Rachel Marie Patterson is the co-editor of Radar Poetry. She holds an MFA from UNC Greensboro. Her poems appear in Valparaiso Poetry Review, Harpur Palate, Smartish Pace, Redivider, Thrush, and others. She is the author of Tall Grass With Violence. Her poem “Vasospasm” appears in the Fall 2022 issue of Carve. 

The journey of “Vasospasm” feels precise, ending in such a striking final line. How did you find the right moment to leave this piece? 

An emerging theme in my work is the tension between a mother’s devotion to her young children, her dissolving sense of self, and the failing state of the world, over which she has no control. In “Vasospasm,” I wanted to begin in the anxious, suffocating space of new motherhood and then zoom out to the existential magnitude of “the mess she came into.” The speaker experiences simultaneous hope and grief, adoration and terror. When I found myself at “mess,” I ended the poem and left the speaker there, in a mess she doesn’t know how to get out of. 

Frustration, I think, is such a difficult emotion to harness in writing. How were you able to grapple with that feeling here in such a concise poem? 

This poem definitely grapples with frustration, as well as other intense emotions. Alliterative verse (the repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of words) is what allowed me to propel the poem forward, both lyrically and narratively. I wanted to harness the momentum of those repeated sounds to convey the frantic pace of new motherhood and the rawness of the speaker’s emotions. Repetition also helped me depict the claustrophobia and exasperation of caring for an infant, especially when your body doesn’t do the work it is expected to. I let music guide this poem.

This piece is so generous in its vulnerability. How was the process of creating and then sharing this work?

Poetry is not memoir, and it isn’t therapy. Still, I feel compelled to share certain difficult experiences in my poems, because it is part of my work as a writer. Writing vulnerably is how I keep myself honest as a poet. I often share my drafts with a trusted editor who is also a mother; she is frank with me about the experiences that connect and those that don’t. It’s helpful to have that community before poems like “Vasospasm” go out into the world. I feel accountable to the experiences of other women and imagine, always, that I am writing to them. I hope that “Vasospasm” will reach other women and make them feel acknowledged.

What creators have been stuck in your head recently? 

As a poet, I am currently obsessed with Ocean Vuong’s book Time Is A Mother, which I read after a friend recommended it to me. Right now, I am living and writing from the perspective of a mother. It was refreshing and devastating to read a book written from the perspective of a son, grappling with the loss of his mother.

As an editor, I spent this summer reading manuscripts for the Coniston Prize. Poring over the poems of other women reminded me of the community and conversation we share. We ultimately selected five outstanding finalists, and I can’t wait to share their voices with the world.