Episode 195 with Jessica Cuello, Keen Observer of the Connections Between Classical and the Modern, and Painter of Resonant Imagery in the Poetry Collection Yours, Creature

Notes and Links to Jessica Cuello’s Work

 

   In Episode 195, Pete welcomes Jessica Cuello, and the two discuss, among other topics, her deep love for poetry and the French language, the power of libraries, transformational work by Jamaica Kincaid, the history of Mary Shelley, her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, and the chaotic and amazon lives led by the family members, ideas of guilt, trauma, misogyny, feminist power, death, doomed love, and identity. 

   Jessica Cuello’s most recent book is Yours, Creature (JackLeg Press, 2023). Her book Liar, selected by Dorianne Laux for The 2020 Barrow Street Book Prize, was honored with The Eugene Nassar Prize, The CNY Book Award, a finalist nod for The Housatonic Book Award, and a longlist mention for The Julie Suk Award. Cuello is also the author of Hunt (The Word Works, 2017) and Pricking (Tiger Bark Press, 2016). Cuello has been awarded The 2022 Nina Riggs Poetry Prize, two CNY Book Awards, The 2016 Washington Prize, The New Letters Poetry Prize, a Saltonstall Fellowship, and The New Ohio Review Poetry Prize. In addition, Cuello has published three chapbooks: My Father’s Bargain (2015), By Fire (2013), and Curie (2011). In 2014 she was awarded The Decker Award from Hollins University for outstanding secondary teaching. She is poetry editor at Tahoma Literary Review and teaches French in CNY. 

   

Buy Yours, Creature

 

Jess' Website

 

Review of Yours, Creature

At about 2:30, Jessica responds to Pete asking about where to buy Yours, Creature, and her social media/contact information

 

At about 3:40, Jessica talks about her relationship with language and literature, as well as books like Jamaica Kincaid’s that changed her trajectory, and her relationships with libraries, small towns, and urban areas

 

At about 11:10, The two discuss teaching foreign language and evolving pedagogy

 

At about 12:05, Jessica answers Pete’s questions about any links between French-which she teaches-and her own writing 

 

At about 14:30, Pete talks about Mary Wollstonecraft and his knowledge or lack thereof in asking Mary about the links between her and her daughter, Mary Shelley; Jessica talks about seeds for her interest in the Marys

 

At about 20:10, The two discuss the frenetic life, particularly her teens and 20s, of Mary Shelley

 

At about 21:20, Pete asks about the rationale for the poetry collection’s title; Jessica speaks to its significance 

 

At about 22:55, Pete speaks about the epistolary form of the letters and wonders about the formality of much of the work

 

At about 24:10, Jessica gives background on her structure for the book and its iterations 

 

At about 25:50, Pete lays out the book’s first poem and birth and death; he reads from Page 4 and asks Jessica about ideas of revenge; she speaks of an evocative image

 

At about 28:30, Jessica cites evidence of Shelley’s father, Godwin, and the stories he wrote about her life and the violence he perpetrated 

 

At about 30:25, Pete reads from some early poems, laying out the divide between mother and stepdaughter

 

At about 31:00, The theme of loss is discussed

 

At about 31:50, Jessica reflects on her usage of initials for the males in the collection, particularly Godwin

 

At about 34:50, The two concentrate on a poem that deals with “threes” and the family dynamic after Mary Wollstonecraft’s death and ideas of guilt

 

At about 37:10, Jessica explains a blank in a poem and its meanings and her rationale

 

At about 38:40, Jessica explains a legend about Mary Shelley and Percy’s trysts 

 

At about 40:25, Pete reads telling and moving lines about grief from the collection

 

At about 41:20, Men in Shelley’s life are discussed in their flightiness, and Pete asks Jess about what shone through for Mary in loving Percy

 

At about 44:15, Pete highlights strong imagery, and Jess talks about Fanny, a half-sister of Mary, and ideas of women not wanting to “inconvenience” others

 

At about 47:25, Traumas of many types are discussed 

 

At about 49:00, Jessica responds to Pete’s wondering about “the creature” and its origins and meanings; Jessica and Pete reflect on the creature as “feminine” 

 

At about 52:30, The two discuss the ways women’s bodies are viewed, as Pete cites important lines from the collection

 

At about 54:00, Pete asks about any future project that Jessica is working on 

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   Check out the next episode, which airs on August 1. Chloe Cooper Jones is a contributing writer at The New York Times Magazine; She is also a Pulitzer Prize finalist in Feature Writing for “Fearing for His Life,” a profile of Ramsey Orta, the man who filmed the killing of Eric Garner, and the recipient of the 2020 Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant and the 2021 Howard Foundation Grant from Brown University, with both grants in support of her 2023 book, Easy Beauty.

   The episode will air on August 1.