Dickinson celebrated this year’s Stellfox Scholar Molly Peacock, who joyfully entered campus to share her story and read poetry. 

The special award was created under The Harold and Ethel L. Stellfox Visiting Scholars and Writers Program, named in honor of the parents of alum Jean Stellfox ‘60, who was inspired to become an English teacher after meeting Robert Frost during his visit to Dickinson in 1959.  Prior to her death in 2003, Stellfox arranged to leave most of her estate to the college to bring renowned contemporary fiction writers to speak. Her estate provided $1.5M to the college with the purpose of continuing her dream of inspiring young writers to pursue their love of literature. 

Having published 9 books of poetry, biographies and a memoir, Molly Peacock’s poems give insight into experiences both extraordinary and daily.

“I make my art out of things that really happen. I make my art out of the details of life,” Peacock said when describing her writing inspiration. At times, she likes to go back to forms of poetry that have been used for centuries, calling this her way of creating “a literary family.” 

Admitting that she hadn’t thought of a formal title for her reading, Peacock settled on “In the attempt is the success” and began with the first poem, a villanelle. The poem centered around the idea of the miracle of life itself, as she repeated the word “miracle” in lines such as “our lives are a little miracle,” and “our is the miracle.” The poem ended with the assertion, “we’re here,” ending in a dramatic silence for the audience to feel its weight. 

She then transitioned to sonnets. “A lot of people think that sonnets are jail,” she said. “14 lines are like 14 bars and you’re behind them. I think of a sonnet as a wonderful kind of protection. I think of a sonnet as a place where you can put lots of hidden emotion. It’s not like the rules of the sonnet are outside the emotion, they’re inside. You make the body of the poem around those rules.” 

The next poem, “Say you love me,” was a poem constructed out of Dante’s poem structure. She described it to be a kind of inferno, drawing from a terrifying childhood interaction with her father. The poem begins with her father asking, “Do you love me?” to a child Peacock, who is begged by her sister to comply to avoid his nasty change in countenance. Peacock describes her child self as being “levelled by defeat into a cardboard image. Untrue, unbending.” She paints the picture of herself and her sister, staying close to one another, in a place where there seemed to be “no world out there,” leaving them completely alone. 

Peacock finished this emotional piece by briefly reflecting on her love for poetry. 

“Poetry functions in so many different ways. It allows experiences to live in the container of those lines. It allows you to participate in the emotion and step back from it. It records all kinds of interactions between people.”

Her love for sonnets prompted her to teach herself how to write them. At the start, she worried her life was “too puny, ordinary, and that people might not be interested. That people might now value it,” she said. 

Because of her love for words, she would end up writing more than 14 lines, creating what she called an “overgrown sonnet.” Her next poem was of this category, titled, “Why I am not a Buddhist.” In this poem, Peacock explored the theme of desire, and how she loved the things she sought, and could not understand the idea of desire as suffering. 

The next portion of her talk centered around her latest book, “The widow’s crayon box,” which centers the life she had with her late husband. Peacock first met her husband when she was 13, describing his inability to comfortably sit at a desk. Describing his tendency to constantly shake his leg under the table, she talked about his experience as a runner. The two dated throughout middle school, high school and the first year of college, where she then broke up with him. 19 years went by before they reconnected, and a conversation was sparked by him after he read her second book of poems. They got married when they were 45. Peacock described the novel as “having a lot of joy and play in it.” 

After her husband died, Peacock “felt him next to her.”

After a while, he became internalized so much that she didn’t feel supported by him. Her loneliness was so extreme that she felt moved by everything, comparing it to the one hundred fifty two colors in a crayon box.  

“There are only two subjects of a lyric poem: love and loss. It’s poetry that we look to for those extreme moments of love and loss in our lives. It’s an honor to have a calling that responds to extreme situations in human lives,” she said. 

When asked how she found her voice in her writing, Peacock suggested that students “write to the next imaginary head on the pillow…you’re lying there, and if somebody else were there next to you. Talk to that person and you won’t have a problem looking for a voice.” 

She was also asked how she decides what to publish, given how all of her poetry draws on life experiences. “I accept the poem’s flaws and get it to a state of finishedness in my opinion.” She asks herself whether the peacefulness resonates with others, and generally tries to send pieces which she thinks will last for a period of time. 

Stellfox’s generosity allows Dickinson to give its current students the opportunity to have formal and informal interactions with renowned writers, just like she did. Perhaps a Dickinsonian will be inspired by an invited speaker, and just like Stellfox wished, they will through the literary ranks, becoming the next Stellfox scholar where it all began.