‍We sat down with the winners of Fatal Flaw’s very first Poetry Contest to talk with them about their winning poems, their writing process, and where they draw inspiration. You can read "Mary Toft, Give Me Strength" and "Family Recipe" in Vol 12: Arrival, available now!

‍

FIRST PLACE: “MARY TOFT, GIVE ME STRENGTH” BY K. MOBLEY

“in the legend the woman gave birth to rabbits : and made even the king believe the possibility : that the half-formed pieces of lung & abdomen & arms : were from her own womb : in the legend she knew what all women understand : how a body can be equal parts giving and brutal : how there is always an animal waiting on its haunches”

Read the full poem here.

‍

Fatal Flaw: What drew you to the legend of Mary Toft, and how did you see it connecting to contemporary experiences of bodily autonomy?

K. Mobley: I’m an amateur folklorist, so I draw a lot of inspiration from myth, folktales/folk practices and other stories about real people doing seemingly mystical things. I was listening to a podcast that narrated Mary’s story and was just immediately hooked by the absurdity of it all. Like how many “professional” doctors did it take to disprove a woman giving birth to rabbits?? I just could not stop laughing. But when I really sat with it, I realized my own experiences had left me with a similar feeling of “you don’t really know what you’re dealing with here, do you?” 

FF: The poem explores the tension between agency and external control over the body. How did your own reflections or experiences shape this theme?

KM: I had rarely felt like who I was internally and what I looked like externally were in alignment, so I tended to seek outside “help” in making sense of that misalignment. And that ranged from romantic partners, to familial expectation, to purposefully being around people that were unhealthy influences, just to try to find some form of control, even if it wasn’t mine. And that’s kind of summed up in the line “I only know my body / by the shape of other hands.” My body, or physical appearance and manner, wasn’t really my own.

FF: How does the idea of “animality” function in the poem? What does it symbolize for you?

KM: I think, without realizing, I’ve used animals or some type of creaturial metaphor in my poetry when I try to describe gender or the inherent disposition for masculinity/femininity. Actually, the original title of my book was “Gender is a Beast.” Something that is guided by just raw instinct, something that feels as innate as a hatched sea turtle knowing to crawl to the sea or a bird knowing how to build nests. So in this poem, I am making an effort to understand my “animal” through Mary’s own experiences of being exposed, prodded, and misunderstood by a bunch of people who had no idea what the hell they were doing. 

FF: The imagery of hands, animals, and medical tools is vivid and unsettling. How did you decide on these particular symbols?

KM: The body’s capability for beauty as well as brutality has always been fascinating to me. There’s often a physicality to my poems, either in their relation to a body’s role or its wordless language. I think it’s important for me to highlight its subtle storytelling: the difference between a closed fist and an open palm, the line between pleasure and pain, how it can be both a site for worship and a place of incredible shame. 

As for why I included medical tools, I wanted those to represent a detachment from person to body, both literally and metaphorically. When you use a tool, it’s on something inanimate and unfeeling, you don’t have to consider any emotional implications for the object. And that’s how I was treated by doctors, like something to be worked on, rather than something that was real and breathing and desperate for answers and sympathy.

FF: How do you see the legend of Mary Toft resonating with modern conversations about gendered experiences, particularly in medical spaces?

KM: Ever since I was a teenager, I had always felt like something was “wrong” with the way my body reacted at its more intimate areas, and I just struggled with a lot of pain. My mom finally made me go to the gyno and it was a male doctor that just went about my exam in such a detached, procedural way that made me feel so exposed and humiliated. I was essentially told that I was just nervous about tampons and needed to relax, and my issues would go away. So when they didn’t, I was left feeling broken and unfixable. 

It wasn’t until I got older and recognized the root of my brain-body disconnect that I was able to start working towards a pain-free experience. And I found a wonderful PT Jen, who talked with me about pelvic floor dysfunction and how to treat it and just gave a name to my pain and told me that I wasn’t broken. I think Mary, for me, represents the frustrating truth for a lot of people with bodies like mine, which is that sometimes the men who are supposed to be experts on this stuff don’t really have the right answers or know how to approach queer, non-cis experiences.   

FF: Has writing this poem influenced how you think about your own body or the concept of "knowing" oneself?

KM: Every time I write a poem, I’m pulling myself into a state of self-examination. I genuinely don’t think I’ve ever written something that didn’t have a little bit of myself in the lines. Since gender can be so confusing to address day-to-day, my poetry is the place that I really just try to dig into my natural inclinations and innate feelings on it, sort of like guided meditation. Like, “oh, this metaphor just feels right” and being both intentional and on auto-pilot about word placement on the page. 

I sort of just let the animal of my body take over and guide the words. That was definitely the case for this poem. And so, through letting my instincts write the poem, I noticed a lot of references to other people’s expectations of my body and how detached that made me feel. So it was a cool revelation to recognize, and definitely not something that I had previously paid much mind to.

