<div><b>“Barter exchanges history for myth, direct speech for epistles, activity for observation . . . breathtaking.” —Claudia Rankine</b><br><br><i>Felix the Rat's hind feet</i><br><i>could be Barbie hands—</i><br><i>same pink, same </i><br><i>injection-molded seaming.</i><br>—from “Electronica”<br><br>The poems in <i>Barter</i>, Monica Youn's exciting first collection, negotiate transactions between scarcity and excess, pornography and abstraction, the thing and the thing seen. Rendered with a dazzling array of structures and allusions, these poems describe—and become—a strange gallery of paintings and portraits. She offers a Polaroid left on a windshield, step-by-step instructions for “Drawing for Absolute Beginners,” a stereoscope with a box of slides. Both an homage to and a warning against nonexistent things, Barter introduces a vibrant new voice and a new way of seeing.<br></div>