Pig At The Baptism

allison norwood is a midwestern poet and preschool teacher interested in myth, belonging, and the natural world. Her work has appeared in Frontier Poetry and Arcana Poetry Press. She feels most herself when exploring the forest, and often prefers plants to people.

Maria: Allison! The title of your poem is so wonderfully enticing. What drew you to center the poem around a pig at a baptism? I’m curious what made that image feel big enough to hold the poem’s questions about belonging and redemption.

Allison: Thank you Maria! Honestly, the pig barged into the poem the way she does the baptism! Once she showed up, I realized she was the character brave enough to embody what I wanted to talk about. I’m obsessed with fables, myths and fairy tales. And in those stories, animals always know more than humans. They see gods before we do, and are often able to walk into magic without asking permission. The pig is associated with humor and shame, so she opened the door for some of the questions I wanted to bring up.

Maria: That last moment, where the sky seems to open for the speaker, lands with such tenderness. Did you imagine that as a real moment of grace, or more like a possibility the speaker wants to believe in?

Allison: I think it’s more the second. The clouds parting could easily be read as coincidence: just weather doing what weather does. But to the speaker, it becomes a sign. A glitch in the sky. And like anyone who understands what it feels like to be uninvited or overlooked in a space, when the pig is held in a beam of light, I think they are able to momentarily see themselves. I think in doing that they are wishing or hoping for the possibility of grace, even amidst shame or ruin.

Maria: What is the best craft advice you’ve ever received? And what would you offer to other poets just starting out?

Allison: So I had selective mutism as a kid, which gave me a weird relationship with language and a tendency to feel misunderstood. I’ve always been obsessed with words, but instead of speaking them, for the longest time I only stored them. I think now that I’m finally sharing my work, I have a tendency to overwrite, or over-explain at times, because I’m trying to get so much out at once—almost like I’m trying to play catch-up for all of the years of silence. The best craft advice I’ve received is that it’s often more impactful to let one image do the heavy lifting, instead of saturating it with extra words. Let the strongest image breathe, and use silence as a tool. To poets just starting out: figure out the poem you’re afraid to write. For me, it’s the one where I don’t hide behind metaphor or myth. I haven’t written it yet, but I think that’s a great New Year’s resolution!

Maria: How does poetry find its way into your daily life?

Allison: Poetry shows up for me as a practice in noticing. I’m someone who’s always watching—listening for rhythm in conversation, paying attention to how bodies move through space, how shame or tenderness settles into a room. I feel like my writing practice is cyclical. Half the time I’m writing or editing, half the time I’m collecting: a line overheard at the grocery store, an image or moment that feels slightly charged, a question or memory I can’t let go of. When I do sit down to write, it’s usually because something has been following me long enough to demand language. Poetry becomes a place, for me, where all the quiet attention finally finds somewhere to (hopefully) land.

Maria: Lastly, we often speak of what poetry is. I’m curious what you think poetry isn’t.

Allison: This one really had me thinking, and I don’t know that I have a good answer except that for me, I don’t think poetry is an answer. It’s not about arriving at certainty. It’s about sitting with the discomfort of not knowing. If anything, poetry is where I go to let things remain unresolved, where contradictions are allowed to coexist, and unanswered questions don’t just bloom, but sometimes flourish. I’m occasionally suspicious of poems that rush to explain themselves. I’m much more interested in poems that make space for doubt, silence, and complexity of feeling.

Maria: Thank you so much for giving us the honour of publishing your work. Tell us where we can find you, say hi, and read more of your work!

Allison: Thank you so much for the care you’ve shown this poem—it really means a lot! My Instagram is @springisbrutal. I’m so excited to be included among so many of my favorite poets who have been published by Gather! I’m also thrilled to have been recently published by Frontier Poetry and Arcana Poetry Press.

Submit on Submittable.

Lots of love,

Maria Giesbrecht

EIC and Founder of Gather

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