By Maddy Grieco
Christine Barkley (she/her) is an Irish-American writer, the Associate Poetry Editor of The Dodge, and a reader for TriQuarterly. Her poems and essays can be found in The Journal, Yale Review, Massachusetts Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Manhattan Review, Poet Lore, Portland Review, and Missouri Review, among others. She is a 2025 Oregon Literary Fellow, and has received support from Literary Arts.
Barkley’s poems “Wilded” and “Lacunae” appear in West Branch 108, Spring/Summer 2025 are reproduced here.
West Branch: You consider the theme of individuality in your poem “Wilded.” For example, the poem beginning with “I wanted to remain unread / but he probed both palms together,” exploring the tension between the self and exterior forces. Later on, the speaker declares “I won’t call that / prophecy,” thus asserting her own goals and desires. What inspired you to craft a poem around this idea?
Christine Barkley: “Wilded” began as a conversation with other poems I had written, partially as a condemnation of common themes to which I found myself returning without any resolution. The tension between who I am and how I am perceived/received is a pretty ubiquitous experience of neurodivergence, especially late-identified—it’s interesting that this was one of the last poems that I wrote before learning I was neurodivergent, as it engages directly with so many aspects of related trauma. Only recently has this kind of unambiguous assertion of self become possible for me outside of creative writing.
WB: Would you consider “Wilded” to be an act of (or a poem of) resistance?
CB: The authority here (and looming in much of my writing) is the sense of inevitable, omnipresent harm that comes with chronic illness, neurodivergence, and trauma. That harm can be institutional or individual, from within or without. Reconciling such inevitability with one’s agency/ability, and the limits thereof—so, resisting habits of flee and freeze and fawn, instead leaning into fight when possible—is an ongoing struggle. There’s a fragile balance with “when possible,” too.
WB: How does this poem relate to your other work? Are your poems always centered around a certain “theme?”
CB: I tend to write poems on repeating themes, and for months before “Wilded” I had been writing poems in which I identified with prey animals. When I learned about the biological changes undergone by domestic pigs upon release into the wild, I found the idea of a body responding to potential danger by so quickly turning feral, becoming more resilient, to be in sharp contrast with my long-standing preoccupation with flight/freeze/fawn dynamics. (I conspicuously had only written about “fight” responses in the most wishful, wistful way.) I love a sharp contrast, almost as much as I love consistent patterns.
WB: The last lines of “Wilded” read: “By then I’ll forgive even / blood on the breeze, and no one / will be able to classify me.” Ending on a confident tone, the speaker seems to assert herself, and taking a strong stance against the unidentified power structure involved. What can readers take away from this line? Did you want to end on a positive note?
CB: I wanted to end confidently because I think that, to a degree, it is possible to manifest what one believes—corresponding with the poem’s themes of reading signs, predicting futures. I think the other takeaway here is that though I may freely label myself (as neurodivergent, as chronically ill) for the sake of clarity, I don’t want to be placed into corresponding boxes (or cages). Classifications can be useful for understanding one’s personal context, but I’m wary of their external potential to confine and alienate—wary of the weaponization of words, of word choice. I would rather not be foreseen.
Clarice Lispector said it best, of course: “I deal in raw materials. I’m after whatever is lurking beyond thought. No use trying to pin me down; I simply slip away and won’t allow it, no label will stick.”
WB: How do you see “Lacunae” as being in conversation with “Wilded?”
CB: Most of what I write is an ongoing conversation that I’m having with myself. These two poems fall into the same subset of that exchange, which is essentially an admonishment against untenable patterns. Both also address the oppressive nature of distorted and outdated beliefs, though the interrogation of those beliefs in “Lacunae” is turned even more thoroughly inward.
WB: Reading “Lacunae,” I found myself reflecting on the passage of time–how time often slips from our fingertips without us noticing. Knowing that we live in such a fast-paced world, do you see “Lacunae” as responding to our desire for instant gratification? In other words, does “Lacunae” offer us a respite from this constant motion?
CB: That’s an interesting question. For me, it’s less about instant gratification (grasping at the future) than about removing oneself from the past. Either way, of course, the result is missing the present—but the solution to breakneck forward momentum is to slow down, whereas I think that here the necessary correction comes closer to catch-up.
It’s often necessary to return to the source, but the risk in looking back (whether to judge/justify previous decisions, or out of nostalgia) is to become trapped in a loop. A warning against either ruminating over or romanticizing the past, then; some kind of tenuous equilibrium must be reached. Maybe acknowledgement of that friction is the only respite. Likely that is why I write this way, on repeat.
WB: You write about “an exercise / in excision,” or a desire to detach from our surroundings in “Lacunae.” How does this theme intersect with your own interests? What do you think are the benefits of solitude, if any?
CB: I’ve found a lot of utility in the pruning of habits and values which no longer serve me; solitude can provide context there. External stimuli (whether sensory input, or the emotions and expectations of other people) are often overwhelming, and can result in a disconnection from actual experience. In solitude there’s also a removal of the pressure of verbal explanation. All of these practices of excision (pruning, removal, detachment) can be cathartic, especially when the attachments being severed are traumatic or dysphoric.
WB: The penultimate sentence in “Lacunae” reads: “In memoriam I knew / what was real and what / wished.” With thoughtful consideration, the speaker experiences a catharsis here, receiving new insight about their life (or the way to conduct their life). How can readers find a place for themselves in this moment and perhaps engage in self-reflection? Does the speaker’s journey in this poem reflect your own ideas about what it means to grow and transition into new stages and phases of life?
CB: Yes, any direction the poem might seem to indicate is a note-to-self. If my sticky-note reminders and to-do lists feel relevant to a reader, then the message that they (I) might need reinforced is that we do have core instincts, no matter how battered, and that those instincts are worth seeking.
Memory in the poem is tinged by both nostalgia and melancholia—nevertheless, it contains a real history. That truth is “far from / a realization.” In the same vein, sunsets are sometimes more vibrant when airborne pollutants are high; it is possible to hold simultaneously that such sunsets can be beautiful, and that their origins are grim. In memory those golden-hour associations are complicated or multiplied further, as in an old photo of a sunset made extraordinary by pollution. There again is the friction between ruminating and romanticizing. And there is the necessity of acknowledgement.
The interview has been edited for length and clarity.