An Interview with Kimberly Ann Priest

Simone de Beauvoir once said that the “body is the instrument of our hold on the world.” But what happens when that body, particularly the female body, has its hold taken away, when it is violated, made into a spectacle, and used to continue the male-dominated status quo? One only needs to look at the current laws making their way across various state governments to see how legislative bodies are trying to control women’s bodies, and to realize that the possibility of Roe V. Wade being overturned is very real. 

But more immediate is realizing that the violence women are subjected to is real, and that when this violence has been experienced firsthand, it creates an ongoing awareness of the daily structures in place meant to subjugate women. Even when enough time has passed, the past is never truly forgotten, and the daily struggle to wrestle with previous physical and emotional abuse can take its toll. In Kimberly Ann Priest’s newest poetry collection, Slaughter the One Bird (Sundress Publications 2021), we witness a speaker burdened with sexual and emotional abuse and her attempt to make sense not only of how this came to be, but why. Still, despite the pain and uncertainty rendered on the page, Priest’s collection never loses hope, and although faith (in humanity, God, the longing for good in the world) is tested, it does not wane enough to not keep pushing forward, to not wake up every day and give life the purpose it deserves. 

Kimberly is the author of the chapbooks The Optimist Shelters in Place (forthcoming from Harbor Editions in 2022), Parrot Flower (Glass Poetry Press, 2021), Still Life (PANK 2020), and White Goat Black Sheep (FLP, 2018). Her work has appeared in various journals, including North Dakota Quarterly, Salamander, Borderlands, and The Berkeley Poetry Review. 

I recently had the privilege of speaking with Kimberly about Slaughter the One Bird, the power of literature and art, and how one can confront what might otherwise be left unsaid. 

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ER: In your interview with The Sundress Blog, you explain quite eloquently the meaning behind the title of your book, Slaughter the One Bird (Sundress Publications 2021). You also explain how “embracing faith is not equal to opening [yourself] to people “of faith,”” and that if there isn’t love in what others offer, it should be skipped altogether. What role do you see literature (the reading and writing of it) playing in guiding people toward love? How has it guided you? 

KAP: My impulse here is to question whether or not love even exists. That sounds so bleak, but it hasn’t been a major part of my life experience and I often feel that American culture has lost sight of what it really means to really love. My own life has been marked by a good deal of harassment, threats, and physical violation; and sadly, I don’t think my experiences are altogether too uncommon. Instances of “love” have usually come from strangers in practical ways such as an hour of kind conversation, a small gift (a veteran I met in Maine just gave me some music CDs), a bed to sleep on when I was homeless, a free meal, a coffee, a note in the mail, and so many people reaching out to me with phone calls or texts to encourage me over this past year. Now I’m glad you asked this because I’m thinking of all the little things others have done over the years; things that would bear more significance had I not spent a good part of my adult life exhaustively trying to separate myself from the families and communities that were harmful to me--of which I’m still in the process.

To me, love is practical. I distrust anyone who says they love (generally) or says they love me and puts no action with that statement. I don’t know what role literature plays in this. It’s supposed to give us insight into the human condition and, ideally, this insight would elicit greater compassion for the situation of our frailty. Whether it accomplishes this seems to depend on the reader. After I received my first copies of Slaughter, I sat with it and began to read my own story--or, one telling of my story--and it made my stomach sick. I was holding a damaged life, my own, in my hands with an awareness of the many other painful realities connected to this story that a single book cannot carry. I know that I felt compassion for the woman in the book and, of course, more grief.

