SOURCE: Jacobsen, Josephine, and Evelyn Prettyman. “The Mystery of Faith: An Interview with Josephine Jacobsen.” New Letters 53, no. 4 (summer 1987): 41-56.

In the following interview, Prettyman discusses specific motifs in Jacobsen's poetry, as well as the author's early career and childhood.

Josephine Jacobsen's work has for the past 40 years been among the most distinguished published in America. She's the author of seven books of poetry, two critical studies and two collections of short fiction. Her stories, exemplified by “Mr. Meadows' Cup,” have been included in Best American Short Stories, the O. Henry Prize Stories, Fifty Years of the American Short Story and many other publications. Her gifts as a poet are testified to by the fact that she has served as a poetry consultant for the Library of Congress. Born in Canada in 1908, Josephine Jacobsen has, with her husband, made the city of Baltimore her home for many years...