Molly Peacock’s experience of widowhood wasn’t what she expected. This is the catalyst for creating her collection of poems, The Widow’s Crayon Box (W.W. Norton & Company.) As an internationally beloved poet, biographer, and creativity activist, Molly is no stranger to the creative process or the act of releasing a book into the world. Still, to some extent, releasing a new book always carries some unexpected twists and turns.
In this Power Q & A, we asked Molly what she anticipates readers might find most surprising about her breathtaking new book.
The Widow’s Crayon Box by Molly Peacock (W.W. Norton & Company, 2024).
Q: We know the scope of reader response to books can be difficult to predict but what do you anticipate readers finding most surprising about your collection?
A: I think they'll find The Widow's Crayon Box to be surprisingly alive and attuned to the full palette of emotions connected to caregiving and the loss of a beloved husband. There's orange fierceness and pink softness. There's purple murderousness (yes, you hate the person you're taking care of at times, however much you love them) and red sex (yes, there's cancer sex!). Loss can be a wonderworld of memory and emotion--plus 9ll, drug trials, a feeling that I'd never be calm again in my life. I contain all those things in sonnet sequences and release them in free verse, too. Loss attaches to objects, like an apple I couldn't throw out for a year. Loss attaches to gorgeous green and blue landscapes—lakes, ponds, and pools everywhere. After all, The Widow's Crayon Box is not just the basic 8 colors—it's the entire 152. For people who expect widowhood to be mauve, all this may come as a surprise. (It certainly surprised me.)
More about The Widow’s Crayon Box:
After her husband’s death, Molly Peacock realized she was not living the received idea of a widow’s mauve existence but instead was experiencing life with all 152 colours of the crayon box. The result is a collection of gorgeous poems, which are joyful, furious, mournful, bewildered, sexy, devastated, whimsical, and above all, moving. They illuminate both the life as a caregiver and the crystalline emotions one can experience after the death of a cherished partner. With her characteristic virtuosity, her fearless willingness to confront even the most difficult emotions, and always with buoyancy and zest, Molly charts widowhood in the 21st century.
Read an excerpt from The Widow’s Crayon Box here.
The miraculous Molly Peacock!
More about Molly Peacock:
Molly is the author of eight volumes of poetry, including The Widow’s Crayon Box, The Analyst: Poems and Cornucopia: New & Selected Poems, all from W.W. Norton, she recently wrote a book about a half-century friendship, A Friend Sails in on a Poem. As a poetry activist, Peacock was the co-founder of Poetry in Motion on New York’s subways and buses, the founder of The Best Canadian Poetry series, and the creator of The Secret Poetry Room at Binghamton University.