Sara Moore Wagner is the author of three prize winning full length books of poetry: Lady Wing Shot (Blue Lynx Prize, 2023), Swan Wife (Cider Press Review Editors Prize, 2022), and Hillbilly Madonna (Driftwood Press Manuscript Prize, 2022), and has published two chapbooks, Tumbling After (Red Bird Chapbooks, 2022) and Hooked Through (Five Oaks Press, 2017). She is also a 2022 Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award recipient, a 2021 National Poetry Series Finalist, and the recipient of a 2019 Sustainable Arts Foundation award. Her poetry has appeared in many journals. In 2023, she became the managing poetry editor of Driftwood Press.
What past event do you often reflect upon, and how did that event change you?
My own childhood is blurry to me, but I have always been interested in escaping into the past, especially history and folklore. As a child, I went through stages of hyper fixation on things like Ancient Greece, the Tudor queens, and Anastasia Romanov. My most recent book, Lady Wing Shot, explores the life of Annie Oakley. Each historical event I reflect on changes my perspective of my own journey and mistakes, and the world and our place in it, which is why preserving close interrogation of history in schools is more important now than ever.
How does your work add to the quality of your life?
When I first became a mother, I sacrificed my work for my child, a story that I know so many women relate to. After a few years as a faceless mother, I went to grad school for literature, thinking I would teach. A mentor read a poem of mine I wrote for a pedagogy class and said, “What are you doing? You are a poet.” This uprooted my life, because I knew she was right. My writing and creative work make me a whole person. I live in a way to show my children that you should serve yourself, too.
Tell us a story you would like to share with the world.
Recently, a close friend and I went on a ghost tour of a historical village. As my friend, a preschool teacher, sat in a chair, the infrared camera detected a small form crawling into her lap. I watched the warmth of my friend spread over this little one. She wanted to comfort the spirit. When I sat in the chair, nothing crawled on me. I sat rigid. I was too afraid, despite claiming to believe in nothing. I still don’t know what I believe, but I wonder about my limited understanding of fear and belief and what that leaves out.
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