Seen of the Crime
Montreal: Snare, 2011.
available for order here.
In a series of statements, essays, missives, and informal discussions, seen of the crime surveys the radical edges of Canadian and international poetry; the conceptual and the concrete, the political and the playful. With seen of the crime, derek beaulieu explores the flourishing and frustrating alternatives: poetry without subjectivity, without narrative, without words, and even without letters.
‘Finally, a book about poetry that is actually about poetry. derek beaulieu is quickly proving himself an essential companion to the contemporary.’
~ Sina Queyras
- Helen Hajnoczky’s review of seen of the crime
- rob mclennan’s review of seen of the crime
- Jeroen Nieuwland’s review of seen of the crime
- Craig Dworkin’s review of seen of the crime (Third Factory / notes to poetry)
- Jonathan Ball’s review of seen of the crime (Winnipeg Free Press)
*****
How to Write
Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2010.
available for order here.
How to Write is a perverse Coles Notes: a paradigm of prosody where writing as sampling, borrowing, cutting-and-pasting and mash-up meets literature. This collection of conceptual short fiction takes inspiration from Lautréamont’s decree that “plagiarism is necessary. It is implied in the idea of progress. It clasps the author’s sentence tight, uses his expressions, eliminates a false idea, replaces it with the right idea.”
- Nikki Reimer’s review of How to Write (95 books blog)
- ryan fitzpatrick’s review of How to Write (Canadian Literature)
- Melissa Dalgleish’s review of How to Write (The Bull Calf)
- Pearl Pririe’s review of How to Write (Pesbo blog)
- Brent Schaus’s review of How to Write (Advent Book Blog)
- Douglas Barbour reviews How to Write (Eclectic Ruckus blog)
- “Nothing Odd can Last” excerpted on the Conceptual Writing 101 Blog
- “How to Write” is excerpted in Broken Pencil.
- Helen Hajnoczky interviews me about How to Write
- Arch E interviews me about How to Write
*****
Silence
Achill Isalnd, Ireland: red fox press, 2010.
available for order here.
Silence is one of a collection of small hand made artists’ books dedicated to experimental, concrete and visual poetry, or any work combining text and visual arts in the spirit of dada or fluxus.
*****
Local Colour
Helsinki, Finland: ntamo, 2008.
Out of print.
Local Colour is a page–by–page interpretation of Paul Auster’s 72–page novella Ghosts. With Local Colour, beaulieu has removed the entirety of Auster’s text, leaving only chromatic words—proper nouns or not—spread across the page as dollops of paint on a palette. What remains is the written equivalent of ambient music—words which are meant to be seen but not read. The colours, through repetition, build a suspense and crescendo which is loosened from traditional narrative into a more pointillist construction.
- Chris Ewart’s review of Flatland and Local Colour (PDF) (Poetic Front)
- Craig Dworkin’s review of Local Colour (Attention Span)
- Local Colour available as a downloadable PDF (Eclipse)
- Zswound‘s review of Local Colour
- The Poetry Foundation on the PDF version
*****
chains
Kingston, PA: paper kite press, 2008.
Out of Print.
With chains, derek beaulieu once again turns his attention to how “language regards itself, stalks itself, begins, slowly, to eat itself” (Canadian Literature) in a series of graceful abstractions made entirely from antiquated dry-transfer lettering. In chains, letters gather in elegant arrangements, architectural constructions and sinews of meaning.
- photodocumentation of the chains launch at Uppercase Gallery
*****
flatland: a romance of many dimensions
York, UK: information as material, 2007.
Out of print.
“As the Greenbergian modernists proclaimed the flatness of the canvas, so derek beaulieu reduces the page to a flat plane. The result is a new kind of flatness-call it non-illusionistic literature — a depthless fiction, one where image and narrative is reduced to line and shadow. In the great tradition of Picabia, beaulieu creates a perfect work of mechanical writing with one foot in the concrete poetic past and another in the flat screen future.” — Kenneth Goldsmith
- Gregory Betts’ review of Flatland (Lemonhound)
- Jesse Ferguson’s review of Flatland (Matrix)
- Chris Ewart’s review of Flatland and Local Colour (PDF) (Poetic Front)
- Christian Bok’s review of Flatland (Poetry Foundation Harriet Blog)
- Flatland (18 MB PDF) as available on UBU
*****
fractal economies
Vancouver: talonbooks, 2006.
available for order here
Represent[s] truly the best of beaulieu’s poetic practice.
— Prairie Fire Review of Books
- Rupert Loydell’s review of fractal economies (Stride Magazine)
- Christine Stewart’s review of fractal economies (Canadian Literature)
- Douglas Barbour reviews fractal economies (Eclectic Ruckus blog)
*****
frogments from the frag pool: haiku after basho
co-written with Gary Barwin
Toronto: Mercury Press, 2005.
Out of Print.
“Delightful surprises lurk within these pages as Gary Barwin and derek beaulieu examine the old pond, the frog, the splash, and the mind of Basho. From the microscopic “old pond / universes rise & fall / a single splash” to the anthropomorphic “pond holding / its breath…” to the subjective “mind ponding” to the conceptual “splash as a hole in silence” — it’s all here. This book is a grand addition to the reverberation of Basho’s splash” — Nelson Ball
- Jocelyn Grosse’s review of frogments from the frag pool (FFWD)
- Raffael de Gruttola’s review of frogments from the frag pool (Modern Haiku)
- Vincent Ponka’s review of frogments form the frag pool (Broken Pencil)
*****
with wax
Toronto: Coach House Books, 2003.
available for order here
“derek beaulieu’s with wax is language stuffed with its own stuff. History is still hot with ink and determined to track, map and print wherever it can stamp its boots. It understands its own fibres and surfaces, leaves its mark both on the page and in the grooves of its own moveable type. Watch your floors and walls, these words leak everywhere.” — Larissa Lai
