When you think about the concept of infertility, for example, it's not just medical; it's a repository of so many personal and societal meanings - religious, legal, sexual - encompassing mortality and sin and family and eternity.
Monica YounI tell my students to think of poems as language plus, language with value added beyond its everyday use.
Monica YounI'm blissfully not writing anything. Just doing a lot of reading and hopefully some thinking as well.
Monica YounWhen you talk about "infertility" you're already using a land-based metaphor - a woman's body compared to property, to be considered fruitful or barren. And "estate" encompasses both legacy and landscape. Think of Emerson, referring to his son's death as "the loss of a beautiful estate."
Monica Youn