We’re excited to debut a new feature on the blog this week called Poetry Shop 5. Here, we will interview poets about their latest release, plus hear which books inspired them along the way.
Our first interview is with poet Cassandra Whitaker, debut author of Wolf Devouring A Wolf Devouring A Wolf from Jackleg Press. Whitaker teaches drama, creative writing, and the occasional English, design, and photography class as an educator in rural Maryland. They are a member of the National Book Critics Circle and serve on the board of the Shore Pride Alliance, supporting the local LGBTQ+ community.
Welcome to PoetryShop5, Cassandra! Tell us about your new book.
Wolf Devouring A Wolf Devouring A Wolf is a collection of poems about powerlessness and all its forms, and emptiness. Many of the poems are about overwhelming fear, as well as hunger, desire for sex, love, drugs, drink, the inner struggles regarding gender identity. I tore up the poems, so to speak, by formatting many of them as contrapuntals, or utilizing left, right, and center alignments to highlight little songs within the larger composition and to also highlight the tensions within the content, depending on the suite. Written between 2019 and 2021, the poems were revised extensively in 2023 and 2024. The collection came out from Jackleg press in the summer of 2025.
Let’s go back to the start of your interest in poetry. Who was your "gateway poet"—the writer who first drew you to poetry?
Sylvia Plath! Introduced to me in 11th grade through the Voices and Visions PBS documentary. It changed my life; I had always enjoyed storytelling and theater and poetry in school before that, but after seeing that documentary, I sought more writers like her, with her vibes. Her cadences resonated with me. There is a physical thrill to reading her work aloud, one I had not experienced before except maybe in drama class. My American Lit teacher taped the episode and we watched it on a small TV. Her voice and the poem's imagery mesmerized me. I thought why don't we read this kind of poetry in school? And we did, much to my delight, but never enough for my appetite.
Voices have a way of hanging with me, and the recordings of her reading her work had their hooks in me. I tend to hyper-focus on a “new” writer. Sylvia was one of my first obsessions. I hit the library and sought out her books in the mall.
When I took my first college writing workshop, so many of the other poets were there because of Plath. I continued to draw inspiration from her music as my tastes widened.
At Emerson, I ended up in a graduate-level prosody class of her work, taught by poet Bill Knott who lent me his book for the first class because I did not have one. His annotations of Plath's work blew me away. I knew I had so much more to learn about reading poems and about Plath's work, not to mention my own. I had to drop that class because I needed another. I didn't make the best decisions at 20.
Which poetry books are you currently reading?
The new issue of Poetry, Dearly, New Poems by Margaret Atwood, and We Want it All: an Anthology of Radical Trans Poetics edited by Andrea Abi-Karam & Kay Gabriel, a glorious transgressive anthology.
I have actually been struggling to read the last two years. Things are heavy right now. But I doubled my list this year. When it comes to poetry, I tend to read three or four books at a time, savoring each one.
Is there a book on the craft of writing that you recommend to poets?
When people say craft book I think The Essential Poet’s Glossary by Ed Hirsch, which is not a craft book, but a container of craft and one I turn to often because it fills me with joy; one learns so much playing and replicating forms and practicing scales that are not immediate to the poet’s imagination, plus the myriad of information and stories about the craft within. But also: Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet and Proofs and Theories by Louise Glück, and Mary Oliver’s A Poetry Handbook, all of which are lovely and sharp in their own right.
Mary Oliver was the one poet my father and I both loved equally. I enjoy her warmth and easy direction. Louise Glück is another favorite, so unsparing at times; knife-sharp.
Who is a new voice in poetry that we need to check out–someone with a debut book or recent release?
Scream Queen by CD Eskilson is for all the horror slasher film lovers out there. A brilliant volume of poetry. Powerful but also playful.
Finally, what’s a poetry book that others may not know about but deserves a shout out?
Curio by John Nieves and Freedom House by KB Brookins.
Nieves is a brilliant poetry mind, one whom I always look for in journals. I like the pretty containers Nieves makes for his poems. Curio is a crafted gem.
Freedom House is a knock out exploration of trans masculinity. I re-read them early this summer and they are still with me as the year comes to a close.
Books and poets referenced:
Wolf Devouring a Wolf Devouring a Wolf by Cassandra Whitaker
Dearly, New Poems by Margaret Atwood
We Want it All: an Anthology of Radical Trans Poetics edited by Andrea Abi-Karam & Kay Gabriel
The Essential Poet’s Glossary by Ed Hirsch
A Poetry Handbook by Mary Oliver
Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke
Proofs and Theories by Louise Glück
Scream Queen by CD Eskilson
Freedom House by KB Brookins
Curio by John Nieves (out of print - check your local library!)
