The Medium, Jenny Molberg’s fourth collection of poetry, excavates the marginalized work of twentieth-century women artists, centering Elaine de Kooning, who painted portraits of the poet’s family. Haunted by misogynistic narratives that narrowly define her as the wife of a famous artist-husband, de Kooning becomes the book’s guiding conduit, while language and poetic form function as its artistic medium, preserving and reclaiming untold stories of women artists. Through autobiography and archival research, Molberg’s ekphrastic poems challenge artistic gatekeeping by asking: Whose art endures? Whose lives are erased?

 

Illuminating contemporary stories of queerness, addiction, abuse, and survival, The Medium works to reclaim lives and loves erased from classrooms, galleries, and canonical histories.