In this first episode, we speak with pioneering Piatt scholar Paula Bernat Bennett. In 2001, Paula published the first university-press edition of Sarah’s work. Paula talks about how she came to find Sarah; why Sarah’s voice stood out; social expectations for woman poets; and Sarah and Emily Dickinson as contemporaries. Paula chose her edition’s title, Palace-Burner, from Sarah’s poem about women’s role in the violent social unrest of the 1871 Paris Commune. It became her pithy phrase for Sarah herself–and her insistent challenges to gender norms.
Interview date: September 9, 2017
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