Rachel Zucker speaks with poet, memoirist, essayist, and teacher Molly Peacock about authenticity, performance, fear, a woman’s presentation of an authentic self, confessional poetry, constructing art from the material of life, female crafts, photography, the relationship of constructedness to privilege, teaching, formalism, her friendship with poet Phillis Levin, watching the light change in a room, Mary Delany, Molly’s decision not to have children, giving up perfectionism, psychotherapy, the idea of the sympathetic witness, how to construct a life in which you are there for yourself, how to teach with generosity and enthusiasm while still maintaining energy for one’s own creative life, and how to foster boldness.