Rachel Tzvia Back is the author of the new book The Dark-Robed Mother: A Memoir. Her other books include What Use is Poetry, the Poet Is Asking. She is also a translator and a professor of literature.
Q: What inspired you to write The Dark-Robed Mother?
A: Over the years, I’ve read many depression memoirs, benefitting from them in profound ways. Often they were true lifesavers.
However, at one point, I started feeling that the particular aspects of my life with depression were underrepresented, if represented at all. I was searching for a memoir that might discuss the challenges of living with high-functioning depression – a confusing form of the illness.
Also, I was looking for, and not finding, narratives that developed an extensive view of mothering with depression. In the end, I wrote the book I needed to read.
Q: How was the book’s title chosen, and what does it signify for you?
A: The phrase “the dark-robed mother” is one of the epithets given to the goddess Demeter in the ancient Hymn to Demeter. Throughout the writing process, my book had a different title, far less successful.
When I shared with Suzanna Tannimen, the exceptional editor-in-chief of Wesleyan University Press, that I was unhappy with my own chosen title and was looking for something else, she offered this as a possibility.
The moment she suggested it, I fell in love with it. The dark-robed mothers in the book are multiple: Demeter, my mother, myself.
Q: What are some of the most common perceptions and misconceptions about the myth of Persephone and Demeter?
A: A common misconception, certainly encouraged by the text itself, is that this tale is not also the story of Persephone. It’s extraordinary to me how she is obscured, not our focus – though it is she who is carried into the Underworld.
Another element of the Hymn that does not get enough attention is the extreme powerlessness of Demeter, the mother. She, goddess of the harvest, can do little but grieve. It’s terrible to consider.
In the raging violence of our world today, I’ve been thinking about this even more – the powerlessness of mothers to save our children from all forms of darkness and suffering.
Q: What impact did it have on you to write this book, and what do you hope readers take away from it?
A: I was engaged in writing this book for almost three years. Taking the time to immerse myself in the Hymn, in depression studies, and in reflecting deeply on my own life with depression was a gift I gave to myself.
The darkness of depression can be, and so often is, a place of muteness; working to finding words for the darkness, for the experience of it, is challenging, often daunting but, finally, profoundly rewarding.
Part of the writing process was interviewing my adult children, to learn from them their experiences and perspectives on being raised by a mother with depression. It was very important to me to have their voices in the book.
I feel abundantly grateful to them for trusting me in this way, and grateful they spoke as honestly as they did. The impact of this element has been for me greater understanding.
My hopes for what readers may take away from this memoir are many.
I hope that a reader experiencing the terribly isolating darkness of depression may find some of herself in my book and hence feel less lonely.
I’m hoping also that the complexities of raising children through decades of depression may become a more significant and developed part of the conversation on depression, as a result of this book.
As I have such faith in what poems may teach us, I’m hoping also this book guides mental health practitioners to seek out certain poems to help them better understand the experience of depression.
Extraordinary as this is to acknowledge, even well into the 21st century, depression is still, in certain circles, a taboo subject. I want my memoir to be of use in this realm too.
I’m fervently hoping that readers who have a story of depression, their own or of a family member, that they have kept a secret, may feel in reading my book a release from the need to hide.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I’m working on a collection of New & Selected Poems.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: The hybridity of this book is, for me, an important element. Poetry and prose are intertwined, as are the mythic and historical – all together seeking to create a unique tapestry. I’m hoping the book will be of use in the world; it’s a book that wants to offer companionship and comfort, where needed.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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