WOMAN DRINKING ABSINTHE Analyzed by Billy Mills
Former Guardian Literary Journalist, Billy Mills, analyzes the conception of love in Katherine E. Young's new collection.
"Young’s core subject is love, but there’s nothing redemptive or particularly healing about its manifestations," writes Billy Mills in his analysis of Young's Woman Drinking Absinthe. Elsewhere he compares the different manifestations of this theme to coeval poets Christopher Jane Corkery and James Roome.
Mills analysis is fitting for Young's work which comes from a deeply literary place and is steeped in evocative allusion. Mills places WDA alongside the likes of Pound and Eliot in his thinking. Like these poets, Young uses unorthodox and historically informed forms and diction in her poetry.
An excerpt of Mills' analysis follows:
"The fourth (of five) sections of Katherine E. Young’s Woman Drinking Absinthe is a single sequence, ‘Place of Peace’ that takes off from a visit to the Civil War memorial at Shiloh National Military Park. The fourth section of the sequence opens with he line ‘Who doesn’t desire to be mesmerized by love?’ and ends ‘once more I fear the shadow of his hand.’ These lines could be said to serve as the twin poles of the entire collection.
For Young’s core subject is love, but there’s nothing redemptive or particularly healing about its manifestations."
The poems in Katherine E. Young’s Woman Drinking Absinthe concern themselves with transgressions. Lust, betrayal, guilt, redemption: Young employs fairy tales, opera, Impressionism, Japonisme, Euclidean geometry, Greek tragedy, wine, figs, and a little black magic to weave a tapestry that’s as old as the hills and as fresh as today’s headlines.
Henry Miller and NEXUS, the American Author Reconsidered
Henry Miller and NEXUS, the American Author Reconsidered By James J. Patterson Henry Miller is the missing link to a holistic understanding of the American literary tradition, argues Dr. James […]
Rose Solari is judging this year’s Charlene Kushner Wicked Woman Poetry Prize
Rose Solari is judging this year’s Charlene Kushner Wicked Woman Poetry Prize Brickhouse Books has announced the Charlene Kushner Wicked Woman Poetry Prize. The winning manuscript will be published by […]
[Grace Cavalieri] 5 Plays from the Contemporary American Theater Festival Reviewed
5 Plays from the Contemporary American Theater Festival Reviewed by Grace Cavalieri The inimitable Grace Cavalieri, a dramatist herself, returned from the 28th season of the Contemporary American Theater Festival […]