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I would be lying if I said I didn’t miss anything about orthodoxy; it mapped a path for me that led across mountain ridges with lush vistas. Poetry has become a kind of surrogate for orthodoxy, except instead of one beaten path to the peak, there are manifold deer trails, switchbacks, creek beds. Swards of green to ford.  

Perhaps one of the most resounding themes in Newman’s collection of poems is the idea of home. Utilizing a mixture of Yiddish and English, Newman pinpoints that she herself struggles with the meaning of home.

I’ve been writing since I was a kid but really studying, writing, and thinking about it since I was an undergraduate in the 90s. As a writer and person, I love Adrienne Rich’s idea that truth is “an increasing complexity,” and I’m very interested in layering histories, untold stories, disparate stories and references, and complex feelings in my work. I hope my writing works against our sound-bite culture and drive to simplify.

My poems are often obsessed with the intersection of small, personal histories with large-scale, national histories. I write about cruelty and violence, the question of how we represent trauma on the page.

I’ve been writing more seriously for almost seven years, and starting down that path felt like an event. My daughter was two at the time, and becoming a parent felt like it had reorganized every cell in my body. Rediscovering writing was part of getting back to feeling fully human.

Skin Memory is a delightful collection that is equal parts comfort and unsettling, purposeful and powerful in its moves. Sibley Williams lingers in each poem just long enough to paint a portrait of what living in a changing world looks and feels like…

We know that gutsy writing and voracious reading go hand in hand, so I try to surround myself with beautiful books. Friendship with beautiful people whose writing I also love has been an important part of my writing life as well. Because I am fed by sitting with, listening to, and talking story with/befriending beautiful writer people…

Because too many of us have been hurt in ways both subtle and not quite so, we rightly feel the need to have our existence validated, often through the stories we urgently need to share. So, my dear writer, read and write. Keep reading. Keep writing. But above all, nurture that flame flickering inside of you. It will keep you warm on days when everyone around you acts as if they’re doubting you.

Though each poem possesses its own unique demands, themes, and structures, my work is always heavily rooted in human attachments and disconnects: to others, to self-perception, to culture and politics, to nature, to language, to the past and future, to hurt and healing.

I have been writing all my life. An array of commitments, particularly to the unvoiced and unheard, to an empassioned musical approach to language, to specific remarkable fellow writers, artists, relatives, and friends, have kept me writing.