I'm sure everyone has, to some degree, experienced it. It's quite 451 00:34:29,190 --> 00:34:35,040 profound. And I'm really interested in observing that in myself and 452 00:34:35,040 --> 00:34:41,490 maybe using that, maybe later, to explore that kind of experience in 453 00:34:41,490 --> 00:34:42,090 poetry. 454 00:34:42,120 --> 00:34:46,650 Seán Hewitt: yeah. So essays, maybe a novel and more poems, 455 00:34:46,650 --> 00:34:48,990 Victoria Kennefick: So three or five books together. 456 00:34:51,000 --> 00:34:54,870 Seán Hewitt: Well, thank you so much for taking time out of a very 457 00:34:54,870 --> 00:34:59,970 busy life to talk to us. Victoria Kennefick, thank you very much. 458 00:35:00,630 --> 00:35:02,250 Victoria Kennefick: Thank you, Sean, it's been wonderful. 459 00:35:08,730 --> 00:35:11,520 Seán Hewitt: Thanks for joining us today. I'm your host. Sean Hewitt, 460 00:35:12,210 --> 00:35:16,770 Victoria's poem "The Ego is Crushed like a Snail Shell Under a Stiletto 461 00:35:16,770 --> 00:35:20,730 and is Begrudgingly Divested of its Own Smugness" is from her 462 00:35:20,730 --> 00:35:25,080 collection egg/shell, published in 2024 and aired with permission from 463 00:35:25,080 --> 00:35:30,180 Carcanet. "Heart's Limbo by Carolyn Kizer" comes from Cool, Calm and 464 00:35:30,180 --> 00:35:36,060 Collected Poems 1960 to 2000 published in 2002 it was used with 465 00:35:36,060 --> 00:35:37,950 permission from Copper Canyon Press 466 00:35:39,480 --> 00:35:42,990 Coming up next week, poet Mícheáll McCann on the challenges of writing 467 00:35:42,990 --> 00:35:47,100 about queer domesticity, Mark Doty's impact and the power of a 468 00:35:47,100 --> 00:35:48,900 firefly in the right hands. 469 00:35:50,880 --> 00:35:53,400 Make sure to subscribe to The Glimpse wherever you get your 470 00:35:53,400 --> 00:35:56,520 podcasts. You can also find episodes on our website. 471 00:35:56,790 --> 00:36:01,440 brinkerhoffpoetry.org/podcast. We'd also love to hear from you. Drop us 472 00:36:01,440 --> 00:36:03,990 an email at The Glimpse Poetry Podcast@gmail.com . 473 00:36:07,200 --> 00:36:09,840 The Glimpse is a production of the Adrian Brinkerhoff Poetry 474 00:36:09,840 --> 00:36:14,220 Foundation. I'm your host Seán Hewitt, our senior producer is 475 00:36:14,220 --> 00:36:17,670 Jennifer Wolfe. Kat Yore is our technical director and mixing 476 00:36:17,670 --> 00:36:21,810 engineer. Editorial director Amanda Glassman is our curator and 477 00:36:21,810 --> 00:36:25,500 production coordinator. Amy Holmes is the foundation's Executive 478 00:36:25,500 --> 00:36:30,990 Director, and our co founders are Cathy and Peter Halstead. Thanks 479 00:36:30,990 --> 00:36:31,530 for listening.