Julia Koets
Winner of the聽2019 Michael Waters Poetry Prize
Pine maps a secret relationship between two women in the South, where certain kinds聽of desire鈥攓ueer desire, in particular鈥攈ave historically been hidden and feared. Creating new landscapes of identity by reimagining form, modifying villanelles, sonnets, elegies, thank-you notes,聽and dictionary entries, Pine鈥檚 imagistic and metaphorical associations between the聽body and the natural world form a queer ecology of longing and loss.
鈥淭he poems in Pine are poems I was afraid to write聽when I wrote my first collection. Growing up queer聽in the South, I was afraid to write about queer聽desire, and I didn鈥檛 feel like I could write these聽poems until I was in my late twenties and early聽thirties. I wrote this book because I was no longer聽afraid of going home.鈥�
-Julia Koets
鈥泪苍 Pine, Julia Koets has created a new queer catalog, a field guide for those of us聽who couldn鈥檛 claim a vocabulary in the closets of our youth, much less rely on any聽kind of compass. In doing so, this moving collection redeploys, with remarkable聽candor, the language used against us鈥攕ometimes out of our own mouths鈥攁nd聽brings memory close enough to reconsider with the intelligence and finesse time聽affords. Pine reminds me that a queer root is as much about desire as it is about聽survival, and Koets is a worthy guide in both pursuits.鈥�
-Meg Day
鈥淛ulia Koets shows us in the sinews of her images how growing up in a small聽town in the South, while abiding by one鈥檚 queer heart, requires an imaginative聽and oft-unsung resourcefulness. These poems stunningly herald the girls 鈥榳ho聽lie down in fields, their bicycles / on their sides, too, like horses / asleep in the聽sun.鈥� In this formally inventive collection, you鈥檒l also find an interdisciplinary聽study of Eros, a string of mostly well-behaved thank-you notes, and a whole聽antlery of villanelles. Pine is a necessary and erotic record of deviations and a聽fearless collection.鈥�
-Jenny Johnson
鈥淛ulia Koets writes villanelles like nobody else. Here鈥檚 Heraclitus, Ann Cvetkovich,聽and Sally Ride. Here鈥檚 an invented form, in 鈥榁ernal Equinox,鈥� that鈥檚 something like聽a villanelle caught a ride with a sonnet. Here鈥檚 a queer Southern love story in the聽field and by the ocean. I love this book. It鈥檚 stunning.鈥�
-Jillian Weise