Escaping with Penelope Olivia Wilder
Interview by Taylor Corkill & Ines Le Cannellier
This week, our editors sat down with the talented poet and playwright, Penelope Olivia Wilder, to discuss how they started writing poetry, the way their poetry and drama intersect, and explore their piece “The Final Girl Doesn’t Die at the End.”
How did you begin writing poetry?
I’m not going to lie, I’m absolutely someone who chooses to run away from their problems instead of dealing with confrontation. And, as a young kid, who loved to read and held it above other activities like sleeping or eating, there’s no safer space than words on a page that allow you to indulge in a form of escapism. As I have gotten older, I’ve turned into someone who has always needed to have an outlet for the constant stream of commentary that seems to run through my mind, and I have been driven for years by this intense desire to take all these fragmented thoughts I have and try to flesh them out into something that is more tangible than a feeling or an idea or an image. Poetry is a medium where I’m able to both do that for my own personal and selfish gain, while giving back and making connections with a community of people who are able to find themselves and relate to words on a page because, at the end of the day, that’s what we’re doing. So now I’m merely continuing the cycle of escapism, not only for me but for others as well.
When writing poetry, do you first see the words of the poem or the shape they might take? How do you approach writing a poem rather than a play?
For me, I always see the words first in a sort of abstract sense and put them all together to sort of start sculpting the shape. It’s actually quite interesting to navigate the different shapes that these forms take when you compare them to each other. I have a self-imposed ruleset where I usually don’t work on both at the same time because I feel like they each engage completely separate parts of my brain. Poetry forces me to really look more at word choice and syntax and how exactly I want the words to hit when they’re in short, neat little packages whereas when it comes to playwriting it becomes a longer and more sustained version where the shape and words can (but not always) matter less when I’m thinking more about how the words can translate to physical action.
The phrase “final girl” is often coined with horror slasher films—did you take inspiration from this classic trope for “anatomy of a woman’s wrath” from “The Final Girl Doesn’t Die at the End?”
Absolutely! I am a huge horror fan and have thought often about how people who look like me or that I can relate to are treated in a genre that is notorious for the mistreatment of minorities, and I wanted to take back some power. For that specific poem, I really wanted to focus on how women are depicted in these classic horror flicks and evoke the imagery that comes with being a “Final Girl.” So for me, this was trying to bring out some themes of hunger, desperation, and survival that are inherent to the experience of living as a woman or a woman-aligned person.
As well as being a poet you are an emerging playwright. Do you find you are attracted to moving your poetry around on the page because of how scripts are written?
I actually find that the opposite is true! This probably varies on a case-by-case basis for writers who engage in more than one genre or medium, but for me, I actually prefer to have my poems be in a state of stasis since there are often a lot more moving parts in scripts. I said before that I tend to compartmentalize when it comes to the different forms of writing I do, so it’s not often that there’s much crossover in how I approach them. However, there have been times where I’m inspired to incorporate poetry into my scripts and it’s those instances where I can be drawn to move things around a bit more, especially if I know someone is going to speak it aloud.
What do you hope people take from your writing? Poetry, plays, or otherwise?
I consider myself a storyteller above any other sort of title, so my hope is that no matter what type of writing it may be, people can see the story I’m trying to tell and keep it alive. A lot of my writing focuses on my own experiences as a marginalized person and the goal is to not only tell my story, even if it is in bits and pieces over time but also add it to a litany of countless others and do justice to my elders and my ancestors before me. It’s important to me to give my respects and pay my dues, as well as live as authentically as possible and I hope I inspire others to do the same.
Are you working on anything exciting that you would like to share? Where can our readers find more of your work?
I’m currently in production for my first full-length play, titled Fields of Clover, that will make its debut in early March! It’s part of my work as a senior in college and serves as a culmination of all my education at school that I’m very excited to see through. In addition to that, I am making my debut in theatre publication with a short piece in collaboration with the University of Greenwich in London for their Playwriting Anthology. As for where to find more of my work, I am working on putting together a website, but for now my poetry is available on Instagram @yungpoetstudies.
Penelope Olivia Wilder is an emerging playwright, poet, and artist currently pursuing their BA degree in Playwriting and English Literature from Columbia College Chicago. Their work in playwriting has been shown in numerous events on the campus of Columbia, such as Playwrights Aloud and The Playwriting New-Stew. Their work in poetry has been shown in publications such as The Chillfilltr Review (“the blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice”), Words and Whispers (“my beckoning to you, mine”), and Nebo Magazine (“to whom it may concern”). They reside in Chicago, Illinois.