Average C-Cup, Poems by Elisabeth Kuhn

Alternately harrowing and humorous, Average C-Cup is an intimate narrative about the author’s struggle with breast cancer. Elisabeth Kuhn’s dispatches create a compelling portrait  of a woman’s journey back into wholeness.

Sample Poems by Elisabeth Kuhn

“Elisabeth Kuhn writes not so much about herself as about the universal in her experience and reactions…It has been very exciting to discover her. What she writes, about herself, and sometimes about living with her cancer, is about the human experience and condition. To read her is to expand something in yourself.”—Lawrence LeShan

“We make poetry, it is often said, from our wounds, and the poetry of Elisabeth Kuhn testifies to the truth of this statement in a literal sense—she is a cancer survivor, and the experience of this illness is her abiding subject. Yet hers are by no means wounded poems; they are far too tough-minded for that. Instead, they are searching, self-possessed and wryly observant, offering a tonal and formal variety that is unusual in a first collection.”—David Wojahn

“In poetry of clarity and restless candor, Elizabeth Kuhn creates the passionate prototype for the everywoman of Average C-Cup.These debut poems range from the shadows of a European childhood to brightly lit encounters with America and the breast cancer that at first defines and then releases the poet into a fierce, rhythmic honesty. As each of her bold, funny and shining stanzas crosses another threshold to understanding, Elizabeth Kuhn demonstrates that clarity itself is beautiful—and that so-called average experience is the deepest, longest, tallest, most breathtaking dive into life.”—Molly Peacock

Elisabeth Kuhn grew up in Germany, came to the U.S. for graduate school in linguistics and journalism at Berkeley and stayed.  Now she is an associate professor of linguistics in Virginia Commonwealth University's English Department.  Recently, she also completed an MFA in creative writing at George Mason University. Her poems have appeared in literary magazines and other publications, including International Poetry Review, The Paterson Literary Review, The Hollins Critic, The Formalist, Pearl, LiNQ (Australia), Stitches:  The Journal of Medical Humour (Canada), Moxie Magazine, Journal of International Women’s Studies, Women and Language, and Women in Higher Education, as well as in Unbearable Uncertainty, an anthology of writing about the fear of breast cancer recurrence, and The Breath of Parted Lips II, edited by Sidney Lea. One of her poems was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

ISBN: 1933456221, 80 pages, $17.00

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