Author Q&A with Genevieve N. Williams

Genevieve N. Williams holds an MFA from University of Nebraska at Omaha, where she received two Academy of American Poets Prizes. She is a queer poet whose poetry won an Edward Stanley Award from Prairie Schooner and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Her work has appeared in Prairie Schooner, Nimrod, The American Journal of Poetry, Mid-American Review, and Verse Daily.

Tell us about yourself.

Okay, so I’m a queer type-1 diabetic poet who uses she/her pronouns, is white and (mostly)cis and passes as hetero in public, thus having the privilege that comes with that; has in the past dealt with depression and PTSD; and works in writing centers as both a coordinator and consultant. I enjoy reading, writing, walking/hiking, practicing yoga, living with mindfulness, practicing meditation, and spending time with people I love. I’ve worked a variety of jobs including working student on a dressage training farm, barista, bookseller, bartender, server, exotic dancer, adjunct instructor, teaching artist, nanny/auntie, and now, writing center consultant and coordinator. These experiences, along with my experiences growing up as a kid, often inform my work. My parents suffered abuse and instability as children, and the cycle stopped with them. I am forever grateful my parents went through years of therapy—and participated in the arts as well! My mother acted in theatre and was a voracious reader and activist, and my father is a photographer, routine library user/reader, activist, and gardener. I have a big family that also includes very close friends and their children.

A “Beginner’s Guide to Yoga” is an insightful look into how trauma manifests itself in our bodies. What is your take on generational trauma and how it affects us?

Generational trauma, I’ve learned, comes from trauma that our parents, grandparents, and so on have experienced. Both trauma and resilience can alter our DNA and pass on to our children. When I was in my 20s, my therapist at the time kept saying that I had all the symptoms of PTSD without a particular triggering event. Generational trauma can affect us not only through our thoughts and behaviors but also through our bodies. Memory and trauma, whether our own or our ancestors’, can get stored in the body. I believe yoga and other movement practices, alongside mindfulness and therapy, help to address this stored trauma and memory. They certainly did for me.

I love all the repetition of lines in “A Beginner’s Guide to Yoga,” specifically, “Trauma stays tucked in ribcage and hip.” What is the benefit of using repetition as a poetic tool?

For readers who may not be familiar, “A Beginner’s Guide to Yoga” is written in a form called villanelle; villanelles include repeated lines and particular rhymes. I think repetition can serve to remind readers of the persistence of a thing, create movement in the poem, and add emphasis. I’m thinking of a particular part of Claudia Rankine’s Citizen when the speaker visits a trauma therapist for the first time and the trauma therapist yells at the speaker to get out of her yard. When the trauma therapist realizes what she’s done, Rankine emphasizes the racism and terrible moment by repeating at the end words such as “pauses” and “sorry,” creating a space in which the awfulness of that moment sinks in. Another poem that uses repetition very well is Mark Strand’s “Elegy for my Father.” Strand uses epistrophe and anaphora, as well as repeating lines, in this gorgeous poem on grief. The repetition emphasizes the grief. A villanelle many poets are familiar with is “One Art” by Elizabeth Bishop. The repetition in this poem creates a forward propulsion and emphasizes the loss experienced by the speaker.

What is your favorite form of poetry to explore? Why?

In terms of form and my own writing, I’ve enjoyed writing villanelles, sonnets, and pantoums. Mostly, though, I write free verse poems. In these poems, I still focus on sound as well as the meaning of lines and where they end/begin, whether to enjamb or create a full stop, and how to make each stanza.

How has yoga been a release for you? 

Yoga, especially in my early years of practice, helped me release a lot of stored trauma and memory. I found that hip openers and backbends especially would stir up and release stored emotion for me.

Does poetry also serve as a form of release? How?

Yes, I would say that poetry serves as a form of release in that I often discover what I feel or think about a thing only after I’ve written through it. I frequently make connections in poems that I wouldn’t otherwise make, whether between images, events, people, or sounds—it is very revelatory for me, and I feel that I would be less well-adjusted should I not have poetry in my life to remind me what exactly I feel and think and intuit.

As writers we often have repeated themes in our work whether we realize it or not. What is the repeated theme of your work?

Often, I return to themes of generational trauma and resilience, though I also return to images and connected narratives involving the farm, forests, oceans, and my childhood attic apartment. Sometimes, I enjoy writing queer love poems, so that, I suppose, could be another theme in my work—queer love. Usually, there’s something left unresolved or undiscovered, and the poem does some good digging for me.

Why do you think that theme keeps resurfacing?

I think anything that keeps resurfacing is an opportunity to learn. The fact that I am still writing about the trauma my parents experienced as children means there are lessons yet to be learned and communicated. 

What has been the key to developing your poetry?

Reading! I think that to write well, we must read well. Traveling. Getting outside of myself. Also, experience. Living a life with challenges and joys and love and grief—all the things that make us human—while taking note of the phrases, images, sounds, and temperature that surround an experience—helps me write and develop my poetry.

How is writing a part of your daily life?

Writing is a part of my daily life in that I am always observing—whether that observing is external or internal or a mix of both. I try to recognize and acknowledge the felt sense of my body in different situations and environments so that I can better understand. I am always trying to understand, and because of that, I write. I write to understand the associations and connections between experiences and people and to widen my view of the world and, subsequently, myself. I don’t have a particular time I write, though I often do so at my standing desk in my apartment, at one of my jobs between appointments, or at my often cluttered-with-unopened-mail-and-half-read-books dining room table. 

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Genevieve’s poem “A Beginners Guide to Yoga” was the runner-up for this year’s HoneyBee Prize in Poetry and appears in our summer 2024 issue.

Thank you, Genevieve, for allowing us to share your poem with our readers and for taking extra time on this Q&A with us! We’re glad we were able to connect and wish you the best with writing, and all of your endeavors.