& The Midnight Heart Blog
Zoë Brigley Thompson is the author of two books of poetry: Conquest (Bloodaxe, 2012); and The Secret (Bloodaxe, 2007). She is also the editor of the academic volume Feminism, Literature, and Rape Narratives (with Sorcha Gunne), and the poetry anthology Bluebeard's Wives (with Julie Boden). She also writes nonfiction, and is currently co-editing a guide to contemporary poetry in the UK and Ireland.
“Uncompromisingly inventive” --- Bernard O’ Donoghue for Poetry London. “Her writing calls to mind the Canadian poet Anne Carson, in its juxtaposition of knowledge and the passions” --- W.N. Herbert and Lavinia Greenlaw for the Poetry Book Society. “Lapidary, erudite, ambitious, and stunningly original”--- Pascale Petit.
Back in 2004, I started a blog called The Midnight Heart via Warwick Blogs, which the Times Higher Education Supplement listed as one to watch. This new site is a continuation of what I started there.
I have always loved this quotation from Sylvia Plath’s Johnny Panic and The Bible of Dreams: “So many people are shut up tight inside themselves like boxes, yet they would open up, unfolding quite wonderfully, if only you were interested in them." I love this box image. I’m sure that the image was very personal [...]
On the summer solstice two years ago, there was a big, beautiful supermoon. It was 2016 – pre-election, pre-Trump. That night, I woke up for no obvious reason, and downstairs I noticed a strange light coming through the glass doors. The moon was up, honey colored, clouds passing in long fingers across its face. I [...]
I always know when I have been stretching myself too thin with work and writing because I become Jane Craig in broadcast news. You know the scene: she finishes her phone conversation, sits quietly on the bed, and then cries long, loudly, noisily before going on with her day as usual. Who doesn't wish for [...]
I was thinking recently about parenting and writing again. This week has been a dizzy whirl of kids' activities at the end of semester. Yesterday, I went into Kindergarten, and did some activities with the kids for the end of year party. We were studying Hawaii, its culture, myths, and incredible geology. The children were [...]
[This talk was given on March 3rd 2018 at a talk for a Heforshe event at the Ohio State University.] I want to start by quoting a short poem by the British author Jane Commane. The poem is called ‘Landmarks’ and it describes the threat of violence in our everyday spaces, asks how or why [...]
I know I am not the first person to admire Kate Chopin's The Awakening. The book focuses on Edna Pontellier, a married woman, who through her friendship with a younger man discovers her gradually awakening sexuality and desire. Published in 1899, the book was ahead of its time, and Chopin's book was declared immoral by her [...]
'Swan' is out now in Australian Book Review. It's a poem that I worked on with the poet Joanna Klink at Kenyon College over the summer. I am very grateful to her for getting me to think about getting back to the sensuous kind of writing with which I began. 'Swan' is a poem about [...]
'Sonnet for the Hole in the Glass is out today at Rattle, and it is the Editor's Choice for the Rattle Ekphrastic Challenge. https://www.rattle.com/sonnet-for-the-hole-in-the-glass-by-zoe-brigley-thompson/
I saw the film Loving Vincent last week, and it was just incredible. Here is the blurb: “I saw 50 or 60 painters painting, and someone told me: ‘Oh it’s you! I’ve been painting you for six months.’ Probably a lot of them knew my face better than I,” jokes Robert Gulaczyk, who plays Vincent van Gogh [...]
I have been working for a long time on the current manuscript, and some of these poems have been published in the last few months. Other are forthcoming, for example in Orion, The Manhattan Review, Poetry Wales, Abridged, and the anthology The Edge of Necessary: Welsh Innovative Poetry. 'Round Trip,' a poem about Brexit and Britain's precarious relationship with [...]
