Alison Moncrieff
Alison Moncrieff writes poetry, paints, sews, collects rocks, digs in the dirt, and tends to chickens & children in Oakland, California. She is the author of the poetry chapbooks Pluck (dancing girl press, 2020), don draper checks the window (dancing girl press, 2017) and Cherrystem (Finishing Line Press, 2017). Her writing has appeared in The East Bay Review, Entropy, Rivet Journal, The Manifest Station, and Bay Area Generations.
Twitter: @bellewynne
Instagram: @alimoncrieffpaints
What period of history do you wish you knew more about?
I am drawn to that liminal period of history between the Palaeolithic era and the Neolithic era, when humans were making the transition from nomadic ways of living to ways of life associated with fixed dwellings. I’m so curious about the way this shift must have altered people’s relationships to each other and their surroundings. It’s also the dawn of women’s work being associated with the home. I am particularly interested in the ways this period changed and evolved women’s activities around fiber arts, clothing families, and weaving. Whenever I read about this era, I feel a conflation of time and a commonality with the women of that age, as if I am them and they are me.
What is your favorite comic strip or graphic novel?
The Bone series by Jeff Smith. My kids introduced me to this series, and I’ve read it many times with them, out loud or as a listener while my husband did. It’s the story of these Bone creatures who are lost in a neighboring land and who get embroiled in its troubled history and current conflicts. I am always stunned at the gorgeous circuitous shape of the story, the grace and empathy with which it’s told, and the way the characters are written to drive it where it needs to go. And it has dragons, strong female characters, and a matriarchal line of rulers. It holds a lot about humanity—love, corruption, good, evil, community, humor, war, etc. I just love it.
Is there another profession you would like to try?
Yes. Archaeology. My desire to become an archaeologist was sparked when I was a kid watching shows about archaeology on PBS and by reading National Geographic. I remember thinking how dreamy it would be to be out on a dig in the hot desert gingerly brushing sand off artifacts, preferably dinosaur bones. That’s a very romanticized version of archaeology, and it has of course changed for me, but, even having toned down those expectations as an adult, I still think about it.
Do you have another artistic outlet in addition to your writing?
I’m an abstract painter, I sew and knit my own clothes and am, in general, a maker. I don’t buy any new clothes for myself, and so building and maintaining my wardrobe feels like a creative endeavor, in that I set parameters for the practice just like I would a poetry project or a painting. I also see gardening as a form of creative expression. I worked for several years designing gardens and am finally attending to the square of soil where I live.
If you could create a museum exhibition, what would be the theme?
It would be an exhibition around the power and messaging of women’s clothing through the ages and across classes. It would display garments worn by women in power — female leaders and superheroes — as well as clothing of everyday women in the realm of ordinary power. I might need a whole museum for this.
