An Interview with Rachel Eliza Griffiths

Over at The Rumpus, Roxane Gay and Rachel Eliza Griffiths talked up Griffiths' new collection Mule & Pear.

They touch on a number of things, from reading and its role on the collection to fearlessness to slavery and race:

The Rumpus: Race is deeply embedded in many of your poems. Why?

Eliza Griffiths: To strip race from the poems in the Mule & Pear would be impossible. I wouldn’t and could not do that. When I think of the characters I’m focused on in this collection, race is a character and a condition too. It’s not always the same in each novel of course. If I turned a ‘blind-eye’ to race in these poems I’d be guilty of grafting an invisibility to their lives. I’d be using privilege in way that I simply cannot. One of the most important things in the book is the notion of how race “worked” in the characters’ interior and exterior lives. The location of it within the body and within society and the legalization and daily practice of tension, fear, desire, violence, and often – love. To deal with these characters and not acknowledge and invoke race would be like pulling out their eyes and tongues. Bringing race into a poem these days often feels like pulling a ring out of grenade and then eating it. Others may, and of course, do “read race” as they are inclined, given their own experiences and perceptions about the world. I don’t feel I’m forcing this theme except to embed and name its complexity in regards to history and to imagination. Given the climate in the world right now it’s clear that there is much to question. And much to celebrate in some instances. I’m hoping that readers of Mule & Pear will want to return to some of these novels and have conversations of their own about the “stories” of the women they witness.

And that's not all! Get over there and read it.