The Flapper Press Poetry Café Welcomes Ryan Holman and Her Pantheon of Feminine Poetic Power
By The Flapper Press Poetry Café:
The Flapper Press Poetry Café continues to feature 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 poetry and art of Ryan E. Holman!
Ryan E. Holman is the author of Even Goddesses Need Smoke Breaks (Bottlecap Press, 2025), and some of her other work has been seen in such publications as Eternal Haunted Summer, Enchanted Conversation, Tell-Tale Inklings, October Hill Magazine, and The Miserere Review, among others. She won first prize in the Baltimore Science Fiction Society's annual poetry contest in 2023 and enjoys writing about mundane and fantastic life through the lens of the elements.
Find out more about Ryan's work here:
Chapbook: https://bottlecap.press/products/evenreh
Linktree: https://linktr.ee/ryaneholman
We reached out to Ryan to talk about her life, inspirations, and poetry!
Please meet Ryan E. Holman!
Elizabeth Gracen: Ryan, thank you for submitting your work to the Flapper Press Poetry Café. Your work is a lively mix of feminine power, sly wit, and a keen sensibility that mixes age-old battles with contemporary struggles. Would you please tell our readers more about you and how you found your way to poetry?
Ryan E. Holman: Thank you for your kind words and giving me a chance to talk shop about poetry! I've been writing stories in some form or another for as long as I can remember. When I was trying to find my voice and my way in my early adulthood, it seemed that my poetry resonated more with people, and I gained more traction with it than my prose, so I went with it. The ability to play with language to find a depth of meaning is something I've admired when I've read both prose and poetry, and I try to bring that quality to my own work.
EG: Let's talk about your chapbook, Even Goddesses Need Smoke Breaks.
"Even Goddesses Need Smoke Breaks examines different expressions of femininity in poetry. Goddesses and witches are the height of social aspects of femininity and are nonetheless cast outside of society—goddesses, because they are thought to embody a quality so completely as to be divine; witches, because they are often messing with forces that people don’t want to understand or simply 'don’t fit.' Drawn from the very 'unladylike' act of smoking and the ways in which that idea intersects with the burnt offerings to deities in ages past, the fifteen poems in Even Goddesses Need Smoke Breaks shed light on the transformation of ordinary outcasts into extraordinary storytellers."
In your poetic exploration of the "expressions of femininity in poetry," what common threads did you discover that string this concept together throughout history? What traps do you find the feminine ensnared in poetry? How does that translate into how you feel as a contemporary poet in this crazy, male-dominated world?
REH: Often, society wields the label "feminine" and people take it as permission to shove those things and people into a box that they feel they can safely dismiss or reduce to ambient noise. This is, of course, a mistake.
I divided my chapbook into three sections named after archetypes for women—maid, mother, and crone—and then deliberately subverted them and questioned them in the poems. The young are often assumed to understand nothing; the poems in the "Maid" section often show insights that many miss. Mothers and women without children are often assumed (and expected) to be benevolently focused entirely on their immediate nuclear families; the "Mother" poems contemplate legacies and hopes for the future in a more nuanced fashion. Older women are often assumed to have exceeded their usefulness to society, with the possible exception of helping their families with child care; the "Crone" section features characters who are underestimated but whose actions have impacts that extend beyond the immediately apparent.
People, especially women, who take the time to notice happenings beyond their immediate circles are often the ones who get called nasty names because they notice larger patterns that others wish they wouldn't. Some of those people transmute their observations into art, and sometimes they get called poets.
EG: You mention in your bio that you are a prize winner in a science fiction poetry contest. Take me into the world of science fiction poetry and why that genre interests you. Do you have any particular authors or poets who have influenced and inspired you in this realm?
REH: Speculative poetry is a surprisingly vast niche, and it encompasses everything from fairy-tale retellings to alien worlds in outer space and a bunch of stuff in between. Of late, my interests have been more in the direction of folklore and myth. What are the stories we tell ourselves about the events of the past and the hopes of the future? How do our perspectives change when we view our lives through those lenses? Some of the poets who've written speculative work that I've enjoyed are Lorraine Schein, Lisa Rosinsky, Amal El-Mohtar, and Brittany Warman & Sara Cleto. I love what they do with concrete and surreal imagery, blurring the lines between the two.
EG: I'd like to pursue this idea a bit more. I'm always interested in who and what inspires you to write in general? Who are the artists, poets, writers, musicians who really put a fire in your belly to write and express yourself? How have these people changed your life?
REH: Contemporary poets stand on their predecessors' shoulders, and ideally they lift up their contemporaries and the next generation of poets to come after them. Among the writers and musicians who influence me are Martha Collins, Storm Large, Heather Mae, Flamy Grant, and Marilyn Nelson. All of them have at one point or another stood up and said, "I see these things happening around me. I'm not going to look away, and further, I'm going to immortalize them in my art so that other folks know they aren't the only ones who see them." Some of the things they capture are profound, some are joyful, some are silly, and some are heartbreaking. It's important to see that life contains all of these things.
