A collection of poems written by Celeste Lipkes, MD, MFA, a 2021 graduate of the Yale Psychiatry Residency Program, will be published by the University of Wisconsin Press.
Radium Girl is the first book of poems for Lipkes, an inpatient psychiatrist in Asheville, NC. It will be published in conjunction with Lipkes being named a finalist in the recent Wisconsin Poetry Prize Competition.
The poems combine Lipkes’ personal experiences and training in medicine with the history of various magic tricks. The title Radium Girl comes from a magic trick by the same name in which a woman is locked in a tall, thin box and somehow emerges unharmed after steel rods and swords are plunged through holes in the box.
Lipkes has received numerous awards for her writing. She was named a finalist in the 2020-21 Jake Adam York Prize for a first or second poetry collection. Radium Girl was judged a semifinalist for the 2019 Berkshire Prize, a national poetry contest, and has been recognized in other contests, including the 2019 University of Wisconsin Brittingham and Felix Pollak Prize.
Lipkes began writing poetry long before she arrived at Yale for residency, and her work has appeared in many publications.