Swan Wife
(By Sara Moore Wagner)
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| Author | Sara Moore Wagner |
“Sara Moore Wagner’s Swan Wife toggles between the world of fairy tales and the world we live in, both of which are gruesome and tender, beautiful and dangerous. Wagner masterfully employs classic tropes from the Brothers Grimm, Joseph Campbell, and the Bible to explore what is to be a woman here and now, and to shapeshift into a wife and mother, her skin a ‘fine new hide/ to carry home to the children, to place by the fire.’ It’s no wonder that a book so much about transformation would be transformative.”
—Maggie Smith, author of Goldenrod
“Framed by the story of the swan wife, who is transformed from wild animal to wife through marriage, Sara Wagner’s luminous new collection reimagines the domestic. In poems that range from darkly funny personae like ‘Housewife as Rumpelstiltskin’ to the tender intimacy of the postpartum, this book rejects the subsuming of identity that so often accompanies marriage and motherhood. Wagner’s capacious imagination ranges from fairy tales, Anne Sexton, and the pressure to create a ‘pinterest wedding,’ to historical figures including Anastasia Romanov and Anne Askew, and more. Together, these poems remake a vision of the domestic life that’s imbued with wildness and joy. ”
—Nancy Reddy, author of Pocket Universe
“By delving into myths—of marriage, of motherhood, of the fairytales fed to us and which we feed in turn to our children—whether it’s wife as Circe or swan or an August morning, or husband as kingfisher or a serpent in the garden, Swan Wife moves past fable into the difficult, often more surreal truths of daily domestic life. Lyric and sensual, feminist and vulnerable, Sara Moore Wagner makes the hero’s journey her own, reveling in the transformations possible through deeper self-knowledge and the ensuing ability to express your desires: ‘I’ll want him to say / my name forever, as it was before him…. // un-fathered, / my only name.’”
—Jessica Jacobs, author of Pelvis with Distance
Sara Moore Wagner is the author of the poetry manuscript Hillbilly Madonna (2022 Driftwood Press Manuscript prize winner), a 2021 National Poetry Series Finalist, and the recipient of a 2019 Sustainable Arts Foundation award. Her poetry has appeared in many journals and anthologies including Sixth Finch, Waxwing, Nimrod, Beloit Poetry Journal, and The Cincinnati Review, among others. She lives in West Chester Ohio with her husband Jon, and children Cohen, Daisy, and Vivienne.”
