Kate Baer & 'What Kind of Woman': Complicated Conversations Series

Pop Fiction Women

We welcome #1 New York Times bestselling author and poet, Kate Baer, to discuss her debut collection of poetry, What Kind Of Woman, an instant NYT bestseller and GOOP Book Club Pick.

** Kate is the first poet in our Complicated Conversations series and we start with the impossible to answer question: how do you boil down What Kind of Woman? (01:17)

** The accessibility of “Instapoets” has opened up the world of poetry to many, but we were interested to hear Kate’s thoughts on this term. Poetry, she reminded us, is not written only by old dead white guys. (04:35)

** What Kind Of Woman is all about the inherent contradictions that exist within motherhood and womanhood, but one poem in particular could be the PFW “theme poem”. Hear Kate read and discuss “Moon Song.” (07:53)

** “Like A Wife,” turns domesticity on its head, keeping the woman in the kitchen, but having her serve up revenge -- our appetite is insatiable! (10:20)

** After reading her poem, “Robyn Hood,” Kate shares practical advice to change the narrative around body conversation. (11:32).

** We discuss motherhood, the things a mother’s body can do, the relatable truth her poems reveal, and the ways in which we glorify mothers in our society. (16:52)

** Like us, Kate is a fan of Fleabag, so we discuss female rage and how productive it can be as fuel for writing -- with one really important ingredient: time. (20:33)

** Kate’s path from mommy blogger to long-form fiction to poetry is a fascinating one — we loved hearing about how her “side interests” always seem to be the real deal. (22:33)

** Kate generously reads “There Are Days” from her phone (which will be in yet to be published book three), a devastatingly accurate portrayal of sexism in society. (25:00)

** Kate dreams up eviscerating “erasure poems” where she takes harsh, mean, often misogynistic comments or DMs and strikes out words to create a unique poem of her own— all of which will make up her next book! (30:54)

** We can’t go without discussing astrology and Carinn is delighted to find that Kate is a fellow Aries! And thanks to Kate we will be adding enneagram accounts to our own Insta feeds! We end with a great discussion about Normal People. (34:20)

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