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"Milk Tongue refers to the layer of milk that coats a baby's tongue, which often is a challenge to distinguish from thrush, the overgrowth of naturally occurring yeast. As poet and pediatrician, Mathieu explores how we diagnose and investigate where normal consumption and overconsumption meet. How do we learn what to desire? What happens when what we want is destructive to our world? How might we reconceive of (be)longing in a way that rejects overconsumption? These poems suggest, "what if, more than place, it's about sound?" In Milk Tongue Mathieu uses haibun, long poems, and experimental forms to explore what we inherit or pass on - privilege, oppression, anxiety, "hypnagogic conjure," and a warming earth - and envisage how, through deep attention to the emotional vibrations under the surface of these phenomena, we might become "both human and an / animal worthy of this speck of dust."--
About the author
Irène P. Mathieu (she/her) is an academic pediatrician, writer, and public health researcher. She is author of Grand Marronage (Switchback Books, 2019), which won Editor's Choice for the Gatewood Prize and runner-up for the Cave Canem/Northwestern Prize; orogeny (Trembling Pillow Press, 2017), which won the Bob Kaufman Book Prize; and the galaxy of origins (dancing girl press & studio, 2014). Her poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, Narrative, Boston Review, Southern Humanities Review, Los Angeles Review, Callaloo, Foundry, TriQuarterly, and elsewhere. Irène has received fellowships from the Fulbright Foundation, Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Irène is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and Assistant Co-Director of the Program in Health Humanities at the University of Virginia. For more information please visit irenemathieu.com.
Summary
An exploration of what we inherit or pass on, illuminating the gray area between ubiquitous human desires and overconsumption.
Irène Mathieu’s third collection, milk tongue, refers to the layer of milk that coats a baby’s tongue, which often is a challenge to distinguish from thrush, the overgrowth of naturally occurring yeast. As poet and pediatrician, Mathieu explores how we diagnose and investigate where normal consumption and overconsumption meet. How do we learn what to desire? What happens when what we want is destructive to our world? How might we reconceive of (be)longing in a way that rejects overconsumption?
These poems suggest, “what if, more than place, it’s about sound?” In milk tongue Mathieu uses haibun, long poems, and experimental forms to explore what we inherit or pass on – privilege, oppression, anxiety, “hypnagogic conjure,” and a warming earth – and envisage how, through deep attention to the emotional vibrations under the surface of these phenomena, we might become “both human and an / animal worthy of this speck of dust.”
Foreword
- Serial rights targeting Poetry, New Yorker, The Nation, American Poetry Review, Granta, AGNI, Kenyon Review, Yale Review, Ploughshares, NYT Magazine, Lit Hub
- Promotion via the poet’s network of contacts in the literary world
- Targeted outreach to poetry reviewers and outlets, including the New York Times, Harriet Books
- Promotion at/events pitched for Texas Book Festival, Brooklyn Book Festival, Dallas Literary Festival, AWP
- Print galley run targeting media and booksellers
- In-person and virtual events in multiple cities
- Promotion on the publisher’s website (deepvellum.org), Twitter feed (@deepvellum), and Facebook page (/deepvellum); publisher’s e-newsletter to booksellers, reviewers, librarians
