Discover Poetry through the Looking Glass

Poetry doesn’t have to be abstract or inaccessible, according to Jessica Young ’06. Her new book, Alice’s Sister, pulls readers down the rabbit hole into the mind of Mary, the older sibling of Lewis Carroll’s Wonderland heroine. Young explores the shadowy fringes of a familiar tale with techniques such as rotating narrators, character development, and a plot arc. But it’s also got a secret ingredient that will appeal to analytical readers: the patterns and numbers of logic and math. Individually and taken together, the poems weave a double helix of right brain and left, compassion and cool logic.

The poem “Mary and Math,” for example, begins with imagery of “a golden oriole dipping down from the sky and its churn of clouds,” its weight coming to bear on a single blade of grass among millions. This is Mary’s metaphor for her unwanted pregnancy as a matter of probability. “It’s not a virtue thing, it’s not,” Mary says simply. “It’s a numbers thing, and it wasn’t my fault.”

Young began studying physics at MIT but working one evening at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff during IAP, Young had “one of those Hollywood cinematic moments,” she says. “I realized this wasn’t what I wanted to do.”

Back on campus, she enrolled in poetry and essay classes with William Corbett and Kenneth Manning. “I finally felt the way about my classes and homework the way friends in the physics department felt about theirs,” she says. She recalls other influential MIT teachers including Junot Diaz, Joe Haldeman, Ed Barrett, and Helen Elaine Lee. As an undergrad, Young won four Ilona Karmel writing prizes. She is now teaching at the University of Michigan, where she earned her MFA.

Citing another MIT professor, the writer and physicist Alan Lightman, as inspiration, Young describes her ultimate goal: “I want to make a bridge between poetry and science, poetry and math, poetry and engineering. I want someone who normally says, ‘I don't get poetry’ to pick up my book and feel empowered and excited by it. And I hope to offer poets a way off of the page and into a topic they might otherwise find inaccessible, like stellar astrophysics, combustion, or genetics. I hope my words can start a conversation between two worlds that—despite being deeply connected—often feel they are separate.”

Young’s publisher has posted some samples of her poetry. You can find Alice’s Sister at major online book sellers; email Young at jessjess@umich.edu to purchase a signed copy.