Perhaps this is the reason for my current bleakness. Slaughter isn’t over for me when I consider the culture and communities that supported the abuses with ideologies and silence. Currently, America exists in a state of indecision concerning what sort of behavior it wants to condone and support. In this state of limbo, I do wonder about the realness of love; it can feel so far away and rare. I know that writing this book was an act of love for myself. My memory was damaged after divorce and I needed to recover a lost history. I did that. I suppose reading these histories--myself and others--is an opportunity for love. But only an opportunity. Stories can help us see, remove barriers such as labels and stereotypes, prescription and unrealistic expectations, but they can’t move us to act. That’s on us, and I think love manifests in a multitude of small tangible expressions (like the ones I mentioned above) that equal a practice, a way of life. I would like to believe that, by reading literature, individuals and communities are sensitized to the needs of others around them to the point that they make love a practice.

ER: What works have you read that have sensitized you to the needs of others? And what works were you reading while composing Slaughter? 

KAP: Growing up, I read a lot of literature on the Holocaust both in and out of school. In fact, I was well-educated on the horrors of the Holocaust, from movies and books to a visit to Dachau in Germany at age 15. During that same trip, I had spent a couple of weeks serving orphans in Bucharest, Romania. This was less than ten years after Nicolae Ceausescu had been ousted from power and the marks of his regime still lived in the bullet scars on city walls and the orphanages overflowing with children due to laws that prohibited contraception and abortion. Women were heavily monitored under this regime and children, born into extreme poverty, were left to fend for themselves on the streets. They lived in sewers and sniffed glue to curtail hunger. 

At Dachau, the Holocaust stories I had been exploring since about age 8, took on new meaning. Some of the other members of my group couldn’t enter the grounds, but I walked every building I could. I recall singed walls and barrenness. And anger that generations could be cut off so brutally for no sensible reason--as if there is ever a sensible reason for murder. I think all of these historical stories, both read and visited, impacted my awareness of human frailty in the face of evil. Later in life I would read Elie Weisel and Abraham Joshua Heschel, each Holocaust survivors. Their experiences and philosophies constantly teach me about myself in a world of others. 

In my youth, I also read stories of The Great Depression. The Grapes of Wrath persists as one of my very favorite books to date. James Baldwin’s Go Tell it on the Mountain impacted my understanding of what it meant to be black and gay in America while I was completing my undergrad. Hussien Khaladi’s The Kite Runner had a profound effect on my psyche concerning the way that we, often unconsciously, seek redemption from cruelties both enacted by and against us or others as well as a greater awareness of Afghani culture.

To be honest, I suppose I seldom read for pleasure; I only read to know. Reading poetry by Jehanne Dubrow and Sharon Olds always takes me to a knowing place. A deep sigh. A recognition that love and hate coexist in this world, even in one human soul, and finding our way to any source of light--to love--is often a struggle of moving, blindly but consciously, through darkness. If we can’t look honestly at ourselves and our own need for hope, compassion, and even favor in this world, it’s hard to stare at the charred walls of Dachau and feel angry enough to do something about it, or sober enough to comprehend our limitations, or broken enough to realize there are so many things we can only grieve because they cannot be changed.

While composing Slaughter, I read a lot of poetry by women or other individuals who had survived sexual assault. Afaa Weaver and Pascale Petit stand out. These writers shared some of my own story of harm and sensitized me to my own emotions and needs. To be honest, I feel as though, excavating this history with the intent to remember and name distressing bodily experiences, has worked me from a state of not-knowing to knowing what it is I should be angry, sober, and broken about. It’s like walking among bullet scars and burnt walls that I hadn’t noticed for their scars and burns while the abuse was happening, and realizing that someone died here. Now, when I think about what I’ve read by other poets who have been sexually abused (Cathy Eisenhower’s Distance Decay, written from the perspective of a therapist working with abuse victims, being particularly disturbing), I feel the full import of the injustices done against each of these writers; the more painful truth to process being that, we--I and these other writers-- might be some of the lucky ones. Naturally, all of this, both the reading and the writing, has forced me to walk in some very dark places, often alone; and the movement through, toward some sort of light, informs me that others with my experiences are doing the same. The kindest thing I can do is not add to their feelings of hopelessness or despair while, if I am able, offering to carry some of the weight of their pain on their journey through the dark places. 

