Bianca Spriggs and Katerina Stoykova-Klemer were both interviewed about the process of editing Circe’s Lament: Anthology of Wild Women Poetry. Below are Bianca’s responses.

What did you go into the selection and editing hoping to find? Were there any surprises?

I won’t speak for Katerina, but I didn’t go in with any expectations other than hoping to learn more about the wild women in people’s lives. I knew that we were going to get a spectrum of work depending on a person’s interpretation of what makes a woman wild. So, we saw everything from sort of the more quiet storm women to full out pedal-to-the-metal types and everything in-between. I think I was most surprised by how fast the word spread about the anthology and the enthusiasm when people submitted. It didn’t feel like a business-as-usual submission for many people—poets were saying in their emails that whether their work was selected or not, they were excited about the premise of such an anthology and wanted to get a copy. I also was surprised, although I shouldn’t have been probably, by how many Persephone poems were submitted.

How is Circe’s Lament working against the traditional narrative depictions of women in the mainstream? Another way to phrases this would be: how do you define wildness after putting together this collection?

I think that the anthology does its best to showcase how complex and multifaceted women are—there are no stock characters here—no one is any one thing. Or if there is someone more iconic included, she is flipped and her narrative is told from a different angle. I don’t know that my definition of wildness has changed significantly after putting together the collection—perhaps it has been reaffirmed with what I already knew—something along the lines of that sage bumper-sticker adage, ‘well-behaved women rarely make history.’

How did the title come about? Were there other contenders?

The first half of the title was something that had been running laps in my head for about a year before we decided to collaborate on the anthology. I’m fascinated by Circe and women like her who manage to find ways to retain their power (literally and figuratively) despite the fact they have been marginalized and exiled or that they have experienced great loss. I also feel like when a woman is pressed to the point of lamentation, this is usually an indicator that a significant choice is about to be made. So women on the cusp of transformation are always very interesting to me as subject matter. The second half of the title was fine-tuned by Katerina in attempt to make it more clear the contents of the anthology. It actually took quite some dialogue to get the whole thing just right!

What did you discover in the process of coediting this book?

I am very lucky—Katerina is a gracious and careful co-editor. We work really, really well together and I know now that I could literally have not pulled this off without her. We enjoyed working to bring this anthology into the world so much, we’re doing it again next year with an anthology of poetry revolving around the undead for Apex Publications!

What do you feel the male poets brought to the collection?

I think we also got very lucky with the male poets we chose to include—their poems were very intuitive—men, of course, feel very differently about women than we often feel about ourselves, so it would take a poet’s imagination to tap into that space.

Do you have a favorite poem or section? Which page should we turn to first?

Difficult to pick a favorite! But, my heart fractures every time I read Nancy Diedrichs’ piece, “The Girl and the End of the World.” I also really love Barbara Crooker’s “Snow White Turns Sixty” and Nickole Brown’s “Fuck.” And Kate Hadfield’s “on my knees,” is a show-stopper. Kate, coincidentally, is the dancer featured in the cover photo. So double trouble.