Swoon

by Victoria Redel

What does it mean to be a woman—a lover, mother and artist? In Swoon , Redel tackles the question of Eros as it animates domestic life. These are poems unafraid to embrace the sweetness of difficulty and the difficult sweetness of intimacy. Using short and extended lyric, prose poem, circular narrative, Redel refuses formal categorization, demanding of poetry a complex and textured vision of the female experience. Swoon is a robustly sexy, intelligent, daring book of poems.

Genres: Poetry

72 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2003

About the author

Victoria Redel's newest novel is I Am You (September 30, 2025, SJP Lit/Zando), which Melissa Febos calls "A lush, sexy, absorbing novel that brings to life two artists who are inextricably linked in passion and competition."

Redel's work includes four books of poetry, most recently Paradise, and the novel Before Everything. Her short stories, poetry and essays have appeared in Granta, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Bomb, One Story, Salmagundi, O, and NOON, among many others. She has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, The National Endowment for the Arts and the Fine Arts Work Center. She is a professor in the graduate and undergraduate creative writing programs at Sarah Lawrence College and splits her time between Utah and New York City.
Redel is on the graduate and undergraduate faculty of Sarah Lawrence College. She has taught in the Graduate Writing Programs of Columbia University and Vermont College. Redel was the McGee Professor at Davidson College. She has received fellowships from The Guggenheim Foundation, The National Endowment For The Arts and the Fine Arts Work Center.

Victoria Redel was born in New York. She is a first generation American of Belgian, Rumanian, Egyptian and Russian and Polish descent. She attended Dartmouth College (BA) and Columbia University (MFA).

Reviews

[Tom Romig · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fine collection by a fine writer. For example:

Bedecked

Tell me it’s wrong the scarlet nails my son sports or the toy store rings
he clusters four jewels to each finger.

He’s bedecked. I see the other mothers looking at the star choker,
the rhinestone strand he fastens over a sock.
Sometimes I help him find sparkle clip-ons when he says sticker earrings
look too fake.

Tell me it’s wrong the scarlet nails my son sports or the toy store rings
he clusters four jewels to each finger.
He’s bedecked. I see the other mothers looking at the star choker,
the rhinestone strand he fastens over a sock.
Sometimes I help him find sparkle clip-ons when he says sticker earrings
look too fake.
Tell me I should teach him it’s wrong to love the glitter that a boy’s only
a boy who’d love a truck with a remote that revs,
battery slamming into corners or Hot Wheels loop-de-looping off tracks
into the tub.

Then tell me it’s fine—really—maybe even a good thing—a boy who’s
got some girl to him,
and I’m right for the days he wears a pink shirt on the seesaw in the park.

Tell me what you need to tell me but keep far away from my son who
still loves a beautiful thing not for what it means—
this way or that—but for the way facets set off prisms and prisms spin up
everywhere
and from his own jeweled body he’s cast rainbows—made every shining
true color.

Now try to tell me—man or woman—your heart was ever once that brave.

[Patricia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wanted to get my hands on a copy after hearing Redel read “Bounty.” The second section of the book (on the beauty and mystery and majesty in all the little moments of motherhood, childhood, growing up) obviously became my favorite. Redel can pack so much imagery in a line!

[Nicholas Sinnott · Rating 4 out of 5]

Victoria Redel's poetry collection, Swoon, is filled with epiphany and honesty, representing what it means to be a girl, woman, mother, and sexual being. Not afraid to mention a "hole to shit it" (literally), Redel's words are eloquent and vibrant, and can seem to switch between tones effortlessly and fluently. I hope to one day attain the degree of honesty Redel is able to so gracefully weave into her Poetry.

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

University of Chicago Press has never let me down, and Swoon is no exception. I'm loyal and Redel is a fresh addition to their press. Normal, yet surprising. At times minimalist but always vivid. This makes me curious about her fiction...

[Brendan]

Several pieces with two-word titles, the second word being 'woman'. Much talk of children.

My favorites:
"Where We..." - she uses the word though
"Where She Goes" - a divorced woman
"Tilted Woman" - Tony Bennett