Monica Youn

Barter Monica Youn 1st edition

?Barter exchanges history for myth, direct speech for epistles, activity for observation . . . breathtaking.? ?Claudia Rankine

Felix the Rat?s hind feet
could be Barbie hands?
same pink, same
injection-molded seaming.
?from ?Electronica?

The poems in Barter, Monica Youn?s exciting first collection, negotiate transactions between scarcity and excess, pornography and abstraction, the thing and the thing seen. Rendered with a dazzling array of structures and allusions, these poems describe?and become?a strange gallery of paintings and portraits. She offers a Polaroid left on a windshield, step-by-step instructions for ?Drawing for Absolute Beginners,? a stereoscope with a box of slides. Both an homage to and a warning against nonexistent things, Barter introduces a vibrant new voice and a new way of seeing.