Stephanie Berger’s debut poetry collection, Interior Femme, cracks the earth open and exposes the “woman inside.” In a sequence of poems that present variations on the Western feminine archetype and explore the experience of femininity today, Interior Femme visits many unique locales, from cemeteries in Brooklyn to canyons in New Mexico to churches in San Diego, Paris, and Peru. Berger approaches her subjects—mothers, goddesses, whores, daughters, muses, and movie stars—from multiple angles, and through her poems she reveals historical, personal, ontological, social, environmental, literary, and artistic viewpoints. The poems offer layered perspectives fused with multiple versions of female representation, as if to underscore the burden of responsibility, inherited shame, and awesome power that comes with the position women have occupied throughout history.

At the center of the book is Mnemosyne, goddess of memory and mother of the nine muses, who is crumbling under the terrific burden of remembering. In these poems, there is a woman critically wounded—representing the totality of the Western feminine imaginary—who is seeking answers to dire questions. Lyrically complex, sometimes surreal, and often ekphrastic in style and content, Interior Femme simultaneously offers heartbreak, laughter, comfort, and empowerment.