Molly Peacock. Poet. Biographer.
As a poet, I’m gratified by the many people who follow my work, especially The Widow’s Crayon Box (and seven other volumes). As a biographer, I’m in awe of two incredible women, visual artists of the past who held the keys to how we love and work today. My newest, Flower Diary: Mary Hiester Reid Paints, Travels, Marries & Opens a Door, comes out in Fall, 2021. It’s a companion to The Paper Garden: Mrs. Delany Begins Her Life’s Work at 72. I’m also an arts activist. With a friend I started what became a cultural institution in New York City: Poetry in Motion on the subways and buses. My project The Secret Poetry Room at Binghamton University gives first gen college students a tiny Arts & Crafts-style room to write a poem in. I’m a dual citizen with family roots in both Canada and New York. When I settled down in Toronto, I inaugurated The Best Canadian Poetry series. In my memoir Paradise, Piece by Piece I describe how I chose not to have children, and the book inspired the title of the Trixie Films documentary, My So-Called Selfish Life. I’ve been Poet-in-Residence at The American Poets’ Corner, the Elliston Poetry Room, Bucknell University, University of California-Riverside, Western University, Canada, and a member of the Graduate Faculty at the Spalding University Brief Residency MFA Program. Yearly I teach at New York City’s 92NY. But the mainstay of my teaching has beeen independent. Using the model of Nadia Boulanger in Paris, I’ve mentored emerging writers, teaching poetry and nonfiction one-to-one to many talented individuals who have gone on to publish many books.
Life collage: Born in Buffalo into a working-class farm and small business cross-border family with one Canadian grandmother and one American grandmother. First girl in the family to go to university. Marriage: a family of two (my late husband, the James Joyce scholar Michael Groden, and me). Here’s to The Timeless Project: the beauty of ageing. Here’s to writing both poetry and biography. Why try only one thing?
