I think trauma gets a reductive treatment. We tend to think only violence or molestation or total abandonment qualify as "childhood trauma," but there are so many ruptures and disturbances in childhood that imprint themselves on us. Attachment begets trauma, in that broader sense, and so if we've ever been dependent on anyone, I think there is an Imago blueprint in us somewhere.
Melissa FebosThe frustration of being marginalized often gets misdirected at the most visible members of one's own community, because they are more accessible than the real agents of marginalization.
Melissa FebosI never think about anything in my brain. I think in very small repetitive circles inside my own brain. That's why I'm a writer. It's the only way I get any sort of conclusion or understanding about anything.
Melissa FebosBecause of the irresistible nature of our own Imagos, I think the replication of it in music is a siren song - we love those tormented songs, and we listen to them over and over and over the way that we smash ourselves into our lovers, or the same kind of lover, over and over. That drive is tireless, until it is resolved. And we can "enjoy" it safely through music, which is a simulacrum we have power over.
Melissa FebosThe craft work becomes a mediator between me and my secrets, between me and the listener.
Melissa FebosSometimes I see my students, especially the ones with a gift for the lyrical, reaching far outside the realm of their own experience for language and images. I understand this impulse. We think, in the beginning, that striking exotic words together will create something entirely new. That we must be worldly in our vocabulary. We idolize the styles of other writers and don't trust or perhaps yet know our own.
Melissa Febos