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I recently caught up with New England Poetry Club member-- Gloria Monaghan. She has a new poetry collection out from the Lily Press titled " The Diary of St. Marion"
From her website:
Gloria Monaghan is a Professor at Wentworth University. She has published seven collections of poetry. Her seventh book, Diary of Saint Marion, Lily Poetry Review, (2025) was featured at the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (2025, AWP). Her poems have appeared in Nixes Mate, NPR, Poem-a-Day, Lily Poetry Review, Mom Egg Review, Quartet and River Heron among others. She has been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize, as well as the Massachusetts Book Award, and the Griffin Prize. She has also been nominated for the Sheila Margaret Motton Book Award from the New England Poetry Club. Thanks to a Bistline Grant from Wentworth Institute, she recently completed a film on the painter, Nancy Ellen Craig, Daughter of Rubens, which was accepted into the 2023 Provincetown Film Festival. She is currently working on another film about the Dominican painter, Jose Ricon Mora.
You grew up outside of Detroit. I know Marge Piercy grew up there and wrote about the city. The city is not known as the Paris of the Midwest—what did Detroit give to you as a poet?
I come from an old Detroit family. My great, great uncle won $5,000 in a card game in 1903 and picked up the phone and bought the Tigers baseball team. In the 1880’s Detroit was like New York in its glory days. There was a port which contributed to trade and wealth of the city. There was and still is beautiful architecture. The houses of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison are still there, albeit in poor condition. In the days when I grew up right outside of Detroit, it was a seedy, ruined place. It has always had a sort of underground art scene, and now wonderful poets thrive in Detroit and the area we used to call, the 3rd coast.
It was dangerous, but it felt glamourous to me as a child. In the 80’s, when I was a punk rock kid, we would venture down to the Freezer Theater, Lilies in Hamtramck, and Bookies on Joy Road. These were really run down places, some of them abandoned. But there were great bands that played there like Iggy Pop, Killing Joke, The Necros, and L7. It was an innovative and interesting scene. The City Club which became Clutch Cargo had an old jazz club adjacent to it, and we would go there after the shows and hear music from the old jazz masters. It also had an abandoned swimming pool on the upper floor where some of us would swim. Detroit, for me, was nostalgic; the old glory of those empty beautiful buildings, the train station, and the anger of the youth 100 years later. My grandmother would tell me stories about Detroit. She lived in the past, and I got that from her.
In your new collection of poetry, it opens with a little opera bag, What is the story behind this?
The little black opera bag is miniature. I found it in my grandmother’s desk and took it as a relic. I made a small shrine of skeleton keys, dirt blessed by a priest, and a patch of my grandmother’s crocheted work. I had this idea that these objects, in addition to the over 80 letters my grandfather wrote to my grandmother that no one had opened or read for 100 years, would transport me to another time. I found the letters in an old wicker basket. No one had opened them. They were written on the USS Mississippi in 1919 where my grandfather was serving in WW1. When I opened these letters, I could smell his cologne- a faint lime smell, cigarettes and desire. It blew my mind. Perhaps these objects could speak through me, and I would tell their stories and secrets.
You have a number of dog poems in your book. In one you get inside the canine experience-- the elemental and instinctual aspects. I know Billy Collins wrote a number of fine dog poems. There is always an interest in how our pets view the world. What is your take on dogs?
I like what you said about the instinctual and elemental- I think that is what I was attempting. Dog is God spelled backwards. And it is true that all animals lead us to God and the divine. They know things we are too blind to see in daylight. They provide us with comfort and peace. They have not forgotten their kill instincts. They accept death as a natural phenomenon, and they know that it is not the end.
In your poem " I am not afraid of Storms" you write of a chance encounter with a young man on a train. I love taking trains because of the limbo between destinations—you are sort of outside time. There is a sort of ephemeral, transitory magic.....
You are a member of the New England Poetry Club—and have been nominated for a Motton Prize. What does the club mean to you?
I am a proud member of the New England Poetry Club. It was founded in 1915, and as far as I know it is the oldest poetry club in America. I am honored to have been nominated for a Motton Prize. To me, the club is about community. They sponsor prizes, events and support for poets in New England. It is rare, and it is a labor of love for those poets who work hard to protect the heritage of poetry. People can sometimes take these institutions for granted, but they are fragile, especially in these times when the arts are generally under attack. NEPC is a refuge for poets and a community of love.
Hooves melt in the dust dirt
mouth slack open.
I have nothing to hide.
Chipmunk dead in the grass.
Did I do that?