I think the books I have read on my own journey have carried my pain with me and given me authority and language to name it. I don’t know if Slaughter does some of this work, but I hope so.

ER: I undoubtedly think that it does the work, on multiple levels. I see this in what I found to be the more symbolic poems. In “Midwestern Doe Story,” we see a driver running over a doe, and in “Turtle Doves,” readers are offered a glimpse of a “caged pair of turtledoves.” I wouldn’t necessarily call them interludes, but they provide a slight change in language and imagery from the rest of the poems. How did these pieces come to be and what role do you see them playing the collection?

KAP: There has been an eerie silence and gaslighting at the center of my own abuse history. I think this is common in abuse situations and to come out and name what exists in the fog, the voyeuring and grooming, is uncomfortable and dangerous. People are always part of the abuse story as witnesses to behaviors that seem odd but are, for their personal comfort, better left uninvestigated. As Abraham Joshua Heschel says, “Some are guilty, but all are responsible.” The abuser is always teaching you to contribute to the silence of the many. In retrospect, it’s interesting to me--or maybe distressing--to realize how eager communities are to pretend the obvious isn’t happening. Ignorance is often preferred. No one wants to admit they could be fooled by abusive behavior or take risks to intervene. And few want to do the difficult work of raising the standard for how we treat those who are disadvantaged in a society.

Both of the poems you mention involve creatures that have been maimed or caged by human carelessness and will. The creatures have no voice in their situation and condition. The word sacrifice is used in “Turtle Doves” just as the doe is slaughtered by a vehicle in “Midwestern Doe Story.” For the marriage in the book to continue, for the culture to continue as is, sacrifices have to be made. There is an arrangement, an understanding. Lesser bodies are easily trained and consumed. There are many places in the book that speak to these truths. These two poems came about like all of my others in my process of writing through the history represented in Slaughter. I just wrote them. They were placed in the book as scenes that bespoke the voyeuring and grooming. I placed them at intervals where I wanted to slow down the narrative and enact metaphor concerning larger universal contexts for abuse.

ER: Writing about abuse can evoke a variety of feelings for readers, and oftentimes when I ask writers whether or not they had an audience in mind when they wrote their book, they will say that the audience was secondary to the subjects they were trying to convey on the page. Was this the same for you? 

KAP: Good question. I had to think about this for a bit. It may have been a little different for me. For one, all of my writing resulted from my need to work through trauma, to recover memory and even, honestly, to understand my present situation. I was creating framework for my experiences and circumstances: context and naming. I can’t say that I was trying to “convey” anything as much as I was writing toward knowledge with attention to craft. Each poem was written to speak something to a reader as well. I was telling a story and I wrote as though I knew someone would read it. I wanted the end product to be art, not just confession. Writing my narrative was enlightening and cathartic, but I draw satisfaction and confidence from creating a beautiful product that can be appreciated by others.

ER: Really great answer. Having that end product be art instead of mere confession can guide writers through their journey of creating a book. 

Now, as you were writing this book, I hope it’s safe to assume that the biblical, or religious (if you will), references were deliberate, from the title of the collection to the imagery in the poems themselves (I’m thinking of “This is Not My First Flat Earth Poem,” which has lines from Psalm 33). How did you see these references/imagery playing out in your book? 

KAP: Before I dive into answering this, I wish to confess that writing a Flat Earth poem was incredibly fun and playful on one level! This poem just happened so organically and I drew the use of Psalm 33 directly from its reference at the top of the outside panels for the painting “The Garden of Earthly Delights,” the painting referenced in the poem. Additionally, I saw a Flat Earth truck in Denton, TX while I was homeless and couch surfing. I remember being shocked and curious about it. When writing this poem, all of these things came together in my imagination as I was thinking about the way the body can be so easily forced to submit (pinned down) to another larger body’s control.

