About the Poems - EB
About the Poems
by Elizabeth Bradfield This group of poems come from a few different trajectories that I'm following in my work: Antarctica and Antarctic exploration, the tradition of nature poetry, and the butch in society. Looking at them together, I can see that they all address, one way or another, a subject that feels strange in/estranged from the world she moves through. At the same time, though, they move toward a place where that estrangement becomes a strength. A dear friend once told me that I couldn't write a mean poem. I bristled, but it might be true — I want to find a place in poems where the world is there in all its complexity, all it's muck and shimmer, but still manages to be worth celebrating some way or another.