‍FF: Best book you read in 2024?

KM: Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman.

FF: Last time you cried?

KM: At least a couple of days ago (I’m a Cancer).

FF: Morning beverage of choice?

KM: If I ever say something other than coffee, I’ve been replaced by a clone.

FF: Go-to karaoke song?

KM: “Careless Whisper.” Duh.

FF: Biggest pet peeve?

KM: Men who unironically enjoy Bukowski.

FF: Ghosts. Real or nah?

KM: Probably? Not that I do much of my own research, since I can’t even watch Scooby Doo at night without getting freaked out a little. 

‍

SECOND PLACE: “FAMILY RECIPE” BY SUSAN PAGE DEUTSCH

Read the full poem here.

‍

Fatal Flaw: The imagery in the poem—hot knives, fragrant roots, hissing steam—feels both vivid and symbolic. How did you approach crafting these sensory details?

Susan Page Deutsch: I appreciate how generously this question has been framed, but I’ll be honest: the sensory details were less a matter of craft and more a matter of quite literally making soup. The process of cooking felt like it was a poem already, and all I had to do was document it; the symbolism was already there.

FF: This poem has a really unique structure. How did you decide on that structure and how did that affect your writing process?

SPD: Similarly, the structure wasn’t so much a conscious decision as something that arose naturally during the writing process — it mirrors the actual moment in time the poem is describing, where a repetitive act like chopping vegetables allows your mind to wander and think about these other, broader ideas. But the simple fact of sharing a space with another person means there’s also this mundane, practical conversation going on out loud in a way that sometimes mirrors, sometimes juxtaposes with the internal meandering. The poem flips this on its head slightly by centering more abstract thoughts and placing the concrete in the margins, in italics — an aside. There’s also something of the Greek chorus to it, I think.

FF: How does mythology enhance the exploration of generational relationships in the poem?

SPD: My maternal grandmother is a Jungian analyst, so I grew up steeped in mythology and folklore and archetypal symbolism from a young age. It’s something my grandmother and I have always deeply connected over; mythology for me is something that has always felt transmitted, inherited. Exploring and understanding the world through that lens is not something I remember being taught — it’s almost inextricable from the generational relationships in my life, and to my writing. 

On the other hand, I do have several concrete memories of my grandmother teaching my mother and I how to make soup, what order to add the ingredients, what seasonings go well together. In the poem there’s the recipe that is taught, and the search that doesn’t need to be taught or even talked about, but both are facets of the same inheritance. Recipes, knowledge, love, trauma — all passed down from mother to daughter, sometimes intentionally and sometimes not.

FF: The poem intertwines mythology with personal memory. Why did you choose Persephone as a lens for exploring these themes?

SPD: Like many people before me, I’ve always been drawn to the Persephone story. There are so many incredible interpretations and retellings and explorations out there, and most of them focus on the love story between Persephone and Hades. There’s another love story in the myth, though, one that’s equally if not more complex — the relationship between Demeter and Persephone, which hasn’t been talked about nearly as much. 

There are so many different angles to explore: is Persephone the naive daughter, kidnapped from the safety of her mother’s loving embrace? Is she the rebellious daughter forging her own path? Is Demeter nurturing or possessive or jealous or all of the above? What kind of love is it that causes a harvest goddess to bring harsh winter on the entire world, what kind of grief? The winter could be purely desolate, selfless loss or a more bitter, possessive rage — or, most likely, something in between.

My own family, like all families, holds complex relationships: my grandmother and mother have a different relationship than my mother and I, which is different to the relationship I have with my grandmother. There are so many complexities to any mother-daughter relationship, and what better way to explore that than through this myth of a mother and daughter whose relationship literally creates the seasons?

FF: What inspired you to frame generational connection and love through the act of cooking?

‍SPD: Cooking is so tied up in culture, history, inheritance, and traditionally is passed through the feminine line, so it seemed a natural framework for examining those lineages and relationships. Something that sprang up organically as I was writing the poem was also that connection to the Persephone story with the ingredients in the soup: potatoes, onions, garlic, carrots, herbs — all would be Demeter’s domain, as an agriculture/harvest goddess. And of course, this is a winter soup, the season of grief and that almost unfathomable love.

‍FF: Best book you read in 2024?

SPD: Ooh, so many good ones… for prose I’d have to go with Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer. For poetry, Feast by Ina Cariño. Their writing is so so incredible, go check them out — especially if you’re into poetry about food and cooking and family and generational trauma.

FF: Last time you cried?

SPD: Watching Wicked. I have zero regrets.

FF: Morning beverage of choice?

I’ve recently moved to the UK and have fully embraced starting the day off with a cuppa.

FF: Ghosts. Real or nah?

SPD: Oh, absolutely. What poem isn’t haunted?