YOUNG HARRIS, Ga. — Young Harris College will host a book launch for Assistant Professor of English and Director of Creative Writing Chelsea Rathburn to celebrate her newest collection “Still Life With Mother and Knife” on Wednesday, Feb. 13 at 5 p.m. The event will take place in the Rollins Campus Center’s Hatcher Dining Room on YHC’s campus, which is located at 1 College Street, Young Harris, Ga. 30582. This event is free and open to the public.
In a recent 2019 round-up, NPR called the book “arresting,” and “a gentle whirlwind of memory, trauma and uneasy hope, savored almost as much as it is run from.”
Rathburn joined the English and creative writing faculty of Young Harris College in 2013. She is the author of two other full-length poetry collections, “A Raft of Grief,” published by Autumn House Press in 2013, and “The Shifting Line,” winner of the 2005 Richard Wilbur Award. Her poems have been published in the nation’s top journals, including “The Atlantic,” “Poetry,” “The New Republic,” “Ploughshares” and “The New England Review,” and her prose has appeared in “Creative Nonfiction.” In 2009, she received a poetry fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.
In this powerful third collection, Rathburn seeks to voice matters once deemed unspeakable, from collisions between children and predators to the realities of postpartum depression. “Still Life with Mother and Knife” considers the female body, “mute and posable,” as the object of both art and violence. Intimate and fearless, her poems move in interlocking sections between the pleasures and dangers of childhood, between masterpieces of art and magazine centerfolds, and―in a gripping sequence in dialogue with Delacroix’s paintings and sketches of Medea―between the twinned ferocities of maternal love and rage. With singular vision and potent poetic form, Rathburn crafts a complex portrait of girlhood and motherhood from which it is impossible to look away.
Award-winning poet Mark Jarman said, “Few poets can write with such frankness and good humor about their physical being and at the same time reveal their souls. [Rathburn’s] is an art of sanity and clarity and is more welcome now than ever.”
About Young Harris College
Young Harris College is a private baccalaureate and master’s degree-granting institution located in the beautiful mountains of North Georgia. Founded in 1886 and historically affiliated with The United Methodist Church, Young Harris College educates, inspires and empowers students through an education that purposefully integrates the liberal arts and professional studies. The College has three academic divisions: Arts and Humanities, Professional Studies, and Mathematics, Science and Technology, with more than 1,400 students enrolled in its residential and Early College programs. The historic campus in Young Harris, Ga. has completed major campus improvements to accommodate the College’s growth. LEED-certified campus improvements include the 121,000-square-foot Rollins Campus Center, residence facilities and a 57,000-square-foot recreation and fitness center. The College is an active member of the NCAA Division II and remains a fierce competitor in the prestigious Peach Belt Conference. For more information, visit yhc.edu.
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