Diana Arterian brings Agrippina’s story into the present
Winner of the Poetry Society of America’s William Carlos Williams Award; winner of the Medal Provocateur from the Eric Hoffer Book Awards; named a best poetry collection of 2025 by Electric Literature and Ms. Magazine. A poetic journey through the past of the Roman Empress Agrippina looks toward the future.
“Agrippina the Younger” follows one woman’s study of another, separated by thousands of miles and two millennia but bound by a shared sense of powerlessness. Agrippina was a daughter in a golden political family, destined for greatness — but she hungered for more power than women were allowed. Exhausted by the misogyny of the present, Diana Arterian reaches into the past to try to understand the patriarchal systems of today. In lyric verse and prose poems, she traces Agrippina’s rise, interrogating a life studded with intrigue, sex, murder and manipulation. Arterian eagerly pursues Agrippina through texts, ruins, and films, exhuming the hidden details of the ancient noblewoman’s life. These poems consider the valences of patriarchy, power and the archive to try to answer the question: How do we recover a woman erased by history?
About the book
“Through Arterian’s careful study and poetics, all of us have the chance to troop down history’s back staircases, trying at once to preserve the dusty footprints underfoot and to make our own marks … History and the dead demand our time, rage, ambition, and attention, and this is ultimately the voice that Agrippina the Younger amplifies with fury and grace.” — Los Angeles Review of Books
“Diana Arterian was my classmate. With ‘Agrippina the Younger,’ with both its elegance and courage to embrace the history of our darkness ― and with such aesthetic muscularity ― I am learning from her still. By stepping toward, instead of running from, the ancient histories of women-hatred, Arterian somehow excavates these legacies with a language and lyricism that holds our horror and beauty in sublime balance. ‘She does not look away . . .’” — Robin Coste Lewis, author of “To the Realization of Perfect Helplessness”
“In exquisitely braided prose and verse, Diana Arterian gives us an enthralling study of the often maligned and more often overlooked Agrippina the Younger. Necessarily suspicious and critical of official narratives, Arterian dares to ‘pluck the thread’ of time-worn accounts passed down to us from patriarchy. In this stunningly lyrical book―rigorously researched and rigorously imagined ― we hear history as lies but also lyre: an instrument, in Arterian’s hands, attentively tuned and pitch perfect with song.” ― Brandon Som, author of “Tripas: Poems”
About the author
Diana Arterian is the author of the recent poetry collection “Agrippina the Younger” (Northwestern University Press, 2025) and editor and co-translator of “Smoke Drifts” (World Poetry Books, 2025), a collection of Nadia Anjuman’s poetry. Diana’s first collection, “Playing Monster :: Seiche,” received a starred review in Publishers Weekly and was a Poetry Foundation Staff Pick. A Poetry Editor at Noemi Press and two-time finalist for the National Poetry Series, Diana’s creative work has been recognized with fellowships from the Banff Centre, Millay Arts, Yaddo, and others. Her work has been featured widely, including at The Academy of American Poets, BOMB, Brooklyn Rail, Harvard Review, Los Angeles Review of Books, NPR, The New York Times Book Review, and Poetry Magazine. Diana holds a Ph.D. in Literature & Creative Writing from the University of Southern California and is the 2026 Lurie Distinguished Visiting Professor at San José State University. She writes “The Annotated Nightstand” column at Lit Hub and lives in Los Angeles.
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