About the Author

Jane Yeh was born in America and, after studying at Harvard University and the Iowa Writers' Workshop, completed the MA Creative Writing: Poetry programme at MMU. Her chapbook, Teen Spies, was published by Metre Edition in 2003 and her first full–length poetry collection, Marabou, by Carcanet in 2005.

About the Book(s)

Reading Marabou is like browsing through an album of snapshots, coming across fraught, frozen moments in the lives of intriguingly enigmatic characters.  There's an Egyptian mummy, an Elizabethan shoemaker and a flock of Cumbrian sheep; Oscar Wilde, a talking owl and a pair of Renaissance princesses.  In this collection, Yeh illuminates the concept of personal identity with startling originality and freshness.  Borrowing from the languages of fashion, espionage and revenge tragedy, her taut, pressure–packed lines combine vivid imagery and bold confession to reveal profound emotional truths.

"These beautifully crafted poems explore love, lust, glamour and desperation with dazzling wit and flair.  Marabou is a deeply moving meditation on the nature of artifice, and of the self."

Reviews

"Marabou is fresh and surprising. If only all first books were this unusual."

The Independent on Sunday

 

"Yeh announces herself as a bold, seductively moody practitioner of the dramatic monologue in Marabou... Yeh's masterful ventriloquism suggests the liberty and thrill of inhabiting multiple identities."

Boston Review

 

"Every poem in the impressive first collection is an intelligent firework, taking off energetically to pursue an unexpected and satisfactory path... It's a pleasure to read such brilliant, vigorous writing."

Poetry London