Discipline
In "Discipline", her third collection, Jane Yeh depicts a haunting and hilarious variety of lives, from an endangered young rhinoceros to the denizens of the 1980s New York club scene. These multifaceted poems explore what identity isn't and is, as performance, as struggle, as change, as art with penetrating wit, channeling the voices of outsiders, artists, misfits, and (O)thers. "Discipline" inhabits the space between the real and the surreal, a mash-up of deadpan humour and heartbreaking imagery where novelty T-shirts and lady astronaut centaurs can coexist. The poems are triggered by videos, paintings and installations by contemporary artists, animals and city life. The poems bristle with striking details and observations. Imaginary landscapes converge with episodes from recent history: power, resistance and the structures of oppression are seen inexorably in operation. These miniature dramas perform their own autopsies: 'Sweet, then sour. My lips the colour of Doubt'.
About the Author
Jane Yeh was born in America and educated at Harvard University. She holds master's degrees from the Iowa Writers' Workshop and Manchester Metropolitan University. Her first full-length collection, "Marabou", was published by Carcanet in 2005 and shortlisted for the Whitbread, Forward, and Aldeburgh Festival poetry prizes. Her chapbook, "Teen Spies", was published in 2003 by Metre Editions. Her acclaimed second collection, "The Ninjas", was published by Carcanet in 2012.
Currently Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at Kingston University, she also teaches residential courses for the Arvon Foundation and writes on books, theatre, fashion, and sport for publications including "The Times Literary Supplement", "Poetry Review", "Time Out", and "The Village Voice". She has been the recipient of an Academy of American Poets Prize, a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, and a residency at Yaddo. She lives in London.
