In These Strange Bodies, Court Ludwick’s essays and poems fracture both form and content, mirroring the fragmented nature of memory and identity. Ludwick’s collection confronts a year of her life marked by sexual assault, mental health struggles, and family trauma; and in doing so Ludwick asks what forms our identities. Is identity a body? A collection of memories? Can an identity be determined by oneself, or is it shaped by the perceptions of others? In this interview, Ludwick discusses her complicated relationships to body and memory, and how writing is a means of mending shattered fragments of the past.  

Riah Hopkins: This collection meditates on—surprise, surprise—the body. Where does your fascination with the body come from? Are you trying to exorcise anything by writing about it?

Court Ludwick: I’ve been pretty obsessed with the body for some time now, and I think part of my fascination comes from a desire to understand how things work. When I was a kid, my favorite game to play with my parents was the “why” game—which I think is a pretty common one? I remember being, just, so delighted by my parent’s answers (“Why is the sky blue?” “Well, the sky only appears blue because blue wavelengths scatter more…”). I also remember being extremely frustrated when they didn’t have an answer to give me (“But why do blue wavelengths scatter more…?).

If I’m being honest, my fascination with the body is probably rooted in fear, too. The body is terrifying in that so much of it is unpredictable. There are still so many unknowns. Because I’m the kind of person who likes knowing everything, understanding everything, the human body with all of its unknowns is both a source of inspiration and an ongoing frustration.

I’m also somewhat delusional—aren’t all writers, though?—and I think on an unconscious level, I falsely believe that if I know enough about the body, then I’ll be able to control my own. Of course, this is deluded thinking. Though, I do think this desire to know/to understand/to ultimately be in control of the body likely stems from the historical controlling of women’s bodies that is still. happening. today. 

RH: Are you trying to exorcise anything by writing about the body?

CL: I wish I could exorcise the patriarchy out of women’s bodies. For now, I’m stuck exorcising my own demons! That said, I do think that writing or thinking about the body is useful for understanding one’s individual experience within a larger collective—and vice versa. Lately, I’ve been thinking of the body as an epistemological site, a physical vessel that contains infinite meanings, a place where all different kinds of knowledges can be accessed and understood and maybe negated as well. 

RH: Definitely! I see your collection taking the individual body and placing it into situations where it becomes a public, collective thing. Several of these pieces also make me think about how the body is perceived—not just how it functions and works. “Telephone Game,” for example, captures the experience of being uncomfortable in one’s body as a result of being perceived. Is perception something that you’re thinking about—or that you were thinking about, when putting this collection together?

CL: Yes to the nth degree! The difference between how you perceive yourself and how others perceive you will never not be weird to me. I think “Telephone Game” considers how perception—especially when inhabiting a body that is id’ed as “woman”—can be a dangerous thing. 

Also: I really like that you bring up this piece because I used second person in “Telephone Game” to do exactly what you’re describing, to speak to the collective. As someone who presents as a woman, it’s not uncommon to be at a bar, or even just out in public, and then have to navigate between declining unwanted advances and being seen as a “bitch”—and then having to deal with the reactions of those who you simply said “no thanks!” to.  As “Telephone Game” goes into and explores, no matter how you’re presenting—what you’re wearing, how your hair looks, if you’re wearing makeup, etc.—the part of your identity that attaches you to “woman” feels inherently tied up with all of these expectations and desires of others. 

Unfortunately, even though These Strange Bodies is centered around my personal experiences, many of these experiences are not mine alone—and many women without the privileges I have suffer much worse. That’s another part of it. Even though I write memoir, I don’t want to exist in a vacuum. 

RH: On a somewhat related note, quite a few pieces in this collection play around with form and structure, with the visual arrangement of text on a page, in order to depict what often feel like very fractured moments and experiences. I’m so taken by your experimental work. How do these pieces come into being for you?

CL: A lot of my more experimental pieces are attempts to approach some thing—a question, an experience, a moment, a memory, a “problem”—from different access points. In this collection, the thing I’m often trying to figure out is the body. But of course, as we’ve already discussed, the body is, in many ways, unknowable. As a result, my attempts to confront the body (and then depict my own body’s lived experiences to readers) often assume experimental shapes like those you see in These Strange Bodies. 

