“Persuasive” Woman Drinking Absinthe explores “Illicit Love” in New Review from Compulsive Reader
Charles Rammelkamp delivers a witty and erudite review of Katherine E. Young's opus.
In his new review of Katherine E. Young's Woman Drinking Absinthe, Charles Rammelkamp delivers a write-up worthy of its subject. With careful erudition, and no lack of wit, he mines Katherine's beautiful and heartbreaking poesy about "illicit love" for words of affirmation.
"Love, indeed, is the overarching theme of this remarkable collection," writes Charles. And he shows how this recurring theme speaks throughout the book, pointing to the "conflict between marriage and desire," in the early poems, the link between "sex and violence" in poems like "Bluebeard," and the "demimonde of women in the midst of affairs of the heart" as in "A Bar at the Folies-Bergère" and many others.
In these depictions, Charles writes that, "Woman Drinking Absinthe is unflinchingly honest and lyrical."
Read the entire review here.
Featured Poetry: “Bluebirds” by Grace Cavalieri
Other Voices, Other Lives was my introduction to Grace. Her book sits now on my shelf between The Waves and Duino Elegies, the pages are worn from thumbing-thru, it is dog-eared, destroyed in certain ways well-loved books are destroyed, aged by the eyes, like good denim, but here the creases are black underlines, and the fading is from yellow highlighter and coffee stains. So in honor of, well, my deep admiration for Grace, I’ve picked one of her poems from Other Voices, Other Lives to share. If this is the first encounter with her poetry, welcome, hello, the books page is just yonder up the screen under “books”! If you’ve long been a fan, I think “Bluebirds” is a great poem to share with those who might not yet have been introduced to Grace’s work.
Featured Audio: “Letter from Sligo Creek” a poem by Rose Solari
Like the cover photo, the poems in Difficult Weather are timeless and—unlike the poems in many first books—extraordinarily mature. Although the narrative voice is generally that of a young woman in her late twenties and early thirties whose subject matter sometimes ranges back to early childhood, these are poems of adulthood: the discovery and endlessly painful rediscovery of human frailty, sexual and emotional betrayal, bad love in all its familial and romantic varieties, memory, and elegy…
Listen to Grace Cavalieri Interview fmr. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky
Grace Cavalieri is known widely for her stirring and empathic poetry, collected in her Legacy work Other Voices, Other Lives, but did you know that she is also an impressive interviewer? On her NPR show, The Poet and The Poem, she interviews significant poets from the US and around the world, with an aim of interpreting their lives through their poetry. In her tenure on the program, she has interviewed 9 US Poets Laureate (you can find a list with these archived interviews HERE), including the incomparable Robert Pinsky.