Our Exclusive Interview with Poet/Author Molly Peacock

Our readers seem to have formed a Molly Peacock fan club, raving about her Mother’s Day essay last week and entering our giveaway to win a copy of her new book, The Paper Garden: An Artist Begins Her Life’s Work at 72 in droves. Because you still want more, we’re excited to present our interview with Molly in which she answers all kinds of questions about life, art and her gorgeous book (which, by the way, is a tribute to 18th century gentlewoman Mary Delany who picked up a pair of scissors at the age of 72, creating a whole new art form and a whole new life for herself).

I was blown away by everything about this book: the subject matter – both Mrs. Delany and her incredible art – your writing, the illustrations, your own story which is intertwined with hers. It seems like an absolute labor of love and I can’t imagine what it took to put this together. Your beautiful collage of a book is the perfect representation of Mrs. Delany’s work. Did you set out to mirror her intricate layering or was that a natural progression once you started writing? 

Thank you for loving The Paper Garden and for asking such a perceptive question, Lois. No, I didn’t set out to mirror her collage! I set out to use a group of her amazing images as thresholds into chapters of her life. And I knew I didn’t want to write a traditional biography. I’m always interested in the stories of why and how biographers choose their subjects, so I knew I wanted a little bit of my own life in there. But how to combine it all was a mystery to me. I had all these bits and pieces, and I started layering them together. It wouldn’t work! I tried again. Then again. (Mrs. Delany taught me persistence.) It was only as the book was coming together that I realized I was making a collage in response to a collage.

You originally discovered Mrs. Delany’s flowers in the Morgan Library in 1986 but it wasn’t until 25 years later that you decided to write about her. If you had been able to afford her book in the gift shop originally, do you think you would have started writing then or did you need to get to a certain period in your own life first?

Absolutely not! I was strictly a lyric poet then, and it was only later, after I’d written a memoir, Paradise, Piece by Piece, that narrative came into my life. I had to have a life story before I could write someone else’s.

You use specific mosaicks to “ground” specific times, events or feelings in Mrs. Delany’s life. Was that an example of your feeling that “a metaphor can feel truer than a fact?” How challenging was it to make those connections?

The poet in me made these connections instantly. I looked at each mosaick again and again, using that trusty poet’s tool: comparison. Simile, or what something is like, gets a writer very far in this world. To compare one experience or idea or feeling or thing or concept to another, even it the comparison is really wild, lets you live in two worlds at once, the anchored world of fact, and the world of imagination.

You are all about poetry, so what was it that resonated so strongly with you about Mrs. Delany that you decided to write more than 300 pages of prose about her?! Have you been inspired to write a poem about any of her mosaicks?

Ugh, no. I hate poems with lots of facts piled up in them. And I’ve loved visual art since I was a tiny child. I drew and painted as a child. But when I got to school, the writing part of me took over. However, I adore museums and looking at art. It is thrilling to me to discern detail. The idea of the book came from an essay I wrote, “Passion Flowers in Winter,” trying to get at what in Mrs. Delany’s life inspired me. Essay means “attempt,” and I was attempting to understand why I needed a role model for late life creativity. But, also, I was able to write a big book because I’ve watched another role model of mine, my scholar husband, write researched books and articles. (We’re the same age, and grew up blocks from each other. He taught me how to do my first big research paper in high school!)

You say in the book, “I sat down and started an essay on Mrs. Delany, whose flowering at the age of seventy-two I contrasted with my mother’s death at almost the exact age.” You also wrote a very special Mother’s Day piece for us, “My Real Mom – and My 311-Year-Old Mother.” Obviously there is a very personal connection for you between your mother and Mrs. Delany. What was it about Mrs. Delany that made you think of her as almost a second mother?

Thanks so much for giving me the opportunity to write “My Real Mom – and My 311-Year-Old Mother.” My own mother gave me keys to much of my life, but she couldn’t give me a key to age. She died at the very moment in her life when Mrs. Delany began her great work. Also, my parents were miserable together and finally divorced. As a result, I had to keep inventing how to make a relationship work, and thanks to my husband (and a terrific therapist) my second marriage is a nineteen-year work of art. Mrs. Delany herself had a marvelous second marriage. She then survived the death of her sister (my sister also died) and the death of her husband by using her imagination to create her collages, something my mother couldn’t do. I really needed a second mother to show me a future. And a role model from the deep past is delicious – a hand reaches out from the clouds to greet you.

Your descriptions of her work are breathtaking, and I get the idea that the images of them in the book – which are stunning in themselves – can only capture so much of the detail. What is it in the actual work that you just have to see to believe? And where can we see it – is it on exhibit anywhere currently?

A reproduction, however brilliant (and the reproductions of her work in The Paper Garden – all 34 illustrations – are fabulous,) can’t give you the feel of the original.  The paper flowers have travelled across the Atlantic from London twice for exhibitions, but right now the place to see them is in London, at the British Museum. There are always a couple of them on display in the Enlightenment Room on the first floor. But if you really want to see them, and hold them in your hands, go up to the fourth floor to the Print Study Room and request to see a few. Then you will see them as Mrs. Delany meant them, almost as pressed flowers in a scrapbook — a scrapbook of the imagination.

Do you have a personal favorite among the mosaicks?

Yes, the Everlasting Pea with its secret set of scissors hidden in the tendrils of the vine.

This is such an empowering story that proves you can do anything at any age. Wow, that is so transformative, especially now that we’re living longer lives. How did Mrs. Delany’s experience change the way you look at age?

I’m not afraid any more. I don’t think I’ll dry up and blow away. She showed me that life hurtles obstacles in your path minute to minute, and that the key to responding is flexibility. If you’re flexible, you can re-balance. And she did her art for herself and her friends. She never attempted to show it or gain fame by it. It was a resource for her, not an anguish. She reminds me that making art makes a life.

What was the most important part of Mrs. Delany’s story for you? What message did you really want to get across to readers?

My message is that a life’s work is always unfinished, and we need our creativity till the day we die. Mrs. Delany couldn’t have done her great work at any earlier point in her life than her eighth decade. Some things just take living long enough to do.

Don’t you feel young at 64 now?! What’s next for you?

I do feel young at 64! What’s next for me is two-fold:  First I want to finish AlphabeTique:  the Lives of the Letters as Told by T, a new book of poems where the letter T tells the stories of the letters of the alphabet (and a few punctuation marks, too).  Then I want to dive into a researched book about flowers and 19^th century women and the power of the imagination to change personal tragedy.  That’s just a seed of an idea. I hope it has Style and Substance and Soul! Thank you so much for giving me a chance to participate in this fantastic site. It’s been an honor.

To win a copy of Molly’s book, simply leave a comment below. For another chance to win (and to watch Molly’s video), click here. You may enter once a day until the contest ends on May 15 at midnight Pacific time. Winner will be notified by return email.