Rob Arnold’s project for the 2020 Jack Straw Writers Program is a poetic memoir that tackles the complex legacies of familial trauma. In his conversation with curator Anastacia-Renée, they discuss cross-genre writing, the distance and connection created by language, and matching linguistic precision with visual expansion. “I started thinking about these things in a much more in-depth way. Every single noun became like a hyperlink, like I could dive in deep into the history. So, I was able to kind of turn my poems from these tiny, little jewels into much more developed pieces.”

Rob’s poems have appeared in Ploughshares, Gettysburg Review, Poetry Northwest, Hyphen, RED INK, Yes Poetry, and The Ocean State Review, among others. His work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and has received support from the Somerville Arts Council and Artist Trust. He is a Program Director and Curator of Events at Hugo House.

SoundPages was produced by Jack Straw Cultural Center as part of the Jack Straw Writers Program. All of the writers heard in this series are published in the Jack Straw Writers Anthology, and featured online at www.jackstraw.org. Music by SassyBlack, produced as part of the Jack Straw Artist Support Program.