A Conversation with Mal Grace
Mal Grace is a Chicago-based writer who is unconcerned with genre or form. Born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Mal is not afraid to get sweaty, grimy, or uncomfortable. Further inspired by the wisdom of the natural world, Mal hopes to support collective liberation with their work. She has been featured in print and online with the World Poetry Collective. Find them on Substack @slownnnotion.
Mal’s poem, “IN WOLF’S CLOTHING,’” can be read in Issue no. 1 of Sabr Tooth Tiger Magazine.
t.r. san: Hi Mal! First of all, thank you for your poem. “IN WOLF’S CLOTHING” really does pack a punch—I think the all-caps, in particular, helps ring that powerfully-felt indignance and anger out. It takes up space on the page in a way that resists what womanhood is made to be. Could you walk us through how you came to this stylistic decision while drafting? Or was it something more intuitive?
Mal Grace: Hey t.r.! Thank YOU for taking the time to do this interview with me and the interest you took in my poem! It became very important to me throughout drafting that the final version of “IN WOLF’S CLOTHING” was printed in all-caps—like a scream—partially due to how the poem originated and also as a product of my editing process.
This poem first started as a list of things that make me feel connected to being a woman outside of patriarchal, capitalist, and imperialist definitions. I had this moment of huge frustration towards the bio-essentialism espoused by those systems and filled pages affirming to myself that a version of womanhood which actually weakens these systems, instead of being in service to them, still exists. "IN WOLF'S CLOTHING" eventually became a distilled version of that list.
And so, a large part of how I edit is by recitation. I repeat my works in progress to myself all the time—in my head, under my breath, in the shower, etc. Whenever I get to a line that I'm struggling to recall, then I know I have to rework it. If I can memorize a piece entirely, then I've got something much closer to final. Reciting this poem—this particular version of my list—felt less like memory and more like the words were possessing me. It became like a spell or incantation that I could repeat whenever I needed a boost, drawing power from this secret magical item. The only way I felt I could capture that same urgency, that volume, was for the entire poem to be capitalized. It is very special to have this piece in print and I hope it connects with others in that same way!
t.r.: I love the title, how it contrasts with the idea of societal womanhood as false skin explored throughout the piece. When I was reading, I got this image of a wolf in sheep’s skin, basically, with all implicit gendering of both animals intact, an insistence on this primal quality that one is allowed through subjectification, stripped through objectification. But I’d love to know what the title means to you in more detail, if you don’t mind. I just think it’s such a keen-edged title!
Mal: That means a lot to know the title resonated with you! It actually came to me long after I considered the poem finished, but an inversion of the idiom "wolf in sheep's clothing" felt fitting for several reasons.
We are often propagandized to endorse our own subjugation, and women get a really special flavor of this doled out to us—girlboss feminism, trad-wifery, and the like. Can I say I have a certain distaste for promoting state-ownership of the female reproductive system under the guise of "divine femininity"? This deception is precisely a wolf in sheep's clothing, so donning the metaphorical wolf's clothing is to enact a much more honest, critical, and thereby more effectual, struggle for liberation.
To be in wolf's clothing is to have nothing to hide, no reason to hide, no class nor politic nor ordinance that may determine opportunity based on adherence to bio-essentialism. It is the gall to self-actualize through gender expression in spite of a state that would rather us to believe no such freedom exists. This poem, including the title, is a way for me to call out the lies of the state and assert my capital-T Truth.
I was also reading Woman Who Run With the Wolves at the time of writing the poem, so the title is an additional little nod to the book's inspiration!
t.r.: Those first two lines too, this twisty idea of clothing—in this case, the false skin of womanhood, what you are societally forcibly made to don—“making [you] blush,” exposing instead of covering. As with the title, these inventive little contrasts/ subversions (or inversions, skin turned inside out..?) are everywhere throughout the poem. Do you find yourself turning to contrast/ subversion as a device often, and to what end?
Mal: Absolutely, I feel subversion is core to what I'm even trying to do with my writing. Writing is a very alchemical process for me, and I almost always run into subversion as a step in that process. I love double entendres, or a cheeky homograph, and letting the reader decide which meaning sticks.
The word "womanhood" in the first line is a prime example of that. Plenty of safe-for-work interpretations of that line but if not, well, I'll never be the one to tell you to get your mind out of the gutter. I think the gutter is where my mind thrives, actually.
In the later line “MY FEMININITY WOULD NEVER BOARD A THIEF,” I struggled a lot with landing on the word "board." My intention was meaning to feed or house, as in my femininity will not be corrupted to uphold or be in service of oppressive systems. I was racking my brain and all my reference material for just the right word there and then I realized one could also take "board" to mean to climb on. I found that double meaning very sexy, and it really excavated out another layer of the whole line to mean something like: “I will not sexually or romantically entertain anyone with reductive ideas of women or gender.” Unlocking those little ways to shiv in a network of interpretations through subversion fulfills me creatively.
t.r.: I’m intrigued by “IT USES ALL PARTS OF THE ANIMAL.” It makes for a wonderfully declarative penultimate line, but I think there’s some ambiguity—perhaps intended?—as to what “it” and “the animal” respectively are. Could you tell us more about what your intention is or was with that line?
