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Katherine Larson

Radial Symmetry (Volume 105) (Yale Series of Younger Poets) Paperback – April 26, 2011

by Katherine Larson (Author), Louise Glück (Foreword)

20 ratings

4.2 on Goodreads

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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.

Print length

96 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Yale University Press
Publication date

April 26, 2011
Dimensions

6.13 x 0.25 x 8 inches
ISBN-10

0300169205
ISBN-13

978-0300169201
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Bracingly artful . . . Radial Symmetry marks the arrival of a poet whose work merits many readings."—Alison Hawthorne Deming, Orion -- Alison Hawthorne Deming ― Orion

Winner of the 2012 Levis Reading Prize from Virginia Commonwealth University -- Levis Reading Prize ― Virginia Commonwealth University Published On: 2012-06-08

Finalists for the 2012 ForeWord Book of the Year Award in the Poetry category (winners will be announced 23 June) -- Book of the Year Gold Winner ― ForeWord Magazine Published On: 2012-06-08

Winner of the 2012 Kate Tufts Discovery Award given by Claremont Graduate University -- Kate Tufts Discovery Award ― Claremont Graduate University Published On: 2012-06-08

About the Author

Katherine Larson is the recipient of a Ruth Lilly Poetry Fellowship and Union League Civic and Arts Foundation Poetry Prize. She lives in Arizona.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Yale University Press (April 26, 2011)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 96 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0300169205
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0300169201
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 5 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.13 x 0.25 x 8 inches

Customer Reviews:
20 ratings

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5 star		84%
4 star		9%
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readingfortheheart

Radial Symmetry

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 29, 2011

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This book of poetry was excellent. Katherine Larson has a unique style of writing that captures both the eye and the heart. A personal favorite piece was "Oranges in Uganda". My only issue was that the book came bent and wrinkled in the padded envelope package from Amazon. This took away from the beauty of the book and the words inside it.

4 people found this helpful

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W. Shaw

beautiful, and moving

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 24, 2017

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Sparse, beautiful, and moving.

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C.A. LaRue

Truly Excellent Collection From One of the Best Young Poets Writing Today

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 9, 2012

From the beautiful cover to the arresting opening poem, this collection from scientist/poet Katherine Larson is worth every penny. Usually such a book might contain one or two "gems" and a handful of other enjoyable but less moving pieces. Not so with this book! Just a few favorites are "Statuary", "Low Tide Evening", "Risk" and "Almost a Figure". Lines like "everywhere the spirits are hungry/Say you leave a crust of bread on your plate./A hundred of them could last for weeks on this" will keep you returning again and again to this excellent collection. Keep it beside your bed for nightly indulgence. Highly recommended!!

2 people found this helpful

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Allen B. Hagar-Terio Jr.

Enigmatic and Compellingly Mysterious

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on July 22, 2013

A bright book, though it has its darker moments, a reader is rewarded by its end. The poem "Masculine/Feminine" is my favorite with it awareness of the French master in the wings. Personal and private, we visit the deserts of the Southwest of the United States. Born of a personal awareness, the book still is enigmatic and mysterious.

Allen Hagar

2 people found this helpful

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honeybee

what is it?

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 10, 2012

The kindle sample i received had no poems, only the table of contents! Not Useful! It was nothing to base a purchase on. Wish i had more...

4 people found this helpful

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Jon Corelis

Tedious. Very.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 30, 2013

"Yes, I've seen her poetry," says a character in T. S. Eliot's The Cocktail Party. "Interesting if one is interested in Celia." So many contemporary poetry books remind me of this comment: I don't object to their obvious obsession with the most deeply meaningful personal thoughts and experiences of the writer; what I don't understand is why it should be assumed that anyone else would have the slightest interest in them. This book is a typical example: divided, as seems to be obligatory for current poetry books, into four high level sections (though some daring innovaters may divide their collections into three or even five,) the verse in this book runs through a typical gamut of personal experiences (foreign travel, love affairs, death of a loved one, occasional reading of great authors,) leavened here, in an attempt at uniqueness, with imagery from the biological sciences. Images are continually banged against each other in an attempt at gaudy rhetoric, as in:

The Milky Way sways its back
across all of wind-eaten America
like a dusty saddle tossed
over your sable, lunatic horse.
All the plains are dark.
All the stars are cowards.

But the attempt seems to me strained, and my only reaction is to wonder what in the world this person is ranting on about. The book's low point for me was an apparent ecstatic ode to drunk driving:

Last night I threw my lab coat in the fire
and drove all night through the Arizona desert
with a thermos full of silver tequila ...
Outside of Tucson, saguaros so lovely
considering the cold, and the fact that you
weren't there to warm me.
Suddenly drunk I was shouting that I wanted to see the stars ...

"Write what you know," they say, but if what you know is driving drunk on the highway, you shouldn't be doing it and shouldn't be writing about it.

The poems also seem irritatingly addicted to the creative writing cliche of The Pronoun Mysterious: the abrupt presentation of a deliberately undefined pronoun, usually first person plural, at the beginning of a poem or section in a rhetorical ploy to induce the reader to say, "Hey, who is this We anyway? I'd better keep reading to find out." Thus we have pieces beginning:

We wander up among sea oats ...

and

We arrived too late for the sundial ...

and

We were remembering the first
time we swam with parrotfish ...

and

We dredge the stream with soup strainers ...

Isn't there some authoritative literary or academic body that can decree that this sort of thing may no longer be done?

Two stars, the second grudgingly given for occasionally successful vividness of language. But basically I only finished the book so I could say I did when reviewing it.

13 people found this helpful

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Lese B

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on April 8, 2017

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ever gorgeous

Chelsey

Perfectly Balanced and Incredibly Beautiful

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on October 26, 2019

Verified Purchase

As a scientist and musician, I was eager to read Katherine’s work. Admittedly, I’m not well-versed in the world of poetry but I think this collection is outstanding. The pieces are curated in a way that makes you feel as if you’re drifting with the tide in a fugue, almost dreamlike state. Each piece leads you forward to the next with an ever present hint of melancholy and darkness that tethers you and keeps you anchored while maintaining a stark contrast to the ethereal imagery. Absolutely stunning.

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Radial Symmetry (Volume 105) (Yale Series of Younger Poets) Paperback – April 26, 2011

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