Medusa: The Lost First Chapbook

Barbara A. Holland (1925-1988) made her entrance into the New York poetry scene around 1961 with a self-published chap-book, Medusa. The reaction to its up-front mix of witchcraft, Satanism, and Chthonic mythology among friends, family, and fellow poets must have been discouraging, for the book vanished and Holland never referred to it again. The haunting title-poem, "Medusa" was published and read aloud frequently, and, by the early 1970s, the poet was regaling her audiences with other alarming and terrifying supernatual and myth-infused poems. The Gothic vein in her writing was not to be suppressed. The discovery of the sole remaining copy of the chapbook led to the creation of this book. To round out the collection, Holland's long-time publisher Brett Rutherford has added sketches and unknown poems from the poet's notebooks and manuscripts, now available for the first time. The range of work presented here shows Holland's engagement with Greenwich Village and its eccentric people, with the inner demons of thwarted desire, and with the overarching power of nature: moon, wind, woods, and ocean.Fasten your windows, New York: Barbara A. Holland is back.