In “Study of Two Figures (Agave / Pentheus),” poet Monica Youn taps The Bacchae by Euripides and out pours an “immigrant family sitcom.”
As Monica explains to host Evangeline Riddiford Graham in Multi-Verse Episode 11, the play’s deep backstory is her poem’s animating question: What does it mean for you and your family to be seen as “foreign”?
“Study of Two Figures (Agave / Pentheus)” can be found in Youn’s collection “From From” (Graywolf, 2023), available here: www.graywolfpress.org/books/from-from
Multi-Verse is a poetry podcast hosted and produced by Evangeline Riddiford Graham, senior managing editor at Public Seminar. To hear more poets share the poems they don’t usually read aloud, visit Multi-Verse at Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, SoundCloud, or multiversepoetry.org. For monthly poetry updates direct to your inbox, subscribe to the monthly Multi-Verse newsletter.
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