Flapper Press Talks with Poet and Educator Jennifer Mills Kerr
- Elizabeth Gracen
- 45 minutes ago
- 6 min read
By Elizabeth Gracen:
The Flapper Press Poetry Café features the work of poets from around the globe. It is an honor to share their work and learn more about their lives, influences, and love of poetry.
This week, we are honored to feature the work of poet Jennifer Mills Kerr.
Jennifer Mills Kerr’s poetry has been recently published in The Inflectionist Review, MORIA, and SWWIM. Lit-amorous, Jennifer is constantly seeking the next amazing poem to read, savor, and share, and she curates her discoveries on the Poetry Inspired Substack (@JenniferMillsKerr). Read more of her poetry at jennifermillskerr.carrd.co
Please meet Jennifer Mills Kerr!
Elizabeth Gracen: Jennifer, welcome to Flapper Press! Thank you so much for sharing your powerful poetry. Would you please tell us more about yourself and how/when you started writing poetry?
Jennifer Mills Kerr: My writing life began twenty years ago as a short-story writer—an art where I could hide behind an invented character, or think I was (I’ve read my stories later and realize how autobiographical they were!). Meanwhile, I read, studied, taught poetry. But I didn’t have the courage to take the leap until two years ago, when I finally could say, "All right. It’s now or never."
EG: The sheer gravity of emotion your poems invoke tether them to something so universally familiar. Gorgeous and heartbreaking. You’ve taken on the threads that bind family together, and I’m curious if this is your go-to subject when you write. I sense that poetry is a true emotional outlet for your grief and the love you have for your family. Please tell me more about these poems.
JMK: Absolutely an emotional outlet. And yes, grief and love are certainly intertwined. Since my family was shackled by silence, through poetry, I speak and write into and from that void. I doubt I would have become a poet-writer if my parents were more expressive people.
Since family is my go-to subject, I ventured into the cento and the duplex forms in order to explore the subject matter from a different angle. I’m creating a collection, and so I want each poem to speak in a new way.
EG: I took a look at your terrific website, and I see that you offer art-inspired writing classes. How long have you been hosting these classes, and what do you like about them? How important are supportive communities when it comes to writing and creating poetry?
JMK: First, thank you for your good words about my website! About my classes . . . I’ve been hosting poetry workshops for over three years; I offer art-inspired generative writing sessions with poem, painting, and photography prompts. I also facilitate critique workshops. Community and connection are super important to me—my classes are small, inclusive, supportive. I love witnessing others’ creativity and fostering writers’ growth and development—especially since I understand how important encouragement is to me as a poet.
EG: I write villanelles for therapy. They aren’t very good, but it doesn’t stop me from writing them! I don’t do it every day, but there are moments when I need to unearth something that I can’t quite put my finger on. A villanelle helps me discover that mysterious “something” that won’t leave me alone. Poetry brings me relief to write and pleasure when I read the work of others. As an educator, can you describe the importance of writing for personal benefit? What might encourage someone to start a poetry practice?
JMK: I think you nailed it by describing that “something” that doesn’t leave you alone. It starts to ache like a bad tooth, and I believe it’s a part of ourselves calling for validation. When we listen to and explore it, the healing process begins. For many, starting is the hardest part. Writing poetry also allows us to become all-too-familiar with the inner critic and its nasty little mind games. Your inner critic may say, these villanelles aren’t any good, but you keep at the work, and that’s an accomplishment.
This ugly part of our minds intrudes not only in creative life but everywhere—that job you didn’t apply for, the guy you didn’t ask out, making a difficult phone call . . . handling the inner critic extends into every area of our lives. A creative practice not only brings greater self-awareness but also teaches us how to confront and transcend fear.
For anyone who’s starting to explore poetry, I’d suggest they connect in some way with fellow creatives. Growth pulls us out of our comfort zone. But if you have loyal, trustworthy people who support you and hold common goals and values, you’ll have a much easier time with the process. Poet-peeps help us to internalize yes.
EG: Who are the poets, writers, artists, and musicians who have influenced your creative life?
JMK: I love so many poets. One of my favorites is Carol Ann Duffy. Another, who’s also a very good teacher, is John Sibley Williams. I also love Frank O’Hara, and I’m inspired by the abstract expressionist painters (a school O’Hara was linked to) because they continue to teach me the value of the subconscious in creativity. Spontaneity and playfulness balances out my inner perfectionist. Literary biographies inspire me as well because they reveal the intricacies and challenges of leading a creative life. Some of my favorite biographers: Megan Marshall, Kathryn Hughes, Claire Tomalin, and Hermione Lee.
EG: Thank you so much for the interview and for sharing your work. Please tell our readers where they can find out more about you and your work. Many thanks!
JMK: Thank you, Elizabeth, for your warm welcome to Flapper Press. The best place to connect with me is through my website: jennifermillskerr.carrd.co. Or you can join my small poetry community on Substack: jennifermillskerr.substack.com/
I Hold Our Book Open
— for my father
In the thirty-five years since you died,
every word of our story has been worn
to sand, so smooth I can now walk
barefoot along this shore, unafraid
of broken glass, yet wishing for a shard
to snag light or skin rather than
meander this empty beach, the tide
locked by the same tilt of moon,
curved like the soft crease of your mouth,
the one I traced as a child, when words
were nursery rhymes and your silences,
a raft I floated upon, trusting dark
currents with closed eyes. Now the surf,
a rough whisper as you lean close,
breath like mist against my skin,
offering some revelation so I
can finally close our book, let go,
move on. But as usual, I can’t
decipher what you say, can't even
see your face. But how tightly you
hold my hand, how strong your pull.
From the poet:
My father and I loved the ocean, and in writing this poem, I could explore the contradiction of feeling absence and recognize how strong it can be.
Duplex: Inheritance Song
Ice glittering upon my family tree,
this pretty dress of shattered glass.
My mother’s dress, a looking glass
to survey what’s broken in me.
I prospect for what’s broken in me,
sifting diamonds with gold pan,
sifting fallen stars, wedding band,
glass slippers, bottles of whisky.
Emptied glass slippers, like bottles break apart.
My glass heart is a window onto spring,
like a glass bell is a window ringing,
birdsong trills, the sky weeps.
My song, a seed struggling to trill. I weep
the ice glittering upon my family tree.
From the poet:
I often write about family, and the duplex felt like a good form to describe my relationship with the past; the form echoes stairs, but with the indents & repeated lines, also gives the sensation of one step forward, two steps back.
cento: over the still world, a bird calls
and everything continues as blue as the morning
and my father’s body went on filling up with death.
with my hand I gather this emptiness,
the scaped silence that binds us to each other.
at the avenue’s end, the golden coach
crossing thresholds: sleep to waking and back–
whiplashed as bats in persistent echoing.
let me unlace the high top G.I. boots,
rinse the dirt of his long day
for my father to drag himself home.
Sources:
Anne Sexton, In Celebration of My Uterus
Pablo Neruda, It Is Born, Serenade, Walking Around (tr. Robert Bly)
Meret Oppenheim, From collection: The Loveliest Vowel Empties
Li-Young Lee, Big Clock
Louise Gluck, End of Winter
Dorothy Barresi, Charity Begins
Garrett Hongo, What For
Sharon Olds, Late Poem to My Father
From the poet:
When writing poems about my father, who died over thirty years ago, I wanted the poem to feel ethereal yet also grounded in everyday objects and details. The cento form—slipping in lines from different poets—felt remarkably similar to how the past constantly slips into my daily consciousness.
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