Interview
Fighting the Patriarchy, Myths, and Poetry
Interview with Lynne Sargent, author of A Refuge of Tales
I think that part of the joy of poetry is that it can reflect the full complexity of our emotions. Sometimes it’s a rallying call, and sometimes it’s a soothing balm, and sometimes it’s just an “I’m tired today.”
In Refuge of Tales (Renaissance Press, 2020), Lynne Sargent explores the idea of creating shelter against patriarchal society through their collection of speculative poems. T.D. Walker spoke with Sargent about their book, which has been nominated for the SFPA 2021 Elgin Awards.
Interstellar Flight Press: Your collection, A Refuge of Tales, reads as one of defiance, specifically women enduring in spite of their treatment by a patriarchal society. Their voices call out even as they are faced with death.
Was this theme one you chose before writing the poems for the book, or did it emerge organically from the subjects you wanted to explore? How do you want your readers to view this theme in light of your poems?
Lynne Sargent: This was definitely a theme I started with. The original working title for the manuscript was the title of the first section — “A Myth of Women.” As I kept going I realized though that wasn’t enough though. I think that the patriarchy is intimately wrapped in a lot of other violence that happens such as capitalistic violence against the unhoused, violence against queer folks, colonialism and Western wars-by-proxy, among other things. The work grew from there into the general way our myths and cultural stories are used implicitly as tools of domination and need to be subverted and cast off. I think what are traditionally considered to be feminine ethics of care are a great way to go about that subversion.
IFP: One of the poems that fascinated me most as a reader is “Third,” which I read as a reference to Third Wave Feminism. Among the poems of defiance, this one shifts readers to a place of hope, given the poem’s ending: “This wave is not for drowning, / This wave will bear me home.”
Do you think that this belief in a possible better “home” is the end result of defiance we see in the speakers of other poems?
LS: Thank you for noticing this! Yes, for me home is something we can find when we work at defying violence. I also think though it’s something we can arrive at when we listen to stories, especially to those whose stories have not yet been told, and stories from those who have fought the good fight before us, even if those stories might need interrogation too. Feminism has come in waves because we keep finding gaps, and I think that’s always going to be true. Home for me is something we have to be continually working towards if it’s going to be a welcoming home for all those who need it.
IFP: Another poem that struck me as particularly poignant is “Vast, Uncountable Things.” Again, there’s a sense of getting someplace better, but in this case, the end goal is thwarted by the fact that “[. . . ] our planet blew up, / both of them- / the Old Country, and the New[.]”
Even if the speaker and her shipmates are never able to find a new home planet, still they move forward. Given the larger context of the book, do you think we, in the present time, have lost sight of a possible more equitable and feminist society?
LS: This is something I go back and forth on. I think that part of the joy of poetry is that it can reflect the full complexity of our emotions. Sometimes it’s a rallying call, and sometimes it’s a soothing balm, and sometimes it’s just an “I’m tired today.” This poem was definitely written on a day when I was tired and I wanted to write something that accepted that hope looks different for different people at different times. I don’t think I’ve lost hope, and I don’t think we should lose hope, But some days hope looks different than on other days and that’s okay. I think we’ve all been going through a difficult period lately and it’s okay if the hope we have is just getting through the day and looking forward to bed at the end of it. We can have hope that more ambitious hopes will return, and I do have that hope.
IFP: Are there speculative poetry collections that explore the same themes as yours that you’d like to recommend to readers of Interstellar Flight Magazine?
LS: Am I allowed to recommend one of your books? I really, deeply enjoyed Twelve by Andrea Blythe earlier last year. It excavates those secret lives that women lead by necessity and is also interested in subverting a classic fairy tale. Another one is The Animal Bridegroom by Sandra Kasturi. It’s a collection I’ve loved for years and was definitely a big influence when I was engaged in the writing process, though I have some complicated feelings about that now given more recent news about her publishing imprint and would encourage folks to do their own research on the author if they’re interested in picking it up.
About the Author
Lynne Sargent is a writer, aerialist, and philosophy Ph.D candidate currently studying at the University of Waterloo. They are the assistant poetry editor at Utopia Science Fiction magazine, and their work has been nominated for Rhysling and Aurora Awards. Their work has appeared in venues such as Augur Magazine, Strange Horizons, and Daily Science Fiction. Their first collection, A Refuge of Tales is out now from Renaissance Press. To find out more, reach out to them here or on Twitter, or for a complete bibliography click here.
Interstellar Flight Magazine publishes essays on what’s new in the world of speculative genres. In the words of Ursula K. Le Guin, we need “writers who can see alternatives to how we live now, can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies to other ways of being, and even imagine real grounds for hope.” We use affiliate links and Patreon to pay our writers. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