Biblical language or metaphors show up in nearly all of my work in one way or another. It makes appearances. Sometimes ancient Biblical perspectives/rituals inform the whole arc of a poem or book’s narrative, as with Slaughter the One Bird. This book draws heavily from the Levitical law and really posits the drama in the realm of human, rather than divine, judgment. Abusive ideologies and individuals are so arbitrary in their decisions about who is deserving of love, or what behaviors merit punishment. These decisions aren’t made according to a system that protects human health and well-being (despite what they profess), but meted out according to the abuser’s need to protect and preserve ego. 

The Matthew Henry commentary on Leviticus positioned at the beginning of the book alludes to the system that governs love and punishment in the text. It espouses a Christian expression of male domination in households. Thus, throughout the book, religious phrases and biblical references are meant to evoke a dark interpretation of Christian ideologies. I would never presume to say that this dark interpretation is the only interpretation of the Biblical text or Christian worldview, but has been an oft accepted and wielded interpretation globally, as well as in my particular marital situation. 

So, yes, all references were intentional and very real to my personal abuse context. I can’t tell you how many times I was educated by individuals in my culture, including my ex-husband, on the values of female submission. I thought it was all hogwash and made the constant mistake of saying so in ways that revealed I was actually more educated about ancient near eastern texts and human behavior than my male counterparts, which only gained me more censure. These days, I’m grateful to be out of those circles and never have to think about those arguments again. However, sadly, they are ongoing in both overt and covert ways in our world and in smaller religious circles, to the detriment and captivity of many--all of us in one way or another.

I weave these images and references throughout the book to evoke the constraint and damage of arbitrary, abusive religious systems and the way they hold our minds and bodies to rigid standards we cannot meet in a world where we are constantly having to navigate heartache, disruption, assault, and everyday stressors. 

ER: What are you currently working on? And how does it relate/interact to the poems in Slaughter? 

KAP: Oh dear, I’m working on so many things. ‘Tis my life. I’ve been writing poems that delve into homelessness and alienation from family, including my kids, due to abuse and the effects of trauma. There’s a book or two here. It extends beyond my story in Slaughter to encompass the way others in my life reacted to trauma post-divorce. There are considerations of generational female trauma, politics, and art as a way to cope with fear and memory loss. I also follow the story of O-Six, an alpha female first generation wolf born into Yellowstone after rewilding of wolves in the 90s. There are poems about trying to survive solo as a strong woman in a male dominated world, as well as poems seeking to build bridges with some of the men in my life, including my father. These poems really come from trying to accept that abuse changed me and can’t cleanly break from abuse, nor can I predict the way others will respond to the damage. For the most part, I’m still rather saddened by all of it….

I’ve also got a new chapbook coming out with Harbor Review Press addressing loneliness during the early days of the pandemic. When the pandemic hit, I was living in an apartment feeling extremely isolated only an hour away from the person who had harmed me. I already deal with a lot of symptoms of PTSD in Michigan as well as a real fear of the family and community that supported the abuse. (I hope this fades as I am able to a safer place. I can’t tell yet.) That level of isolation reminded me of the years I had barely left my house because leaving and socializing came with threats from my spouse, and consequences. My loneliness and fear barrelled down on me at the onset of the pandemic, so I wrote through it, finishing a book in a couple of months. The book isn’t explicitly related to Slaughter, but it does build on the post-divorce narrative that begins in Slaughter. There’s a lot of anxiety that comes with separation, even if it’s separation from an abuser or abusive system. We all need attachment, to know someone is there through the best and the worst of our lives. I don’t think we talk about this enough, and COVID has certainly exasperated feelings of isolation for many.

