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Yours, Creature

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Yours, Creature
AuthorJessica Cuello
LanguageEnglish
GenrePoetry
Published15 May 2023; 2 years ago (2023-05-15)
PublisherJackLeg Press
Publication placeUSA
Media typePrint
Pages110 pp
ISBN9781737513438
Preceded byLiar, 2021 
Followed byFeral, 2027 

Yours, Creature is a 2023 epistolary poetry collection written by American poet Jessica Cuello, and published with JackLeg Press. Consisting of 48 poems, the collection's subject matter is a number of events in the life of Mary Shelley.

Publication

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Poems from the collection were published in such journals as Plume,[1] Mom Egg Review (MER), Birdfeast Magazine, Tinderbox Poetry Journal,[2][3], Poetry Is Currency,[4][5][6] the Account[7] and the Los Angeles Review.[8] A poem titled 'Dear Mother,' also featured on Verse Daily in 2024.[9]

Themes

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This 48 poem collection, which has poems spread across 97 pages and in six sections,[10] explores "loneliness and abandonment" has been structured in a way that each of its sections, which is "titled with a line from a poem" with the title serving "as a guidepost" for the said section; it is then "followed by a short time-line explanation" of the birth of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (née Godwin), "her affair and marriage" with the poet P. B. Shelley, the death of her three children in infancy, and the writing of Frankenstein, her most famous novel. The poems in the collection further follow personal events such as "the emotional desperation of a child" exploring the loss of her mother, Mary's pregnancy and "distress over her relationship with Shelley" (his affairs, etc.), the death of a child, the creation of the "monster", etc.[11] One of the poems, titled 'Dear London 1814,' focusses on the initial (and lasting) "impact that Percy had on the entire [Godwin] family".[12] Martelli notes that in Yours, Creature, love is shown "in all of its destructive and creative manifestations."[11]

The poet Philip Metres noted that Cuello's fourth full-length collection[13] looks into the very "turbulent" life events of the writer Mary Shelley, best-known for and often surpassed in fame by the popular "creature of her world-famous novel, Frankenstein, through persona poems."[14] Rebecca Morgan Frank, writing for Poetry Foundation, called it an "epistolary poetic biography", with poems written as letters addressed to Mary Shelley's dead mother Mary Wollstonecraft, "to emotional and physical landscapes"[11] and Frankenstein's monster, which is looked at as the titular "creature". The events observed in the collection include "Mary Shelley’s loss of her mother, shortly after her birth, to the drowning of her husband, Percy Shelley."[15]

Jessica Cuello reading at Gaithersburg Book Festival in 2024

Reception

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MER and Tinderbox also published reviews of Yours, Creature. Jennifer Martelli, writing for MER, praised "Cuello's genius structure [which] allows for storytelling",[11] and Donna Vorreyer, writing for Tinderbox, called it a "luminous collection".[12] More reviews, published on the Poetry Foundation website, in the Ocean State Review, Cultural Daily, and elsewhere, noted it as a collection sharing, through fictional letters, the story of the transfer of Mary's "fixation from her maker to her own successful creation" and how she "fed the needs of her husband's ego and his stomach";[15] praised Cuello's creation of a "distinctive and credible Regency era voice for Mary Shelley",[13] calling it "a work of exceptional sensitivity and thoughtfulness."[16] In another short review, Matthew Lippman, who shared the book as a recommendation, said of the poems that they are "monstrous and not monstrous in the way that all monsters are mirrors of humanity".[17] Jennifer Schneider calls it a masterful demonstration of "the timeless poetic power of letter writing", praising Cuello's "unmatched" attention to detail.[10] Writing for Tupelo Quarterly, Audrey Cadena calls Yours, Creature "a collection of hauntingly dark poetry written ... in the voice of Mary Shelley."[18] Writing for South Florida Poetry Journal, Kurt Luchs notes that "an era that was truly harrowing for women" is brought to life through Cuello's work in this "extraordinary book of poetry!"[19]

A series of interviews, following the publication of Yours, Creature, also appeared as part of Kith Books' Pressed Into Ink,[20] and in such journals as the Harbor Review, The Rumpus,[14] and elsewhere.

References

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  1. ^ "New "Dear Creature" poem, with introduction by Jane Springer". Plume. April 25, 2020. Retrieved June 19, 2025.
  2. ^ "Jessica Cuello — from the letters of Mary Shelley". Tinderbox Poetry Journal. 2020. Retrieved June 19, 2025.
  3. ^ "Jessica Cuello — from the letters of Mary Shelley". Tinderbox Poetry Journal. 2020. Retrieved June 19, 2025.
  4. ^ "Dear Sweden 1795,". Poetry Is Currency. December 4, 2022. Retrieved June 19, 2025.
  5. ^ "Dear North 1795,". Poetry Is Currency. December 4, 2022. Retrieved June 19, 2025.
  6. ^ "Dear Mother,". Poetry Is Currency. December 4, 2022. Retrieved June 19, 2025.
  7. ^ Cuello, Jessica. "Two Poems". The Account: A Journal of Poetry, Prose, and Thought. Retrieved June 20, 2025.
  8. ^ "Dear Creature by Jessica Cuello". The Los Angeles Review. April 13, 2020. Retrieved June 19, 2025.
  9. ^ "Dear Mother,". Verse Daily. March 22, 2024. Retrieved June 19, 2025.
  10. ^ a b Schneider, Jennifer (February 7, 2024). "Review of Yours, Creature by Jessica Cuello". Mad Poets Society. Retrieved June 19, 2025.
  11. ^ a b c d Martelli, Jennifer (March 30, 2023). "Yours, Creature by Jessica Cuello". Mom Egg Review. Retrieved June 19, 2025.
  12. ^ a b Vorreyer, Donna (2023). "Review of Yours, Creature by Jessica Cuello". Tinderbox Poetry Journal.
  13. ^ a b Ellis, Angele (August 6, 2023). "A Review of Jessica Cuello's Yours, Creature". The Ocean State Review. Retrieved June 19, 2025.
  14. ^ a b Metres, Philip (October 2, 2023). ""Writing is An Insistence Against a World Insisting Otherwise": An Interview with Jessica Cuello". The Rumpus. Retrieved June 20, 2025.
  15. ^ a b Frank, Rebecca (Morgan) (June 26, 2023). "Yours, Creature by Jessica Cuello". Poetry Foundation. Retrieved June 19, 2025.
  16. ^ Brantingham, John (March 17, 2023). "Review: Yours, Creature by Jessica Cuello". Cultural Daily. Retrieved June 19, 2025.
  17. ^ "Friday Reads: May 2024". The Common. May 3, 2024. Retrieved June 19, 2025.
  18. ^ Cadena, Audrey (October 13, 2023). "Parental Abandonment, Unhealthy Attachment & Longing for Love through the eyes of Mary Shelley: Jessica Cuello's Yours, Creature". Tupelo Quarterly. Retrieved June 19, 2025.
  19. ^ Luchs, Kurt (2023). "May 2023: Yours, Creature by Jessica Cuello". South Florida Poetry Journal. Retrieved June 19, 2025.
  20. ^ Blair, Katharine (May 29, 2023). "Yours, Creature by Jessica Cuello". Kith Books. Retrieved June 19, 2025.
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