I’m also just fascinated by structure and, perhaps more importantly, by how structures might be disassembled, stripped down to their parts, and then reassembled in new ways. On a purely visual or formal level, this process is imaginative and playful and pleasurable. That said, I’m also of the mind that form and content cannot ever truly be separated. And so, much of my play with structure is also an interrogation of those structures that continue to uphold and reinforce violent institutions and practices.

RH: “Punnet Square” comes to mind.

CL: Yeah, exactly. “Punnett Square” employs the four-square grid (that everyone likely remembers from science class) in order to evoke those scientific and medical structures that have historically subjugated women and marginalized groups in particular, and that continue to uphold patriarchal practices under the current system. In my work, I lean into these structures to see how they fall apart. And in this collection, I do so largely by infusing them with the personal. I’m interested in seeing how we might move past certain structures even when they remain present. How do we move away from a system or a structure that undercurrents much of our lives? I’m interested in how representational fracture/disruption/collapse can possibly help us move away from them.

There’s also something to be said about memory, about the nonlinear and often fragmented ways we process (traumatic) memory, and about the attempt to evade other, larger structures—-such as time—that I personally have beef with. All of this to say: I think my more experimental pieces shape themselves rather organically, and usually around whichever structure I’m currently “dissecting.” Though, the one thing I never do is start with a specific form in mind; I don’t like forcing a narrative in where it doesn’t want to go or where it doesn’t fit. I don’t like using form for form’s sake. 

RH: It’s so great to hear about your process. I’m reminded of your prose poem “Nude,” its references to several different artworks, and the piece makes me think about what you’re attuned to, or able to notice and pull out for readers, as a visual artist as well. Since you work in both written and visual forms, I’m curious: how does your visual art influence your writing, or vice versa? And how is this collection in conversation with art more broadly?

CL: I love these questions! First, I might say that because a lot of what I’m writing about in These Strange Bodies is concerned with the perception of bodies—and in particular, in how the Self is fashioned by the individual, but also by others when entering into a public space undercurrented by various social signifiers—a parallel might be drawn between that and the role of the spectator. What gaze are we being filtered through whenever we leave our homes? Whenever we step out on a public street? What do we have to be aware of? And what does that do to us? To women? When we have to live in states of a particular kind of awareness, of potential fear and hypervigilance even, constantly? 

It’s been said that all bodies are commodified under capitalism, and I think the collection extends this to the act of gazing.. What are we taking in? How are we being “consumed” by others? How are we consumed by the underlying structures necessitating consumption in the first place? Connecting this to art seems natural to me. How has capitalism turned art into a product to own rather than an ongoing process/experience/entity that transcends “market value”? And how is this kind of consumption similar to the commodification of bodies, of women’s bodies in particular? All too often, it seems as though women are gazed upon and subsequently desired for whatever kind of “value”  we are deemed to either have or not have. 

To address the other half of this—how my visual art influences my writing and vice versa—I’d say they inform each other, they work in tandem, especially in those more experimental pieces you pointed out. What I explore visually is also what I’m interested in writing about. Again, it’s almost like I’m approaching the same subject from a different angle. Just as a poem and a short story can wrestle with the same topic, visual art is just another way for me to confront and depict whatever it is that’s rolling around in my brain.

RH: When I think about art, I think about myself in front of a painting, in a museum or something, as a viewer. Since this collection explores how it feels to be a body perceived by other bodies, I wonder how present your readers are for you when you’re writing? Is there any fear there, especially when writing memoir?

CL: When I’m writing, I don’t think the reader is present as much as they are when I’m, say, revising for a particular venue or audience. I try not to let the reader—or my idea of the reader—influence what’s written down on the page. 

