Hold Your Own: Poems

My heart throws its head against my ribs, / it's denting every bone it's venting something it has known since I arrived and felt it beat.

Kate Tempest, winner of the Ted Hughes Award for Brand New Ancients and widely regarded as the UK's leading spoken word poet, has produced a new poem-sequence of electrifying power. Based on the myth of the blind prophet Tiresias, Hold Your Own is a riveting tale of youth and experience, sex and love, wealth and poverty, community and alienation. Walking in the forest one morning, a young man disturbs two copulating snakes--and is punished by the goddess Hera, who turns him into a woman. This is only the beginning of his journey . . . Weaving elements of classical myth, autobiography and social commentary, Tempest uses the story of the gender-switching, clairvoyant Tiresias to create four sequences of poems, addressing childhood, manhood, womanhood, and late life. The result is a rhythmically hypnotic tour de force--and a hugely ambitious leap forward for one of the most broadly talented and compelling young writers today.

Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
Published: 03/10/2015
ISBN: 9781632862051
Pages: 128
Weight: 0.20lbs
Size: 8.00h x 5.50w x 0.50d

Review Citations: Publishers Weekly 02/16/2015
Booklist 03/01/2015 pg. 15
Shelf Awareness 03/17/2015
School Library Journal 12/01/2015 pg. 133