In Captivity

Poetry. Camille Guthrie transposes the pastoral themes of the medieval Unicorn Tapestries with those of modern, urban life in an ingenious re-imagining of both. Amidst her flora and fauna we encounter a lookout, a boyfriend, informants, hunters, poets, and a rock star--all fresh translations of familiar figures. Here the unicorn becomes a blank figure for the beloved, knowledge, and vision. The allegory of the hunt becomes the pursuit of the elusive prey of meaning. As in THE MASTER THIEF (subpress 2000), Guthrie agilely uses traditional and modern poetic forms. These fearless poems invite the reader to be startled by ideas and ambushed by beauty. "Camille Guthrie's sharp eye for lyric detail, her use of shifting connections, narrative fragments, quotations, and demarcations have produced a haunting and powerful collection of meditations. This sequence is the work of an impressive new voice in American poetry"--Susan Howe. "A captivating composition. A loving trap"--C.D. Wright.