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| me & Jeannine (2012) |
Hello and Happy Poetry Friday! Be sure to visit Jane at Raincity Librarian for Roundup.Today I'm delighted to welcome Jeannine Atkins to Live Your Poem! Jeannine and I go wayyyy back. We've shared time together in Maine, Georgia, Massachusetts, and most recently, NCTE-Philadelphia.
The first book of hers I absolutely fell in love with was Borrowed Names: Poems About Laura Ingalls Wilder, Madam C.J. Walker, Marie Curie, and Their Daughters (Henry Holt, 2010).I've learned so much from Jeannine, and not just about writing! She is wise and kind and funny, and she never forgets that poetry is meant to be beautiful. (Also: Jeannine taught be you can add joy to a hotel room with FLOWERS. Who cares if they're in a paper cup?!) Every time I read one of her books, I fill my inspiration journal with beautiful words and ideas that carry me.
So, when Jeannine told me her verse memoir was coming, I asked her to send me an ARC as soon as possible! And y'all, it's powerful.Knocking on Windows by Jeannine Atkins (Atheneum, Aug. 5, 2025)
Publisher's description:
Acclaimed author Jeannine Atkins revisits her past in this “brave, searing” (Publishers Weekly, starred review) memoir-in-verse about memory, healing, and finding her voice as a writer, perfect for fans of Amber Smith and Speak.
Night darkens the window to mirror.
I’m back in my old bedroom.
Six weeks after the start of her freshman year of college, Jeannine Atkins finds herself back in her childhood bedroom after an unimaginable trauma. Now home in Massachusetts, she’s struggling to reclaim her life and her voice. Seeking comfort in the words of women, she turns to the lives and stories of Sylvia Plath, Maya Angelou, and Emily Dickinson. Through raw and poignant letter-poems addressed to these literary giants, Jeannine finds that the process of writing and reflecting has become not only a means of survival but the catalyst for a burgeoning writing career.
Inspired and ready to move forward, she enrolls in her state university, where she feeds her growing passion for writing in fiction seminars. But she finds that she’s unable to escape the pervasive misogyny of her classmates and professors, who challenge her to assert her own voice against a backdrop of disbelief and minimalization. This time, though, Jeannine is not willing to go down without a fight.
A searingly honest memoir told through gorgeous verse, Knocking on Windows stands as a beacon of hope and a celebration of the enduring spirit of survivors of sexual assault—and of writers.
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To give you a taste, here are a few passages I recorded in my journal:
True, death would change little.
Still, something bristles inside me, waking, alive.
It isn't murder or gallantry I want,
but the gift that there are more ways to end my story.
--
But snowstorms keep me from classes.
And a yellow caution light that seems
to blink through my belly and breath.
--
History won't stay silent and still.
History twists out of hiding from unraveling bindings,
forgotten letters, delicate spills across margins,
a change in light making visible what was there all along.
--
Anger is a half-hidden safety pin.
--
Memory isn't enough. Art wants transformation.
--
Like ghosts, poems don't have true ends.
Beautiful, yes?!
And now please welcome Jeannine, as she responds to a few prompts as they relate to her experience writing Knocking on Windows.
FRESH:
Jeannine Atkins: I was inspired by memoirs in verse by Nikki Grimes, Jacqueline Woodson, Margarita Engle, Laurie Halse Anderson, Ann Turner, and Marilyn Nelson. These women used lyrical language and narrative in fresh ways to address, often at a slant, past experiences of love or violence. The intimate format made me feel safe as I faced the past, which allowed me to find new versions of old stories. I discovered connections that broke chronology, the way metaphors can, and basked in light that fell between remembered scenes.
DELICIOUS:
Jeannine Atkins: When I tell people that this memoir pays homage to poets and writers who shaped me, some assume the book might be a long love letter. But homage can be complicated. While I loved Sylvia Plath wizardly ways with language, I was uncomfortable with some of her metaphors. Her commitment to poetry made her a role model, but I’ve cringed at descriptions of the boys and men she dated and the poet she married. Reading of suicide can make us feel forsaken, but I tried to reach for understanding. In every life, there’s so much we’ll never know.
DIFFICULT:
Jeannine Atkins: It wasn’t easy to look back at recovery from violence, but returning to the eighteen-year-old who I’d long thought of as troubled, I found more respect for her than shame. We’re all asked to carry pain, and I hope readers can see that while time and places vary, deep down where it matters, none of us are alone.
ANYTHING ELSE:
Jeannine Atkins: In Knocking on Windows I wrote letter-poems to Emily Dickinson, Sylvia Plath, and Maya Angelou, poets who meant a lot to me at eighteen and continue to widen my world with each fresh reading. I hope the poems speak as letters to readers, too, inviting us all to read and write together. As I said in the memoir, “To write is to find the courage to claim that we matter." We can do this.
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Now, for this week's ArtSpeak: PICASSO. In honor of Jeannine's visit, I selected a piece that features a window...and is about writing.
Viewpoint:
Writing
in Winter
outside,
a winter
lullaby
inside,
a storm
dazzles
the page
awake
- Irene Latham
