“Mother’s Silver Teapot”
Collaborators’ Q&A: Artist Meghan Keane: I see my friends in this poem; war and forced displacement are their reality and returning home might not be safe in their lifetimes (may that not be the case; and, it is currently uncertain). This poem’s description of a truth that millions of people continue to endure resonated as urgently important. Poet Matthew Thorburn: Meghan’s refraction helps me to see the mother—a character who’s at the center of the book-length sequence that includes this poem, but whom I had never really been able to picture before.
Poet Matthew Thorburn’s latest book is The Grace of Distance (LSU Press, 2019), and he’s the author of six previous collections of poems. He lives with his wife and son in New Jersey. Artist Meghan Keane is a painter and printmaker. She is the founding director of meghan.keane.studio. She lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.