In The Field: Conversations With Our Contributors—Judy Kaber

Your poem that appears in Volume 27, “Cracking the Lid,” is after Lois Dodd’s painting “Lifting the Lid.” What drew you to that painting, and what sparked this piece from it? Do you often find inspiration from art?

I love Lois Dodd’s work and often write ekphrastic poems. I was drawn to this particular painting because of the mystery in it, the way you could only see part of the figure emerging from (or entering?) the box. It left me with a lot of interesting questions. Answers concerning constraint and failure filled my mind.

The repeated lines help set the rhythm of the poem. What connected you to this form for this particular work? What other forms do you usually work in?

I’m not sure what led me to this particular form for the poem. Maybe it was the idea of the echo you would hear inside the box. The rhymes and rhythms seemed to match the painting well. I live beside a stream and the images and sounds from the stream have entered this poem. 

Usually I write in free verse. However, I do like some forms and will use them when they seem to fit the work. Some of my favorites are abecedarian, Golden Shovel, duplex, pantoum, and ode.

I love the line “failures I think I’ve finally fled.” It gives me the feeling that the freedom the speaker of the poem is seeking is really an illusion. Can you speak more to this line, and how you see it influencing the rest of the poem?

I think that’s a key line in the poem. In the image, it seems like the figure is attempting to close herself off from the world, which is something we might do when we fail, particularly if we fail in a public way. But failures are part of who we are and help us grow, so rather than trying to escape them, I believe it’s better to embrace them.

What themes do you return to in your work?

My husband died this past year, so death and loss have invaded my writing in a way I can’t seem to escape. They were always there, but never so strongly. Nature also is a constant theme.

What books or paintings influence your work? What stories and authors do you return to?

Poets are my strongest influence. The ones that come to mind most readily and that I return to again and again are Dorianne Laux, Ocean Vuong, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, and Kaveh Akbar. There are so many talented poets! What excites me is that I am constantly finding new poets to fall in love with. Lately I’ve taken up with Natalie Diaz. Her use of language is exhilarating.

What are you working on now?

I just finished a chapbook honoring my late husband and have my first full length book coming out in the fall, so I don’t have a specific writing project that I’m working on now. I have been taking a deep dive into the life and writing of Edna St. Vincent Millay. She was born and grew up near where I live so she holds a particular fascination for me. I appreciate her use of language and am absorbing the musicality of her work. I love her free spirit. Right now I am reading concurrently six books: her letters, her journals or diaries, two biographies, a young adult biography, and an annotated book of her poems. I’m not sure where this will lead me, but I’m guessing it may be at the heart of my next project.

Judy Kaber taught elementary school for thirty-four years and is currently retired. She is the author of three chapbooks, most recently A Pandemic Alphabet (The Poets Table, 2020). She has published in a number of journals, both print and electronic, including The Comstock Review, Pleiades, december, Atlantic Review, and Quartet. Contest credits include the Maine Postmark Poetry Contest in 2009, the Larry Kramer Memorial Chapbook Contest in 2011, and the Maine Poets Society Contest in 2021 and 2023. Recently, her poem “Sword Swallowing Lessons” was featured on “The Slowdown.” Kaber is a past poet laureate of Belfast, Main (2021-2023).