EG: If you are comfortable talking about it, what is your poetic process? Do you write every day? How important is it to you to have a daily discipline that puts you in front of pen and paper (or computer screen) to write? Why is poetry—either writing it, listening to it, or reading it—important? Why should people care about poetry?
REH: I actually don't write every day, at least not the sort of writing I've honed into my art. (Life happens, bills need to get paid.) The thing that I do strive for every day is to notice little details in the world as I move through it, like fireflies sparkling in the yard at dusk or the serene look someone gets amid the chaos of a subway commute when they're lost in the music in their headphones. Those details often percolate in my head for a bit and eventually I'll either scribble something on a piece of junk mail or open a new text file (depending on where I am) and write down a line or an image. At that point, the idea will often keep running through my head over hours or days or weeks and another snippet will fall into place, and that gets added to the file. Some of my poems take a long time to form, but others spring forth in a more coherent state that I can then polish into something I'm willing to share with the world. The brain-dump (or brain-drip) part of that process is essential, though, since it's much harder to edit a blank page. Poetry is important because it helps us look at familiar things in new ways, and that perspective can help us actively live our lives rather than merely drifting through the world on autopilot.
EG: Ryan, thank you for taking the time to answer my questions and to share your poetry! Please tell our readers what your poetic plans are in the future and where they can find more of your work. Good luck with all!
REH: Thank you so much! Besides promoting my chapbook (available online from Bottlecap Press and offline in a handful of independent bookstores), I've got a speculative flash fiction story out this season in Issue #3 of The Faerie Cat (Iron Faerie Publishing). I'm also seeking more reading opportunities and starting on the inklings of what might become another poetry chapbook. Readers can keep up with me at my "Ryan E. Holman, Author" Facebook page and at https://linktr.ee/ryaneholman.
Applying Diety
Thou askest my name;
how darest thou presume
to profane my calling
by speaking of it
in thy feeble tongue?
I have sent thee
a vulture
with my kindest
possible blessings
to pray thee
examine this application:
I have known of this pantheon
ever since I was
forged by flame and,
fully formed,
emerged from a volcano
on a tiny island
(which has recently become
part of the Endless Ocean
after acquisition
by the sea gods
of this very pantheon).
Ever since,
I have desired to be
a minor deity
and serve in the role
of a religious figurehead
to further the missionaries
of this organization.
In my last position
I was honored
with multiple temples
testifying
to my patience
and my beauty.
I have thousands of years
of supervisory experience:
I have cast mortals
into the fiery maw of death--
some screaming,
some mewling,
some silent.
Hiring, however, will be
a new domain for me
as my direct reports
have traditionally
been dedicated to my service
from a young age.
Such would present
a challenge, but one
that I eagerly embrace
as a growth area
in my career development.
This position
would play with
my strengths
and provide opportunities
for mutual growth.
We would surely
conquer the world,
together.
I look forward
to discussing this role further
at thine earliest convenience,
sincerely.
From the poet:
This poem came about during a hunt for a day job wherein I must have written one (ok, fine, several) too many cover letters. After a while, this poem started to form and wouldn't leave me alone until I committed it to writing. (P.S. In this season of my life, I'm self-employed.)
Molten
You cast me aside
as a serpent:
said I was simultaneously
shameful
and shameless;
called me temptress
slut
charlatan.
You put me on blast
and drowned me in fire
as if you could singe me
and send me
from my apex
to shatter on the ground
like Icarus
cast down for his hubris.
The wings you fashioned for me
may well have been waxed
yet still I slither.
My skin splits at the seams
I shed the husk
leave it behind
and continue on my path.
*First published on QuailBellMagazine.com
From the poet:
This piece is actually pretty straightforward. It hurts to be rejected and ostracized by people you think you belong with, but sometimes that's just the sign that it's time to learn from the experience and move on.
Spinsters
They ordered
our spinning wheels
burnt
for the protection of a daughter
who would one day be Queen.
In the flames
we saw our traditions
and our livelihoods
and our independence
buckle and break
under the weight of
the new decree.
The spinsters’ guild
became brewers
to keep an income.
We roll our barrels
to our cellars
and wait
with idle
twisting fingers
for visitors
under cover of night.
The sheep are still fleeced
and the royal weavers remain
busy.
The King
and his court
model their new clothes
as before.
To date, the source
of the yarn
is unasked
and unanswered.
From the poet:
This poem came from overthinking a throwaway line in a fairy tale—the one where all of the spinning wheels were gathered up and burned in Sleeping Beauty—and thinking about the nature of power that comes from the top and power that is squirreled away at the bottom. Often there is more power outside of institutions than people realize. This realization is particularly striking when considering various protests in the U.S. over the last couple of decades.
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