Next reading and Hollins Critic review clip

The Village Library reading: 6 p.m., Tuesday April 25th

From The Hollins Critic review

Seren of the Wildwood is a magical book, a visionary journey through motherhood and the rebellious, unwieldy life-force of the universe. It includes equally magical cover art and interior illustrations by Clive Hicks-Jenkins, who frequently illustrates Youmans's books. The publisher's web page says that "Wiseblood Books fosters works of fiction, poetry, and philosophy that find redemption in uncanny places and people." Indeed they do.  

--Amanda Cockrell, The Hollins Critic, Vol. LX, no. 2, April 2023.

Marly in a hat, 2023

More review clips for Seren of the Wildwood

Art by Clive Hicks-Jenkins

SETH WRIGHT at FRONT PORCH REPUBLIC

Youmans’ gift for creating primordial archetypal images that stir the gut and fascinate the eye of the mind places her among the best of the poets. If you’re a connoisseur, even a lapsed or dilatory one, of narrative poetry, buy Seren of the Wildwood and read it today...

What is particularly impressive about Youmans’ weaving is her ability to use such venerable archetypes freshly. Yes, I’ve met them all before, and given time I could tell you where... The same with the landmarks and inhabitants of Youmans’ Wildwood; they seem hauntingly familiar yet disconcertingly strange. Her power simultaneously to defamiliarize and reenchant is enviable and deliciously enjoyable...

My first encounter with Seren of the Wildwood brought to mind dozens of my favourite poems, poems that over the millennia people have taken the trouble to read, copy, annotate, memorise, and perform. Seren of the Wildwood reminded me of them by way of family resemblance; the poem is at home among the poems that last. It is a good poem. A very good poem.  

--Seth Wright, Front Porch Republic, 10 April 2023; read the long, thoughtful essay HERE

JONATHAN GELTER at SLANT BOOKS BLOG

Marly Youmans, in Seren of the Wildwood, now available from Wiseblood Books, offers a vivid fantasy. I will call it that even though the word fantasy appears several times in the story in its meaning of something untrue, a hallucination or deceptive visionary experience. And well it might—although by the end we witness a wonderful transformation of the idea of fantasy—for deceptive visionary experience sets the plot in motion. An invisible creature whom the young girl Seren (Welsh for “star”) names Ariel lures her into the Wildwood, on whose border she lives with her parents. She had two older brothers, but they died just as Seren was born: it is suggested by the narrator a curse emanating from someone in the Wildwood sickened them. 

Youmans’s command of the poetic form is masterful, and a superb choice for fantasy, invoking as it does one of the great medieval fantasists in English.  

--Jonathan Geltner, "The Spirit of Fantasy and the Sense of Place," Slant Books, 6 March 2023: read this interesting essay HERE

A writer and an artist respond to Seren

Seren, by Clive Hicks-Jenkins
from Seren of the Wildwood
(Wiseblood Books, 2023, hc/pb)

ANDREW FRISARDI

Marly Youmans’s verse-narrative Seren of the Wildwood is a bildungsroman or coming-of-age tale about a young girl named Seren, told in the archetypal-dream language of a fairy tale. Seren experiences the universal realities of the loss of innocence through trauma and betrayal, of the self individuating from the matrix of childhood, of sexual awakening and childbirth, and of finding a relationship to the world via a journey into the ambiguous world of nature, dreams, and encounters with various characters both benevolent and duplicitous. 

I won’t give the story away by describing the details of its plot, so let’s just say that, like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, Seren during her adventures is not in the Kansas of routine life anymore. The characters and the woodland creatures and plants that Seren encounters in Wildwood are either supernatural or natural or both. Fairy tales or myths are stories that take place in the imagination, a middle world between the material and the intellectual ones, where meanings become images and images meanings, and this is where Youmans sets her story. Wildwood is the world of imagination, the inner life of the outer world.       --Poet, translator, essayist Andrew Frisardi

 LEONARD GRECO

...what’s moved me most is Marly Youmans latest “ Seren of the Wildwood “ handsomely published by Wiseblood Books. Marly’s fairytale ( beautifully illuminated by Clive Hicks-Jenkins) weaves a complexity of archetypes and sensations , one recalls the lays of Chrétien, Rossetti’s “Goblin Market," the psychoanalytic work of Melanie Klein. Youmans, in her telling this tale explained to me the ambivalence Grendel’s mother must have felt for her challenging offspring. It’s a rich story, one I recommend highly; so rich in fact that I needed to place my impressions upon paper, which follows in the second image. Marly is a gifted visionary, her many published works reflect her unique talents, in “Seren” she presents a tale of no particular time or place, magical yet not absurdist, familiar yet surprising. Wiseblood Books has a convenient site to order from, a range of many attractive offerings (which I’ve already been tempted and eagerly await arrival), to those liminally inclined, I suggest a visit, you will not be disappointed.     --Artist Leonard D. Greco of L.A. and Chicago

Response to Seren of the Wildwod
from artist Leonard D. Greco

And there are many new images on social media as well...

Seren of the Wildwood March readings--

Saturday, March 18  3:00

Reading with Sally Thomas

City Lights Bookstore 

3 East Jackson St.

Sylva, North Carolina

828-586-9499

Thursday, March 23 7:00 p.m.

Reading with Sally Thomas

Goldberry Books

12 Union St. South

Concord, North Carolina

(980) 439-5050

Friday, March 10

Launch Party near D. C.

The Washington Review: "Charles and Tessa Carman will host novelist and poet Marly Youmans [“the best-kept secret among contemporary American writers.” —John Wilson] for a house reading and signing of her new novel-in-verse Seren of the Wildwood (Wiseblood Books) on Friday, March 10, at 7 p.m. Interested folks can RSVP tlccarman[at]protonmail.com"

Thanks to the Carman family for a wonderful launch party!

