Radial Symmetry: Volume 105 (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780300169201)

Katherine Larson is the winner of the 2010 Yale Series of Younger Poets Competition. With Radial Symmetry, she has created a transcendent body of poems that flourish in the liminal spaces that separate scientific inquiry from empathic knowledge, astute observation from sublime witness. Larson's inventive lyrics lead the reader through vertiginous landscapes--geographical, phenomenological, psychological--while always remaining attendant to the speaker's own fragile, creaturely self. An experienced research scientist and field ecologist, Larson dazzles with these sensuous and sophisticated poems, grappling with the powers of poetic imagination as well as the frightful realization of the human capacity for ecological destruction. The result is a profoundly moving collection: eloquent in its lament and celebration.

Metamorphosis excerpt]

We dredge the stream with soup strainers
and separate dragonfly and damselfly nymphs-
their eyes like inky bulbs, jaws snapping
at the light as if the world was full of
tiny traps, each hairpin mechanism
tripped for transformation. Such a ricochet
of appetites insisting life, life, life against
the watery dark, the tuberous reeds.


Author: Katherine Larson
ISBN-10: 0300169205
ISBN-13: 9780300169201
Publisher: Yale University Press
Language: English
Published: 04/26/2011
Pages: 96
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.31lbs
Size: 7.97h x 6.18w x 0.30d
Award: IndieFab awards - Gold Medal Winner