2022_09_New_Jersey_Monthly

GARDEN VARIETY | Q&A
poems [in the book] got their
start at the winter getaway that
[Stockton University’s] Murphy
Writing program does…. I think
of “The End of Limbo”—the
one about Purgatory and my
grandmother—as being kind of
like a secret New Jersey poem,
because I’m sitting in a hotel
room at the Seaview…. I have
such a clear memory of writing it
[there].... I was so specifically in
that place.
Are Murphy Writing workshops
open to any interested writer in
New Jersey?
Yes…. It’s so welcoming to
people from a really wide variety
of backgrounds and levels of
experience. Everyone from high
school and college students, to
people who are retired, to people
who’ve written and published
books, to people who’ve always
wanted to write but weren’t really
sure how to get started. And
everybody finds a space.
VITALS
AGE 39
GREW UP IN
Pittsburgh
LIVES IN Collingswood
RÉSUMÉ Author of
Pocket Universe and
Double Jinx; coeditor,
with Emily
Pérez, of The Long
Devotion: Poets
Writing Motherhood;
professor at
Stockton University
UPCOMING
Featured reader
in poetry tent at
Collingswood Book
Festival on October
1; teacher at
Stockton’s Murphy
Writing workshops
this winter
a c o n v e r s a t i o n w i t h
Nancy Reddy
Collingswood-based writer
Nancy Reddy’s latest collection
of poems, Pocket Universe (LSU
Press, 2022) echoes a sentiment
put forth by the late poet
Muriel Rukeyser: “What would
happen if one woman told the
truth about her life? / The world
would split open.” Through
research and radical candor,
Reddy explores the harsh
histories and messy realities of
childbearing and motherhood,
alongside their poignant privileges—arriving
at a portrait of
domestic life that is simultaneously
agonizing and elegant.
There’s a poem in Pocket
Universe, “The Universe Has
a Temperature,” in which the
speaker drives her baby to the
emergency room on Atlantic
City’s Pacific Avenue. You’re
not a Garden State native, but is
there anything distinctly Jerseyesque
that you feel has seeped
into your writing since you’ve
lived here?
I’m often writing a couple of
years in the past…but there are
some specific New Jersey moments
[in this book]. There’s the
one you point out; that was when
we lived in Ventnor.... I learned
that the best children’s E.R. in
the area is in Atlantic City, which
makes sense—but it shares a
parking lot with Caesars, which
was just such a weird experience
for me, to have this very sick—
not life-threateningly, but very
sick—baby, and I was so upset—
and I was also parked in a casino.
I was like, What is happening?!
Where AM I?…. A couple of the
Pocket Universe contains a lot of
unsettling images and questions,
but there’s also plenty of
beauty and wonder and awe.
The very last poem is wistful,
but it ends on a decidedly hopeful
note. Did you know early on
that you wanted to conclude
that way?
It became clear probably pretty
early on that there was gonna
need to be some more points
of light and joy, and I tried to
kind of structure it around that:
Where can we find some moments
of hope and lightness? And then,
ultimately, it does arc towards
that. I’ve had a couple of friends
read the book, and they’re like,
“I got to ‘Postpartum’ and I
stopped,” and I’m like, “No!
Please keep going! It doesn’t stop
there!” And I think it was a good
practice for me, too, just in my
own life, to be aware of the moments
of joy here: Where are the
moments of lightness even when
things are hard?
—Jennifer Finn
PHOTOGRAPH: COURTESY OF MISSIE JURICK
18 SEPTEMBER 2022 NJMONTHLY.COM