Portrait of a Young Girl Falling is unapologetic in its feminist exploration of desire, consent, identity, and gendered experience. Katrina Moinet's poems tug at violences and tensions present in language, the way it constructs, shapes, limits, or opens up our conception of these things.
Stunning and experimental, this compact debut collection is brimming with fresh strategies of association, productive or interrogative ambiguities, multiplicities of meaning that make space for new ways of thinking.
"'Portrait of a Young Girl Falling' is the feminist poetry I want for my train journey, my bath, my coffee, and my life. Katrina is in control of her themes yet shows a sensitivity to the subjects within her poems, and this gives power. This is why I read poetry. We need poetry like this, unexpected as it is confident, hard at times, messy, bodily, but alive with women."
Wendy Allen, Plastic Tubed Little Bird
"From the outset, Katrina Moinet's debut collection pulls us into the world of the 'she/i was told to be' with honest and rich poems that explore feminine trauma and healing. We are led from the chilling 'Out of Harm's Way' through to the fighting 'Vivisection'. We can stand with the emerging 'pretty seen-and-now-heard', bear witness with the 'We' in the 'Wrong state' and listen to the 'I have a voice' that should be heard."
Ness Owen, Moon Jellyfish Can Barely Swim
"All too often, women exist in the negative space of language; we are defined by what we are not. Moinet, with her dexterous and remarkable poetry, captures this and revolts against language itself, unveiling the trauma that inevitably follows a life lived in patriarchal shadows. 'Portrait of a Young Girl Falling' is intense, visceral, and will leave its teeth in you for a long time after reading. It is a staggering accomplishment."
Briony Collins, The Birds, The Rabbits, The Trees
"If 'Portrait of a Young Girl Falling' looks back on the vulnerability that its title suggests, it does so with accumulated strength, verve, and a visceral rage that is also a form of love, both for those it holds close and for those to follow in potentially changed futures. The lively inventiveness of these poems is part of the work of making space for new ways of thinking and being, for developing 'star-stuffed ears' that might attune us differently to others and to the world."
Zo Skoulding, A Marginal Sea