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Jodie
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The Appalachian Sonnet:
Maggie Anderson and her Poetic Labor
Maggie Anderson and her Poetic Labor
In “The Appalachian Sonnet: Maggie Anderson and her Poetic Labor,” I examine how the poet Maggie Anderson uses the sonnet form to challenge patriarchal conceptions of labor and to provide dignity to Appalachian women and their work. In much of her poetry, Anderson writes about the poor and the invisible in Appalachia, bringing to light the unseen domestic work that upholds families and communities under great duress. In one of her most powerful poems, “Sonnet for her Labor,” the speaker describes her Aunt Nita’s life of struggle. Employing enjambment, Anderson uses the line to transform the sonnet into a narrative that details Nita’s daily life and her quiet death. The form of the sonnet enacts the tension between the inner power of the central figure and the containment of the female mind and body trapped within the patriarchal structures of Appalachian culture. Serving as both an acknowledgment and an elegy, the sonnet resists forgetting but also refuses to romanticize or construct a hagiography. The sonnet itself does not build to a grand crescendo but instead concludes as humbly as Nita’s life. In this paper, I provide the context for this sonnet, tell the story behind its composition, offer a close reading of the poem, and situate it in Anderson’s larger body of work and within Appalachian and American literary history more broadly.
A documentary filmmaker and writer, Jodie Childers has published essays on 20th century American cultural and political dissent. Her poetry has been featured in Eleven Eleven, The Portland Review, and Enizagam. She is currently completing a PhD in English with a concentration in American studies at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.