Hold Your Own
Kate Tempest
Bloomsbury Publishing
<p><i>My heart throws its head against my ribs, / it's denting every bone it's venting something it has known since I arrived and felt it beat.</i><p>Kate Tempest, winner of the Ted Hughes Award for <i>Brand New Ancients</i> and widely regarded as the UK's leading spoken word poet, has produced a new poem-sequence of electrifying power. Based on the myth of the blind prophet Tiresias, <i>Hold Your Own</i> is a riveting tale of youth and experience, sex and love, wealth and poverty, community and alienation. Walking in the forest one morning, a young man disturbs two copulating snakes&#8212;and is punished by the goddess Hera, who turns him into a woman. This is only the beginning of his journey...Weaving elements of classical myth, autobiography and social commentary, Tempest uses the story of the gender-switching, clairvoyant Tiresias to create four sequences of poems, addressing childhood, manhood, womanhood, and late life.</p></p>