Inside the Greek tragedy is family drama. Inside family drama is intergenerational trouble. Inside intergenerational trouble is … a teenager.
In “Study of Two Figures (Agave / Pentheus),” poet Monica Youn taps The Bacchae by Euripides and out pours an “immigrant family sitcom.” Like its ancient Greek predecessor, “Study of Two Figures” ripples with unslaked desire, a son’s rejection of his relatives, a mother’s frenzy, and a loyal but biased chorus. Then there’s the question of Dionysus himself, identified by Euripides as “the Asian god.”
As Monica explains to me 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 Monica Youn's collection From From (Graywolf, 2023).
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Multi-Verse is a poetry podcast hosted and produced by Evangeline Riddiford Graham. To hear more poets share and discuss the poems they don’t usually read aloud, subscribe to Multi-Verse on Substack, your podcast app, or to multiversepoetry.org.
Episode 11: Monica Youn on when "Euripides meets Margaret Cho"