Finally, I’ve tentatively finished a really long, complex, hybrid book on the complications of PTSD in romantic relationships. The book is so much bigger than this though. The speaker, deemed “storyteller,” in the narrative interacts with the natural world, ancient poetry, narrative medicine, and spirituality in unique ways to save her own life from succumbing to the death narrative that haunts her due to abuse. The book builds on themes of violence against women, domestic captivity, and the longterm effects of trauma introduced in Slaughter. I don’t want to say too much about it because I’m not sure it’s successful! It’s so unique; I’m waiting for feedback from some readers. 

All of these projects are nearing completion. This year I’m going to tackle more memoir and nonfiction writing. Very slowly, I’ll be working on a project that names some deeper truths about socialization, environment, trauma, and poetic practice. 

ER: I often ask the question about sharing any advice with writers, and authors, understandably, will respectfully decline to answer, saying that they are not really in a position to. But I believe your story is important and how you were able to convey it on the page is a testament to language’s ability to begin the healing process. What advice do you have for writer’s who may have experienced the same trauma? 

KAP: Gosh, I would start by saying something like don’t see yourself as someone who needs to be healed. Loved, accepted, fought for, protected, honored, etc… yes, these. But not healed. At least in my way of thinking, “healing” evokes pressure. It’s a program. A simple romp through most of the self-help and spirituality literature out there will demonstrate that we are all trying to heal ourselves. Trying to be more or better than what we are. In The Secret Life of Water, a book I read this summer, Masura Emoto says, “The number of people in the world searching for inner healing is vast … Perhaps the reason is because the environment we have created for ourselves has evolved too fast, and now we find ourselves in a world of pain and fatigue of our own creation.” The implication is that environments exhaust us to the point where we begin to look inward, deeply, and try to fix what is wrong with us; try to understand why we can’t adapt to overly-demanding environmental pressures.

From my own experience, this is exactly what abuse narratives perpetuate: a preoccupation with teaching the victim to fix themselves. When a victim walks away from an abusive system (and it’s never a clean break), the healing narrative suddenly becomes the next program, thrust upon them by social circles. At least, this was my experience. No one offered to help me navigate the everyday pressures of getting free from an abusive partner, but lots of people wanted to educate me on healing. In fact, often, when I would ask for help concerning practical needs, I would be introduced to the hearer’s thoughts on how I could heal and never need anything anymore. It’s gaslighting even when well-meaning. 

I’m trying to reverse this narrative in my own head. If I were the one needing healing, I would have been the abusive partner in my relationship who chose to harm others rather than addressing my personal pain. I wasn’t. I was the one doing the work to understand the dynamics of my situation, trying to survive, trying to protect my kids, seeking help, and responding to my situation as best I could with honesty and kindness. Many days, I was just trying to keep my sanity. To come out of a situation like that and have people tell me I needed to do something more was heartbreaking. What I needed was love, acceptance, protection, honor, and people fighting for me to survive. I needed “Wow, you did so well getting through all of that. Can I mow your lawn to help you out?”

So, my advice is not for victims of abuse; it’s for everyone else. Don’t be a critic or a savior. Just mow a lawn, wash dishes, offer to give a single mom a parenting break, listen to stories, hug often, make a meal, fix a car, buy a coffee, and ask yourself what you can learn from an individual who has been wizened by their victimization. If harm comes from our environments and individuals in our social circles, “healing” probably starts there too. 

For writers in particular, I would say that none of us artists are going to change the world. That’s a weighty undertaking. I write what I do because it is what I need to write. It has helped me unravel a narrative that had become confused in my mind. When I start to feel like my story needs to be told so that it will effect change in the world, I become overwhelmed. Suddenly my life is being sacrificed to a cause again (my abuser had a cause and my life was sacrificed to it). But when I write for me alone, it’s internally balancing. I bear witness to myself and sigh and breathe and pour a glass of wine and thank heaven. I have unburdened my soul. If this work happens to benefit others and change the world, then bless the world. It should, because audiences should be doing the work of listening. But that’s not my work concerning my own story. My work is done when I finish that poem and feel that deep, restorative sigh.