Rebecca Wolff at the NYS Writers Institute in 2009

Poet Rebecca Wolff reads her poem "Breeder Sonnet" in this excerpt from an October 29, 2009 appearance at the New York State Writers Institute (http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/).

Rebecca Wolff, National Poetry Series winner, and founding editor and publisher of FENCE magazine and FENCE Books, is the author of The King (2009), a new collection of poetry that probes the complex, sometimes conflicting emotions attending pregnancy and motherhood. In a starred review, Publishers Weekly said, In her third book, Wolff keeps company with Sylvia Plath, Sharon Olds and Beth Ann Fennelly, challenging the idea that motherhood is a glossy miracle that makes the mother special. the speaker can be breathtakingly brave in her confessions.

With Catherine Wagner, Wolff also edited the 2007 poetry anthology, Not for Mothers Only: Contemporary Poems on Child-Getting and Child-Rearing. The collection features poems by Adrienne Rich, Carolyn Forché, and Sharon Olds, among others. The Washington Post reviewer said, lovely language abounds in these pages and provocative phrases.

Wolffs previous collections include the National Poetry Series selection, Manderley (2001), and Figment (2004), winner of the 2002 Barnard Women Poets Prize. Writing of Manderley, U. S. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky said, Intelligent, purposeful as well as comic, wonderfully attentive to sound, Wolff uses her gift for gorgeous, poetic gab to conjure presences from the boundaries of language. This is a distinguished and distinctive first book.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Rebecca
• Wolff
• Sequence
• 2009