Molly Peacock. Poet. Biographer.
As a poet, I’m gratified by the many people who follow my work, especially The Analyst: Poems (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. Now I’m just beginning a project called The Secret Poetry Room. I’m a dual citizen with family roots in both New York and Canada. 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 the Unterberg Poetry Center at New York City’s 92Y. 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. Now, in the pandemic, I’ve started cartooning.
Life collage: Born into a working-class farm and small business family. First girl in the family to go to university. Marriage: a family of two (my husband and me). Caregiving: lots of it. Here’s to complexity. And crossing borders. And here’s to The Timeless Project: the beauty of ageing. Why try only one thing?