Mal: Broadly, "it" is referring to "femininity" in the line before, and "the animal" is the human body; however as we just discussed, I'm all for there being many interpretations! The line is a metaphor for how I want to allow the feminine to engender itself in my physical body.
The idea of using all parts of an animal carcass historically comes from Indigenous hunting practices. Extrapolating on this idea of resourcefulness—whether out of respect, necessity, or cyclicality—this line is personifying femininity as something that is resourceful. This very much stemmed from my own relationship to gender at the time and again that desire to have agency over my definition of femininity. I was in a place of pushing past femininity as something purely aesthetic and putting less stock into the perception of my gender as a factor in how I identify. The line calls to that journey of self-actualization, an exploration of the somatic and sensual experiences of femininity being a part of that, and making use of this entire animal-creature vessel-body to discover and hone in your most authentic expression.
t.r.: When I think of The Wolf and The Girl as archetypes, I think of “Little Red Riding Hood,” and one feminist reworking among many that comes to mind is Carol Ann Duffy’s somewhat autobiographical “Little Red Cap,” a poem that “IN WOLF’S CLOTHING” reminded me of at points. The first and the last lines in particular! But anyway, I think “IN WOLF’S CLOTHING” can be comfortably placed in this continuing lineage of feminist revisionist/ deconstructive work with or against archetypes, that pervasive symbolism of myth and fable. What are your thoughts on “feminist retellings,” if any? How do you borrow from the ouroboros of myth & the collective consciousness; how do you make it your own?
Mal: I mentioned Clarissa Pinkola Estés's Women Who Run with the Wolves as a bit of inspiration, which fits squarely in the cannon of feminist retellings, or rather is the ultimate reference material. Estés is a story-keeper who, in the book, applies Jungian analysis to myths and fables that illustrate the "wild woman" archetype.
I am extremely interested in exploring archetypes though my work—subverting them, giving them new somatic and sensual playgrounds, and mining out universal truths (if there even is such a thing.) When an archetype such as the feminine archetype intrigues me, I like to ask, where is this useful in making sense of the world and relating to others and where is this restrictive? Where can I build a cosmology and where do I have to deconstruct and reconstruct?
I would also recommend Estés's text as foundational to approaching retelling as feminist praxis. Many modern retellings simply choose a once overlooked female voice to center without reckoning with the unsavory elements of the myths in which these characters originated. To me, those sorts of retellings fail.
t.r.: To close, is there anything more you would like to add more broadly about your writing process, experience, inspiration, etc.? Or, outside the work, about your involvement if any in the Chicago literary scene?
Mal: I feel I have to highlight, in this discussion of gender, the need to commit and recommit energy towards the care of gender diverse people in the United States right now. Just recently, the Kansas state government invalidated the IDs of anyone who had changed their gender marker. With IDs now being required to vote under the SAVE act, this not only restricts gender diverse Kansans from fully participating in society, but also strips them of civil rights. I am lucky to live in Chicago, a city with some of the strongest protections for trans people, but this moment requires a special focus on our comrades in Kansas, especially mutual aid efforts. To anyone who resonates with "IN WOLF'S CLOTHING" at all, please let this be your call to action.
The debut issue of Sabr Tooth Tiger Magazine. 6×9 paperback, 134 pages.
Poetry by: David Agyei-Yeboah, Maude B., Madeline Blair, Ace Boggess, Ashlee Craft, Zach Crosswait, Zoë Davis, Gavin DuBois, Mal Grace, Erica Hasselbach, Asmi Kartikeya, Daithí Kearney, Maëlle Keita, Ayesha Khan, Emma Lee, Juan Madrigal, Faisal Mohyuddin, Phoebe Nerem, Benjamin Niespodziany, Vaghawan Ojha, Samuel Plauché, Colette Postaer, David Raygoza, Tori Rego, Maddy Rowe, Patricia Russo, Ayden Scott, Brandon Shane, Sameen Shakya, Anca Varvara-Piccozzi, Ethan Viets-VanLear, Rebecca Watson, Jenny Whidden, gray lindsey, Ammara Younas, Zaid Zaheer, Satori
Prose by: B.E. Austin, Johnzee Baptiste, Rohit Karir, Sara Muttar, Sarah R. New, Anna Nguyen, Farhan Nurdiansyah, Eli Sugerman, Dylan Terry
Art by: Fatima B., Bea Bouman, Nathan Doty, Bushra Khan, Zafar Malik, Stefanie Reinhart, mahnoor
Please note that copies are printed-to-order and can take up to one month to be delivered.