Jessica L. Walsh : part one

Jessica L. Walsh is the author of Book of Gods and Grudges (2022) as well as two other collections. Her work has appeared in journals including Lunch Ticket, RHINO, Tinderbox, Glass: A Poetry Journal, and many more. Originally from rural Michigan, she now resides outside of Chicago and teaches at a community college. Find more at jessicalwalsh.com

Photo credit: Candy Bryant

How did you first engage with poetry?

My grandmother used to recite poems to me. She was a hard woman to get to know, very guarded and even cold at times. But I have a memory of her pushing me in a swing and joyfully reciting Robert Louis Stevenson. Later, she would send me books, like The Collected Poetry of Langston Hughes, and in the upper corner of the page, she would pencil a faint check-mark to indicate that poem was one she especially wanted to emphasize. I look at those books now, decades after her death, and I try to figure out what she wanted me to know, what she wanted to be able to say.