Archives for category: poetics
Lori Emerson and I are proud to have edited Writing Surfaces: Selected Fiction of John Riddell through Wilfrid Laurier University Press. Copies are now available to order through your local independent bookstore.
For the last two years I have posted my “most engaging books” list (2011′s list, 2010′s list) with a selection of what i considered the most fascinating / useful / generative books of the year. Seek out these volumes, every one will reward the search (and your local, independent, bookstore can help…). This is the cream of the crop for 2012:
Jaap Blonk Traces of Speech / Sprachspuren. (Berlin: Hybriden-Verlag.)
Amaranth Borsuk. Handiwork. (New York: Slope.)
Amaranth Borsuk and Brad Bouse. Between Page and Screen. (Los Angeles: Siglio.)
Sophie Calle. The Address Book. (Los Angeles: Siglio.)
Natalie Czech. I have nothing to say. Only to show.(Leipzig: Spector Books)
Johanna Drucker. Druckworks: 40 years of Books and Projects. (Chicago: Columbia College)
Craig Dworkin, Simon Morris and Nick Thurston. Do or DIY. (York: information as material.)
Emma Healey. Begin with the End in Mind. (Winnipeg: Arbeiter Ring.)
Dennis Lee. testament. (Toronto: House of Anansi.)
Edouard Leve. Autoportrait. trans. Lorin Stein (London: Dalkey Archive Press.)
Silvio Lorusso and Sebastian Schmieg. 56 Broken Kindle Screens. (print on demand.)
Jena Osman. Public Figures. (Middletown: Wesleyan UP)
Tom Phillips. A Humument. 5th edition (London: Thames and Hudson.)
Nicola Simpson, ed. Notes from the Cosmic Typewriter: The Life and Work of Dom Sylvester Houédard. (London: Occasional Papers)
Barrie Tullett. A Poem to Phillip Glass. 2nd edition. (York: The Caseroom Press.)
Seen of the Crime: essays on conceptual writing [PDF] is now online through ubuweb (and thank you so much to Snare Books for the original edition):
The publication of bill bissett’s Rush: what fuckan theory; a study uv language in 1972 firmly ushered Canadian poetics into the postmodern era. Out of print for 40 years – and reissued here complete with an interview with bissett about the book’s creation and a critical afterword by derek beaulieu and Gregory Betts – Rush embodies a collagist, multi-conscious approach to art that recognizes no division between the work and the world, the author and his sexuality, his breath, his influences; the theory and the practice. Arguing that “a new line has started,” Rush captures the urgency of a new model of production that resists the closure and mastery of any one mind. It is an elegant rejection of aesthetic ego and all presumptions of authority. Rush: what fuckan theory; a study uv language is a vital, vocal protest against business as usual and the exploitation of the individual from one of Canada’s most important avant-garde poets.
Jeroen Nieuwland has just reviewed seen of the crime at his blog transversalinflections and expanded on this discussions here. More information on seen of the crime, including ordering information, can be found here.
rob mclennan’s above/ground press has just published
Last December I posted my “most engaging books of 2010” list with 13 books of poetry, 2 of fiction, 2 of theory and 2 collecteds … this year the field consisted of a vastly different array of “most engaging” books. This is the cream of the crop for 2011:
POETRY:
Baum, Erica. Dog Ear. Brooklyn: Ugly Duckling, 2011.
Bergvall, Caroline. Meddle English. New York: Nightboat, 2011.
Dworkin, Craig. Motes. New York: Roof Books, 2011.
Fitterman, Robert. Holocaust Museum. London: Veer, 2011.
Place, Vanessa. Tragodia 2: Statement of the Case and Tragodia 3: Argument. Los Angeles: Blanc Press, 2011.
CRITICISM / ETC
Bernstein, Charles. Attack of the Difficult Poems. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011.
Brotchie, Alastair. Alfred Jarry: A Pataphysical Life. Cambridge: MIT, 2011.
Dworkin, Craig and Kenneth Goldsmith. Against Expression: An Anthology of Conceptual Writing. Evanston: Northwestern UP, 2011.
Gammel, Irene and Suzanne Zelazo, eds. Body Sweats: The Uncensored writings of Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven. Cambridge: MIT, 2011.
Goldsmith, Kenneth. Uncreative Writing. New York: Columbia UP, 2011.
Norddahl, Eirikur Orn. Booby, be Quiet! Helsinki: poesia, 2011.
RE-ISSUES (each of which are finally back in print this year)
McCaffery, Steve. Panopticon. Toronto: Bookthug, 2011.
Moure, Erin. Pillage Laud. Toronto: Bookthug, 2011.
Porter, Bern. Found Poems. New York: Nightboat, 2011.
Rinne, Cia. Zaroum. Reims: le clou dans le fer, 2011.
Robertson, Lisa. Occasional Work and Seven Walks from the Office of Soft Architecture. Toronto: Coach House, 2011.
As part of my on-going “Abstract Language” column at Abstract Comics: The Blog, this month I discuss ottar ormstad’s 2007 op art visual poetry suite bokstavteppekatalogen.
