Interview with Rachel Zucker, author of Museum of Acciddents

Rachel Zucker Interview with Marist College Poetry Workshop/ENG 311 Students, April 2010

Addie DiFran, Christa Strobino, Elyse Brendlen, Erika Giannelli,
Sarah Dub, Lindsay Blevins


1.) In an interview with Susie Deford with Bomblog, you made the comment that you were interested in "what it means to write political poetry that is not protest poetry." Have you discovered the difference? What exactly does it mean to write political poetry that is not protesting? What kind of political messages are you trying to portray in your poems?

RZ: I’m not sure. I’m really struggling with this right now. I believe, very strongly, that writing personl poetry can be political and yet I find myself wanting to write something that is more overtly political, intentionally political.

I think all writing (political and not political) is a form a protest. I’m not sure yet how this connects to my desire to write more overtly political poetry.


2.) Many of your poems deal with the trials of motherhood and being married. Specifically in the poem, Paying Down the Debt: Happiness. You talk about how you're writing a "momoir" during the day and then having to live the frustrations of your writing when the kids come home from school. The second stanza of the poem deals with some of the daily conversations you have with your children. You say in one line, "Motherhood has taken my I and smothered her to smithereens. I'm bothered. Hot. Lusty. Restless." Was it difficult for you to put these poems out to the public knowing that your children and husband would one day read them? How did your husband react to the poems?

RZ: It was not difficult talking about these things publically. It was much more difficult living them, experiencing the feelings. Admitting to them is much easier. I think my husband likes being noticed. Of course, I may come to regret having been public about our family life. So far, I don’t.

3.) I love the title you used for this book. I always think about what would be in a museum of accidents. If you could visualize such a place, what would it look like?

RZ: Like the Guggenheim but each room drastically different from every other room.

4.) In your life, you have experienced much already: you have taught, you've assisted with births, gotten married, and given birth yourself. Do you find that your inspiration for your poetry comes from inside yourself, or are you inspired by outside sources? If so, what particular things inspire you? Are you ever inspired to write by something you have not experienced before?

RZ: I’m never sure if the “non poetry” things I do—teaching, childbirth education, assisting at births, mothering, etc.—feed and sustain and inspire my poetry or just reduce my writing time. As for the second part of the question—well, I wrote about Persephone going down into the Underworld and I haven’t actually done that! But, seriously, I think I have, in a way. I think we write using empathy so very little is outside our actually experience. I can’t imagine wanting to write about something I had no empathy for.

5.) I really thought your poetry was structurally interesting. The way that a line continues on and on without punctuation, like in "What Dark Thing", was really intriguing. It left a lot up to me as the reader to interpret pauses and stops. Is this type of writing what you have always naturally produced? Or do you find that this has resulted from studying confessional poetry?

RZ: The form of the poems is organic. I’m not sure what else to say about it—I’m sorry!

6.) What is your writing process like? Do you like to plan and organize your writing time (or do you HAVE to with your busy schedule?) Or do you write when you feel called to? What does your writing 'space' look like?

RZ: My writing space is a total mess. Usually is. I’ve got 50 different projects all going on at once and tons of books on my desk as well as broken action figures that are waiting for repair and dental floss and a bathing suit that needs to be returned… oh I can’t even describe it…terrible. Every day is different for me but the weeks are similar. If my youngest doesn’t have day care—no writing. If he does, teaching usually comes first. Writing fits in somewhere. No idea how.

7.) You've written several books before Museum of Accidents, such as Eating in the Underworld. What do you feel the journey has been like from book to book? Is there a connection between each published collection? How is Museum of Accident different from your other collections?

RZ: Museum of Accidents is my freest collection. I cared less what people thought. It was an easier book to organize.

8.) How do you keep your poems fresh and interesting when focusing on common themes? How specifically does working around themes of motherhood, domestic space and love feel bounded and/or boundless and how do you negotiate it? Do you have any special tricks for coming up with concrete images to convey your meaning?


RZ: I’ve never worried about any of that before. I do now because I’m not in the middle of a collection of poems and because I’d really like to do something different. I’ll let you know what happens. So far I feel pretty stuck.

9.)There seems to be a great push and pull in each of your poems. The work seems to want love, but at the same time, it appears to be more of just a hungry, sexual love many times. How do you see these tensions as important to your poems?

RZ: I think that’s just my experience of love and marriage and sex.

10.) In your poem "Paying Down the Debt: Happiness" you say "Motherhood has taken my I and smothered her to smithereens," and mention that "there is no more writing," (when your son is sick). But it seems like when there is writing, it is about motherhood. Has motherhood taken over your writing by force, or is motherhood now your "I"?

RZ: Well, there was no more writing that memoir during that time. But yes, I can’t anymore distinguish between my writer self and my mother self even though they often seem to be in conflict.


11.) In an interview with Susie DeFord, you mention that the woes and worries you had about life before having children have faded, but have also evolved into new anxieties regarding your children and their lives. Which set of issues would you rather focus on: the existential or the physical nature of motherhood?

RZ: I think there is almost no difference between these two.