Seren: video, newsletter, review, more...

                                            CLICK ME, says Alice's video, though rather shyly.

VISUAL ART

on this page and the pages of Seren of the Wildwood is the splendid handiwork of Clive Hicks-Jenkins.

WISEBLOOD NEWSLETTER 

Eep! I've been posting away on social media and entirely forgetting the blog. But here I am, and HERE's today's newsletter from Wiseblood Books, focusing on Seren of the Wildwood and Dana Gioia's translation of Seneca’s The Madness of Hercules. Interesting letter with links for pre-orders (better hurry if you want a pre-order price--and you can get the pre-order price plus shipping if you live abroad), and even a homemade video from moi! Enjoy...

FIRST REVIEW

And here is the very first review of the book, a happy long double-pager. Click to enlarge. I'm grateful to Tessa Carman for spending her time on it, and to Fr. Mark Michael for assigning a review in The Living Church (ECUSA/Anglican Communion.) Don't I need business cards that read Master Enchanter now?

SEREN LOUNGING ON CHINOISERIE

Here you may see three Seren of the Wildwood (Wiseblood Books) copies at the home of L.A.-and-Chicago artist Leonard D. Greco, Jr. 

MORE

I'll be doing a reading near D. C. in early March, and then at City Lights (Sylva) and Goldberry (Concord) at mid-month. After that, some in and near Cooperstown. And then we shall see. I have a house reading scheduled, and I'm also open to those if they're not too far from Cullowhee or Cooperstown, or on the road between...

The Rollipoke 23, with more Seren news, is HERE.

Wiseblood, Seren, poems

1,

From the Wiseblood Books End-of-2022 newsletter:

Seren of the Wildwood, a long fantasy story in verse by Marly Youmans, forthcoming in March of 2023. Youmans is an award-winning author of over fifteen books, including, most recently, Charis in the World of Wonders. Appreciating the way in which Seren "whispers to our fractured souls," Makoto Fujimura calls the poem "an adventure that is at once psychologically potent and fantastical," and Amit Majmudar illumines that Youmans, by "hybridizing the 'bob and wheel' of medieval poetry with the iambic pentameter narratives of the Romantic and Victorian era, conjures a time-frame outside time, perfectly suited to the story. This book is itself a 'Wildwood' where fey, elusive, illusory phenomena draw the protagonist—and the reader—deeper and deeper into mystery.” Seren will contain cover and interior illustrations by the Welsh artist Clive Hicks-Jenkins, including these three here (click on the images):

To see the images and read the entire and very interesting newsletter, go HERE.

2.

Out-in-December poems 

I've been forgetting to post poems on the blog, as more people tend to read them via links on twitter or facebook these days, but here are the out-in-December ones I can remember (alas, I've had to rush away from home and don't have access to all my records.)

New poem in First Things: The Mortal Longing After Loveliness This one not "about" but is oddly apt for the Christmas season. I wonder how many poems Xerxes has marched into...

New poem in Willows Wept: Summer's End (page 53) I'd forgotten this one; poets are moody, it seems!

And if you have a subscription to print-only journal Blue Unicorn (they're very rare, those lovely, melancholy blue ones), you'll find one in there this month as well, thanks to a bit of delay on an issue.

3.

A new page 

is up for Seren of the Wildwood, so check it out! See tabs above. Blurbs-in-full plus more of those ever-delightful Hicks-Jenkins illuminations...

Wordishly

My beautiful child!

FAVORITE LINE AT THE COUNTY FAIR

"The Beautiful Child Contest is now underway at the Cow and Sheep Barn." 

Last night I went to the Schoharie County Fair with my husband and youngest--Demo Derby! Royal Hannaford Circus! Gaudy rides! Crazy carnival eats! And all the joys of beribboned rabbits and hares, cows and sheep and friendly goats.

CHARIS IN THE WORLD OF WONDERS, AGAIN

Hurrah for a lovely new review from Sarah Collister at The North American Anglican. I'm grateful that this book, launched in the most uncertain part of the pandemic, is still receiving reviews two years on.

Sample clip:

Youmans takes readers on a triumphant yet honest journey from death to new life in the ten chapters of her luminous novel.

I had the hardest time reviewing this book because every time I picked up to work on the review, I ended up getting lost in the narrative once again. Though the themes of this tale are quite serious ‒ death, loss, and new life ‒ Youmans’ prose is still dazzling and joyful, repeating the profound Biblical metaphor that darkness often brings further illumination to the light.

For the whole review, go HERE.

Art by Clive Hicks-Jenkins
Find him at hicks-jenkins.com

SEREN OF THE WILDWOOD

The poem has been typeset, two of three requested blurb comments are already in, and I need to make a list of places that or people who might be interested in reviewing for Wiseblood Books. Clive Hicks-Jenkins will be at work on the illumination this fall. They typeset version looks highly symmetrical and handsome, as each little section is blank verse followed by bob-and-wheel.

OTHER WORDISH NEWS

Poems are coming out here and there... 

I've agreed to be on the judging panel for a national poetry award. And that's a bit insane, as life is overly busy already. But I should learn a thing or two.

And there's this splashy event: Makoto Fujimura's latest book, Art and Faith, was an inspiration for Holy Ground, premiered recently at our own Glimmerglass Opera, and I was invited by Mako to the pre-opera picnic and premier. It's always lovely to see him, but I also got to meet his new wife, Haejin Shim Fujimura (co-founder of Embers International), as well as Holy Ground's librettist Lila Palmer and composer Damien Geter, and Lila's composer husband Josh Palmer. 

The other side of the table...
Damien Geter, Lila Palmer, Makoto Fujimura