Reviews of Barter

“A sophisticated debut.” —Library Journal

“Youn is a disciplined and musical poet. . . . Her poems require more attention, and are often more rewarding and surprising as a result.” —Brad Zellar, City Pages

 “A sophisticated debut.” —Library Journal

 “Barter is an exceptional book.” —Constant Critic

  “Not since Plath has poetry so taut and so dangerous graced a first book. Youn’s deft formalism—from spare epigrams to dazzling stereopticons—harbors a Pandora’s box of ills: Fatty Arbuckle propositioning a girl; a junkie threatening us with a tainted hypodermic; Black Death; a child chained in the basement. And deep within the box, hope flutters: ‘I am trying she said//holding out her nailless hands//to prevent the end of the world.’ Within this debut volume, an elegant new voice, dazzling, haunting, immediate.”—D.A. Powell

“[These poems] are disturbing because of the insidious links they find between seemingly disparate things. Youn’s gaze plays stereoscopically over the field of such cultural artifacts (often lifted from the horror-show of feminine conditioning). The result is sly, deft, spooky, intriguing.” —Rae Armantrout

With formal mastery, Monica Youn’s Barter exchanges history for myth, direct speech for epistles, activity for observation. The opulent interior of these poems, often shaped by the responsive couplet, houses an exploding silence that never underestimates its close relation to erasure. I found this incredible collection disconcerting in its spectatorship, and breathtaking in its beauty.” —Claudia Rankine