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.