Or What We’ll Call Desire: Poems

New poems that showcase high-art and popular culture, vamps and giant artichoke statues, and Freudian Disney dolls in a poignant exploration of cultural and personal legacies.

This heartrending new collection by Alexandra Teague interweaves poems of loss and love with investigations of a variety of female figures, some literary or mythological, like Baba Yaga (who appears throughout in unexpected contemporary settings), others historical. In particular, Teague gives voice to a range of models and actresses from the early years of photography and film, including Theda Bara, Audrey Munson, and nudes from famous works by Cubist painters like Picasso and Duchamp, in order to reckon with how men have claimed and distorted the female form.