Coming in September!
Updated: Jan 16, 2020
by Tanya Grae
Tanya Grae’s Undoll is a debut poetry collection that explores the ways we can be confined—by image, society, tradition—how we often play roles for ourselves, for others. Experimenting through form and rhythm, Grae’s brave personal quartet examines how damage has an origin often lost along the way. Part coming of age, part battle cry, Undoll, whether viewed as a noun, an adjective, or a verb, points to nonconforming, that the received role can be unzipped and left behind.
Book Design: Alban Fischer
Advanced Praise for Undoll
In this deft and restless oeuvre on the enigma that is woman, Tanya Grae displays an expressive narrative mastery that's unusual in a debut. These resolute stanzas are alternately fierce and tender, served up with an addictive skill that inspires awe and roots the reader in stories so many of us are afraid to tell.
-Patricia Smith
In Undoll, Tanya Grae draws on a multitude of clear images and cultural references to steady the roiling emotional drama underlying her poems. For her fortunate readers, the result is a mixture of literary artistry and human cries of desire, disappointment, and anger. This poet has found a new way to combine a lively, educated mind with the naked reality of the body.
-Billy Collins
Tanya Grae’s Undoll offers us a world where “every choice goes on forever,” “everywhere holds a mirror,” and “our whole is/ a fractal of everything.” Here mothers, daughters, and husbands possess a mirror’s unnerving ability not only to reflect but also to distort. Grae writes with such aptness of metaphor, such clarity of vision, that she reminds us, too, of the pleasures a mirror can hold: the seemingly endless iterations of the self, the capacity for transformation, and, yes, an abundance of light.
-Maggie Smith
About Tanya Grae
Tanya Grae's debut collection of poems, Undoll, was a National Poetry Series finalist. Her work has appeared inAmerican Poetry Review, Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, AGNI, New Ohio Review, Post Road, Poets.org, among other literary journals. The recipient of several awards, including two Academy of American Poets Prizes and the Tennessee Williams / New Orleans Literary Festival Poetry Prize, selected by Yusef Komunyakaa, she holds an MFA in poetry and fiction from Bennington College. She lives in Tallahassee and teaches at Florida State University while finishing her PhD.
If the received role can be “unzipped and left behind,” does the four-part “personal quartet” actually dramatize that undoing in form, or just assert it? The Maggie Smith blurb’s “fractal of everything” suggests repetition and distortion, so I’m curious whether the final poems alter line length or syntax to show the role coming off—because, like using a calculator for planning what to grow in a garden to size beds before planting, formal claims need measurable consequences.
It's interesting to see how universities are rethinking education beyond exams. While reading about these reforms, I wondered how digital tools could support creative work. I recently tried picmiu AI for generating visuals, which could help students illustrate projects without design skills.
This sounds like a powerful and thought-provoking poetry collection! I love how Undoll explores identity, expectations, and the courage to break free from the roles society places on us. The praise from these well-known poets makes me even more curious to read it when it comes out in September. Whether finding a quiet moment to read at home or waiting for a flight at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, this sounds like the kind of book that gives you plenty to reflect on. Looking forward to discovering Tanya Grae’s work!
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