Juliette van der Molen : part five

What are you working on? 

I’m currently working on a few projects. I’m excited to tell the story of Dorothy Good in my upcoming collection: Confess. Dorothy was a 4 year old child arrested for witchcraft during the Salem Witch Trials in the late 1600’s along with her mother. It’s a challenge to tell a life story through poetry. I’m exploring how the past connects with contemporary life and ideas. There are so many things we can learn from history. Unfortunately, we don’t always do that because we don’t recognize the historical roots of problems that plague humanity.

Juliette van der Molen : part four

How do you know when a poem is finished? 

Maybe it’s never finished. Does it have to be finished? My poems are dynamic. They live and breathe and the words on the page are guidelines for how they are feeling in the moment. I don’t even feel a poem is finished upon publication. Publication is just a snapshot of the poem in one crystallized moment. Often after publication, I will perform a poem and it still morphs and changes slightly based on how it needs to come out or what the energy feels like in that moment. It’s always a close version of itself but just like people, they continue to evolve.

Juliette van der Molen : part three

How does a poem begin? 

Poems begin in several ways for me. It can be something as slight as a smell carried on the breeze or a flash of color from the corner of my eye. It can be a word that jumps out at me. Lately, they have been inspired by people and stories. I like to listen to stories about people, about their histories of triumph and struggle. I like to understand context of the times people lived in and how the social and political climate affected them. I start to see the world through their eyes in an almost transcendental way. I ask them to tell me more of their story. Then I listen and write.

Juliette van der Molen : part two

What do you feel poetry can accomplish that other forms can’t? 

Poetry gives the reader space to be mindful. I often see poets as gardeners scattering seeds into the fertile soil of the mind. In some minds these seeds take root and grow, but they are always affected by the climate of the reader’s mind and the sum total of their personal experiences. For me, prose has always been a sort of ready made atmosphere that I slip into when I read. It can challenge me as a reader, but not in the same way that poetry does. Poetry requires me to consider the devices of the poet and to visualize in a way that fills in the spaces between line breaks. Poetry offers the reader a freedom to personalize the reading experience.

Juliette van der Molen : part one

Juliette van der Molen is a transatlantic writer and poet currently living in the Greater NYC area. She is an intersectional feminist and member of the LGBTQIA community. She is the poetry editor for Mookychick Magazine and a seasoned spoken word performer. Her books include: Death Library: The Exquisite Corpse Collection and Mother, May I?. Her work has also appeared in Burning House Press, Kissing Dynamite, Memoir Mixtapes, Collective Unrest and several other publications. Her next book, Anatomy of A Dress, will publish in December 2019 through The Hedgehog Poetry Press.

Has your consideration of poetry changed since you began? 

I always saw poetry as inaccessible. I was often confused by it or didn’t understand it. But, the more I write poetry the more in tune I feel with the language of poetry. Crafting my own poems has helped me dive deeper into metaphor and find a balance between something more narrative and lyrical. Contemporary poets are the bards of our times, seeking to open up perspectives to our current political and social climate in unique ways. I work hard to bring my poetry to the eyes of non-poets in the hope that they will see what I see and learn to enjoy poetry.