Zemborain, Lila. Mauve Sea-Orchids/Malvas orquídeas mel mar. Belladonna Books, 2007.
Few books are this arresting both in content and physicality. The facing-page Spanish translations of these center-justified poems convey a complete balance of instinct and intellect. The scientific becomes lyric and the lyric becomes scientific in a way that points toward a sense of beauty that readers have been taught to mistrust. These poems engage language as a stimulus so that reading becomes an act of substantive beauty.
Lurie, Alison. Familiar Spirits: A Memoir of James Merrill and David Jackson. Penguin Books, 2001.
In her introduction, Alison Lurie explains the difference between biography and memoir, admitting that a memoir “cannot be the whole truth. Memory distorts, no matter how hard you try to hang the picture straight.” Lurie, a novelist, was a close friend of Merrill and Jackson, and the result of her subjectivity is as sensitive as it is informative. Lines like “The 1950s and early 1960s were a good time for David and Jimmy” emerge from this privileged place in their narrative, which focuses much on their interest in the occult and their supposed communication with ghosts and spirits—among them: Nabakov and Yeats. This obsession played heavily into Merrill’s work, especially The Changing Light at Sandover, as well as his personal life and relationships, and serves to shape this memoir into an intriguing and mesmerizing book.
Four New Books in the Collection
Shepherd, Reginald: Editor. Lyric Postmodernisms: An Anthology of Contemporary Innovative Poetries. Counterpath Press, 2008.
This anthology, whose self-titled panel was a large draw for those at the 2008 AWP conference interested in non-traditional poetry, contains work by Bruce Beasley, Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge, Forrest Gander, Peter Gizzi, Brenda Hillman, Timothy Liu, Nathaniel Mackey, Bin Ramke, Donald Revell, Cole Swensen, Rosmarie Waldrop and twelve others. Each poet’s section starts with a poetic statement about the anthology’s subject matter: the intersection of lyricism and avant-garde experimentation. These poems toy with ideas of subjectivity, narrative, and truth in a way that might interest, if not satisfy, both ends of the “traditional” and “experimental” spectrum.
Torres, Edwin. The PoPedology of an Ambient Language. Atelos, 2007.
Torres is interested in phonetic translation as a way to explore the intersection of language and “coloratura” and does not shy away from bold typeface as a way to equally privilege many of language’s cameo’s in a day-to-day context: WIN! WIN! MONEY! ESTA CHICA! MUCHO BONITA! Torres is a Nuyorican multimedia slam poet whose multilayered work is ably represented by Atelos’ Press’ unconventional project. Atelos’ directors and editors are Lyn Hejinian and Travis Ortiz. All the works published as part of the Atelos project are commissioned specifically for it, and each is involved in some way with crossing traditional genre boundaries. Once complete, the Atelos project will consist of fifty volumes.
Explore the collection!
