CONTRIBUTOR SPOTLIGHT:
Interview with Meghan Joyce Tozer

Rappahannock Review Poetry Editors: There’s so much visceral emotion in “The Majority of White Women Voters,” that really captured our attention. How would you say that real world events shaped this piece?

Meghan Joyce Tozer: When Donald Trump was elected the first time, I’d just finished writing on a documentary project about the 1979 Iranian Revolution. In my research, I’d been surprised by the huge numbers of women actively involved in bringing to power the very ruler who would oppress them. Ayatollah Khomeini often spoke highly of women and misled them about his true intentions for their role in society. The white women who helped elect Trump, though—“The Majority of White Women Voters”—knew how poorly he treated and spoke of women. They chose to align themselves with a sexual assailant, at the cost of other women’s bodies. I wrote this poem for them.

RR: “Animals, animals, a-ni-mals!” is so raw in how it discusses babies and their development during pregnancy. Where did you get the idea for such animalistic descriptions of pregnancy?

MJT: When I was pregnant with my daughter, the doctor would compare her size to a different fruit at each visit. Week nine, she was a single grape; week nineteen, she was a mango. These cutesy metaphors, and all the others we use to describe the growth of a human fetus, fail to capture the arduous, painful, and often disgusting experience of pregnancy. Our country is currently forcing girls and women into that situation, in which continuing a pregnancy qualifies as state-sanctioned torture. The title is a reference to a 2018 speech Donald Trump gave in which he chanted that people living in the United States without documentation were “animals.” He intended to dehumanize immigrants; this poem is a reminder that we humans are, in fact, all animals.

RR: Both of your submissions are very hard-hitting in how they explore their respective topics. Do you often find yourself drawn to such intense language and imagery in your work?

MJT: I have a “compost heap” folder in my phone’s Notes app, where I write down details I notice that are unsettling, scary, or make me darkly curious. It’s the intense images that stick with me and ask to be turned into poems.

RR: What have you done to develop your style as a writer over the course of your career?

MJT: I’ve always been an avid reader of fiction and nonfiction, so I’m constantly inspired by other writers. I also love reading books on writing craft; I’m a lifelong learner.

RR: We saw in your bio that you work in musicology and even got your PhD in it. How has that part of your life influenced your writing?

MJT: I’ve always appreciated the parallels in the ways we communicate through music and words. A piece of music without lyrics conveys meaning through its structure, tempo, dynamics, the relationships between pitches, etc. Words can be more specific, but are not always as effective. Some things are best communicated as prose; some as music without words; some as a song; and some as poetry.