Winter Sex
Poems
Probing, pondering, and deeply honest—these poems inhabit the space of questions and resonate in the cavern of possibility. Sometimes melancholy, but also sometimes funny, they are about the speculative yearnings that bind us to all that we care about. In this remarkable first book, Katy Lederer proves that, though beauty and intelligence may be at odds with the conditions of the world, they need not be at odds with each other.
Winter Sex combines the minimalism of the small, perfect and square poem with what Robert Duncan described as “the opening of the field.” Poems as leaps of faith, fibrillating in the dark world with a kinetic energy that rises out of erotic desire. Katy Lederer’s measured meditations break open with longing, fill the air with a new voice that is bodily, oracular and lyrical.
Winter Sex is an extraordinary debut. These poems reinvent the language of love, denuding historically predetermined scripts, while simultaneously existing within the precision of the physical, within the violence of touch, and within the solitude of self. “What passes between them,” Lederer writes, “is the last idolatry.” The couple, despite themselves, will outlive their lovemaking. Breathtaking is the language, as Lederer follows the calming of their appetite.