Milk Tongue
(Paperback)
Publishing Details
Milk Tongue
By (Author) Irene Mathieu
Deep Vellum Publishing
Deep Vellum Publishing
19th October 2023
United States
Classifications
General
Non Fiction
Modern and contemporary poetry (c 1900 onwards)
811.6
Physical Properties
Paperback
120
Width 228mm, Height 152mm
Description
An exploration of what we inherit or pass on, illuminating the gray area between ubiquitous human desires and overconsumption.
Irne Mathieus third collection, MILK TONGUE, refers to the layer of milk that coats a babys tongue, which often is a challenge to distinguish from thrush, the overgrowth of naturally occurring yeast. As poet and pediatrician, Mathieu explores how we diagnose and investigate where normal consumption and overconsumption meet. How do we learn what to desire What happens when what we want is destructive to our world How might we reconceive of (be)longing in a way that rejects overconsumption
These poems suggest, what if, more than place, its about sound In MILK TONGUE Mathieu uses haibun, long poems, and experimental forms to explore what we inherit or pass on privilege, oppression, anxiety, hypnagogic conjure, and a warming earth and envisage how, through deep attention to the emotional vibrations under the surface of these phenomena, we might become both human and an / animal worthy of this speck of dust.
Author Bio
Irne P. Mathieu (she/her) is an academic pediatrician, writer, and public health researcher. She is author of Grand Marronage (Switchback Books, 2019), which won Editor's Choice for the Gatewood Prize and runner-up for the Cave Canem/Northwestern Prize; orogeny (Trembling Pillow Press, 2017), which won the Bob Kaufman Book Prize; and the galaxy of origins (dancing girl press & studio, 2014). Her poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, Narrative, Boston Review, Southern Humanities Review, Los Angeles Review, Callaloo, Foundry, TriQuarterly, and elsewhere. Irne has received fellowships from the Fulbright Foundation, Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Irne is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and Assistant Co-Director of the Program in Health Humanities at the University of Virginia. For more information please visit irenemathieu.com.