I don’t know if there’s fear attached to potential readers either. More so, writing a memoir is interesting in that I’ve often worried (and maybe feared) that I might be commodifying my own self, my own body, giving into the system, by writing about these things. After all, this book is technically a product on a shelf with a designated market value. At the end of the day though, if you’re a writer or an artist or anyone who creates anything, you have to ignore these lines of thinking—because stories are important. And people need to engage with more of them. With as many as they can. In all likelihood, too, thoughts such as these are probably catalyzed by the very system I’m questioning and attempting to escape in the first place. There are some critiques that memoir is solipsistic, navel-gazing, inward facing. But I think sharing our stories, sharing our humanity, sharing our struggles, sharing interiority, is so important. If there is any fear there, I think my desire to create and share overshadows it.

RH: Is writing memoir cathartic in some sense?

CL: Yes and no. I think the literal act of putting pen to paper about an event or a feeling for the first time can be cathartic. I think purging emotions in my Notes App at four in the morning is often cathartic. But once you return to those initial purges of emotion (if you ever choose to), and as you begin to shape your words into work that other people might read, the process becomes less cathartic and more pleasurable in other ways. In most cases, I’d say that cathartic writing—mine, at least—usually isn’t very good for readers, but it is very good for the person doing the writing.

When I write CNF, I’m always grateful for distance. With distance comes perspective and craft and I find that I can place what feels very interior/internal next to that which is external—and that makes a piece more interesting and dynamic in my opinion. 

That said, I do like to leave some of the rawness in the writing. And so, when I do return to my chaos, I try to see how I can capture the emotional threads that came about from the cathartic process—even if none of the original writing makes it into the final piece. Fragmentation is one way I like doing this. How can I capture my state of mind, how my brain felt, in these fractured moments? How does one capture this on the page? 

RH: Does this collection have a relationship to nostalgia?

CL: I’m a poet, baby. My whole being is nostalgia. 

RH: I know!

CL: Is this collection nostalgic? Maybe? I’m not sure. One of the essays, “The Grove,” considers this question to some extent: would you go back? But no, I don’t know if I’d say this collection longs for the past. I definitely think there is a looking back, but rather than nostalgia and yearning for something that can’t be recovered, I think instead there’s a longing for what never was? For a time that never really existed? For moments—back then but also now and also in the future—that maybe can’t exist because of things that have happened? When I was writing These Strange Bodies, I think I wanted to miss my childhood, the past, but I couldn’t. I think sometimes I miss what I don’t get to miss. If that makes sense.

RH: What are you working on right now?

CL: Lately, I’ve been jumping back and forth between two longer projects. One is another hybrid memoir that dives deeper into my relationship with my mother. More visual pieces. More experimentation. More religious trauma. More bones, memory, and mommy issues. So far, it’s been slow(er) moving, but I’m really excited to see what pieces spring out of this.

The other project I’ve been working on is entirely out of my comfort zone, but the story bubbled up in my head one day, and I just had to start writing it. It’s a novel. And I never thought I’d be writing a novel! But I also think I desperately needed a change of pace. Right now, I’m in that frenzied drafting stage—just trying to get the story out of my head and onto the page as fast as I can. 

About the Authors:

Court Ludwick is the author of These Strange Bodies (ELJ Editions, 2024) and the founding editor-in-chief of Broken Antler. Her writing has been nominated for Best of the Net, the Pushcart Prize, and Best Microfiction, and can be found in EPOCH, Washington Square Review, Denver Quarterly, Oxford Magazine, Hawaii Pacific Review, and elsewhere. Court’s visual work has shown at the Louise Hopkins Underwood Center for the Arts, and has appeared in publications like Harpy Hybrid Review and body fluids. She is the recipient of a Sioux Falls Arts Council Artist Grant and has taught workshops on hybrid writing and experimental form, most recently for The Dakota Writing Project and Vermillion Literacy Project. Court holds an MA from Texas Tech University and is a current PhD student at USD. Find her at www.courtlud.com.

Riah Hopkins is a PhD student in Literature and Creative Writing at the University of South Dakota, as well as an instructor at the University of Sioux Falls. Her fiction has been published in Pulp, Exposed Bone, and elsewhere. She is the Managing Editor of Broken Antler, as well as South Dakota Review’s Circulations Manager. Currently, Riah is at work on her first novel.