His eyes weirdly peaceful
tail still fluffy
small smile.
I don’t remember it.
When time stopped, I was
chastised for recklessness
made decisions no longer justified.
In my youth I was a star shatterer.
Now I scatter black flies
left to my own devices
sheltered and surrounded by flowers
forgotten or tamed.
What rubric against the sky,
Orion, lost love,
has caused this shift to silence?
I come from an old Detroit family. My great, great uncle won $5,000 in a card game in 1903 and picked up the phone and bought the Tigers baseball team. In the 1880’s Detroit was like New York in its glory days. There was a port which contributed to trade and wealth of the city. There was and still is beautiful architecture. The houses of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison are still there, albeit in poor condition. In the days when I grew up right outside of Detroit, it was a seedy, ruined place. It has always had a sort of underground art scene, and now wonderful poets thrive in Detroit and the area we used to call, the 3rd coast.
It was dangerous, but it felt glamourous to me as a child. In the 80’s, when I was a punk rock kid, we would venture down to the Freezer Theater, Lilies in Hamtramck, and Bookies on Joy Road. These were really run down places, some of them abandoned. But there were great bands that played there like Iggy Pop, Killing Joke, The Necros, and L7. It was an innovative and interesting scene. The City Club which became Clutch Cargo had an old jazz club adjacent to it, and we would go there after the shows and hear music from the old jazz masters. It also had an abandoned swimming pool on the upper floor where some of us would swim. Detroit, for me, was nostalgic; the old glory of those empty beautiful buildings, the train station, and the anger of the youth 100 years later. My grandmother would tell me stories about Detroit. She lived in the past, and I got that from her.
In your new collection of poetry, it opens with a little opera bag, What is the story behind this?
The little black opera bag is miniature. I found it in my grandmother’s desk and took it as a relic. I made a small shrine of skeleton keys, dirt blessed by a priest, and a patch of my grandmother’s crocheted work. I had this idea that these objects, in addition to the over 80 letters my grandfather wrote to my grandmother that no one had opened or read for 100 years, would transport me to another time. I found the letters in an old wicker basket. No one had opened them. They were written on the USS Mississippi in 1919 where my grandfather was serving in WW1. When I opened these letters, I could smell his cologne- a faint lime smell, cigarettes and desire. It blew my mind. Perhaps these objects could speak through me, and I would tell their stories and secrets.
You have a number of dog poems in your book. In one you get inside the canine experience-- the elemental and instinctual aspects. I know Billy Collins wrote a number of fine dog poems. There is always an interest in how our pets view the world. What is your take on dogs?
I like what you said about the instinctual and elemental- I think that is what I was attempting. Dog is God spelled backwards. And it is true that all animals lead us to God and the divine. They know things we are too blind to see in daylight. They provide us with comfort and peace. They have not forgotten their kill instincts. They accept death as a natural phenomenon, and they know that it is not the end.
In your poem " I am not afraid of Storms" you write of a chance encounter with a young man on a train. I love taking trains because of the limbo between destinations—you are sort of outside time. There is a sort of ephemeral, transitory magic.....
When I was a kid in college, I would take the Detroit train to Kalamazoo and then later Chicago. I got to know the backs of people’s houses, the farms of corn and beans. The train window provides a quiet view of the loss of the people who have lived there for decades. Taking the train for me was cheap at the time, but it also was a place to write and read. Taking the train is cinematic. It fills your head with the lives of those forgotten. You are outside of time and perimeter. Anything can happen on a train.
You are a member of the New England Poetry Club—and have been nominated for a Motton Prize. What does the club mean to you?
I am a proud member of the New England Poetry Club. It was founded in 1915, and as far as I know it is the oldest poetry club in America. I am honored to have been nominated for a Motton Prize. To me, the club is about community. They sponsor prizes, events and support for poets in New England. It is rare, and it is a labor of love for those poets who work hard to protect the heritage of poetry. People can sometimes take these institutions for granted, but they are fragile, especially in these times when the arts are generally under attack. NEPC is a refuge for poets and a community of love.
Suddenly I Become the Dog
Hooves melt in the dust dirt
mouth slack open.
I have nothing to hide.
Chipmunk dead in the grass.
Did I do that?
His eyes weirdly peaceful
tail still fluffy
small smile.
I don’t remember it.
When time stopped, I was
chastised for recklessness
made decisions no longer justified.
In my youth I was a star shatterer.
Now I scatter black flies
left to my own devices
sheltered and surrounded by flowers
forgotten or tamed.
What rubric against the sky,
Orion, lost love,
has caused this shift to silence?
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