My review of BLUE LYRE BY JEFFREY CYPHERS WRIGHT

 

The Romantic Surrealist’s Ear —A Review of Blue Lyre by Jeffrey Cyphers Wright

by Larissa Shmailo.

The second-best thing I like about Blue Lyre, Jeff Wright’s Kathy Acker Award-winning book, is that I can’t pigeonhole the voice, although a surrealist Frank O’Hara with a richer metaphoric lexicon comes to mind. Kinda. For O’Hara, the part where the everyday meets the unexpected trope. For surrealism, Wright’s way with original images and their juxtapositions. For example, these lines from Wright’s invocation of his muse:

.

I pick up some words

and toss them in the air

to see if you pay any mind.

Just to see

if your breath catches fire.

                        —“Begging for It”

.

Wright is a self-proclaimed New Romantic, and perhaps that’s what has been missing from surrealism to date: there is a yearning in these poems with their diamond glitter on the beach that complements the surrealist’s art as it jumpstarts romanticism. Unusual language meets love, and poetic devices are freed from their leashes:

.

Take me to your navel.

“Aye aye, Capitan.”

. . .

Ready for the Canon

to come on.

And by the way, your clown

costume becomes you.

“Aye aye capstan.” Let me

hoist you from the depths.

A winch I’ll be for my wench.”

—“Titania’s Tool”

.

What I like best about Wright’s work is reading it aloud. Live Mag! editor Wright is a known New York impresario of spoken word and the oral tradition, and Blue Lyre’s jazzy rhythms attest to his ear. No mushiness here: The line breaks are crisp as ice and right:

.

            Black plums from Madame X

            conspire on the sill.

. . .

            Following the choir.

            Listening to the “new” air sound.

            Looking for a “new” word order.

                                    —“Thimblerig”

 .

Like a wise Zen teacher, Wright offers his share of koans in Blue Lyre: “Now only ashes remember / how many ways we burned”; and “Always the sky / has the last say” and the brilliantly titled “(B)utterfly)”:

.

            Yeah, well,

            My heart’s a reed

this poem

blows through.

—    “(B)utterfly”

.

With its expansive minimalism, surrealistic romanticism, and page-meets-stage poetry, Blue Lyre would clearly win the approval of Jeff Wright’s muse and, most likely, yours as well.

.You can find the book here: https://www.dosmadres.com/shop/blue-lyre-by-jeffrey-cyphers-wright/

.Larissa Shmailo is a poet, novelist, translator, editor, and critic. Her latest novel is Sly Bang.

SLY BANG PARTY NEXT WEEK MARCH 6!

For immediate release
Contact: Sliding Scale
slidingsca@aol.com
646-326-9816

SLY BANG BOOK RELEASE PARTY
Jefferson Market Library
425 Avenue of the Americas at West 10th Street
March 6 at 6:00 P.M.
FREE!

New York City. On March 6, an elite group of poets and writers will convene to celebrate Larissa Shmailo’s new novel, Sly Bang. Called “astounding,” “genre-bending,” and “like nothing else,” Shmailo’s second novel has been recommended to readers who like Gogol, Kafka, Burroughs (“if you reverse the genders”), and a wild literary ride.

The notables assembling for the evening at the historic Jefferson Market Library will read from Sly Bang and respond with readings of their own work. Appearing will be Annie Finch (Spells: New and Selected Poems), Trace Peterson (EOAGH), Thaddeus Rutkowski (Haywire), Marc Vincenz(MadHat)Jeff Wright (Kathy Acker Award). Emceeing the night will be Ron Kolm of the Unbearables and the Fales Collection of the New York University Library. Bios of the readers and the event flyer follow.

Sly Bang is available from Amazon, where it is garnering excellent reader reviews, and from the publisher Spuyten Duyvil at Sly Bang. Copies of Sly Bang will also be available at the book party March 6.

Author Larissa Shmailo is a poet, novelist, translator, editor, and critic. Her new novel is Sly Bang; her first novel is Patient Women. Her poetry collections are Medusa’s Country, #specialcharacters, In Paran, A Cure for Suicide, and Fib Sequence. Her poetry albums are The No-Net World and Exorcism, for which she won the New Century Best Spoken Word Album award. Shmailo is the original English-language translator of the first Futurist opera Victory over the Sun by Alexei Kruchenych, performed at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and theaters and universities worldwide. Shmailo also edited the online anthology Twenty-first Century Russian Poetry.

Annie Finch’s most recent books are Spells: New and Selected Poems (Wesleyan) and Measure for Measure (Random House/Everymans). Her poetry has been performed at Carnegie Hall and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, installed in the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, and published in Poetry, Paris Review, The New York Times, and The Penguin Book of Twentieth-Century American Poetry. A graduate of Yale with a Ph.D. from Stanford, she teaches Five Directions Workshops and performs Poetry Witch Ritual Theater. Forthcoming in 2019 are The Poetry Witch Book of Spells (Wesleyan) and the anthology Choice Words: Writers on Abortion (Haymarket).

Ron Kolm (emcee) is an editor of the 6th Unbearables anthology, From Somewhere to Nowhere: The End of the American Dream. He is a contributing editor of Sensitive Skin magazine. Ron is the author of Divine Comedy, Suburban Ambush, Night Shift and A Change in the Weather. He's had work in Flapperhouse, Great Weather for Media, the Resist Much / Obey Little: Inaugural Poems to the Resistance anthology, Maintenant, Live Mag!, Local Knowledge, The Opiate and the Outlaw Bible of American Poetry. Ron’s papers were purchased by the New York University library, where they’ve been catalogued in the Fales Collection.

Trace Peterson is a trans woman poet critic. Author of Since I Moved In (Chax Press, 2007), she is also founding editor and publisher of EOAGH, which has won two Lambda Literary Awards, including the first given in transgender poetry. She is coeditor of the anthology Troubling the Line: Trans and Genderqueer Poetry and Poetics (Nightboat Books, 2013) and coeditor of Arrive on Wave: Collected Poems of Gil Ott (Chax Press, 2016). Her second full-length book of poems is forthcoming from Ahsahta Press in 2020.

Thaddeus Rutkowski is the author of six books, most recently Border Crossings, a poetry collection. His novel Haywire won the Asian American Writers Workshop’s members’ choice award, and his memoir Guess and Check won the Electronic Literature bronze award for multicultural fiction. He teaches at Medgar Evers College, Sarah Lawrence College, and the West Side YMCA, and is a staff copy editor for Artforum magazine. He received a fiction writing fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts.

Marc Vincenz’s tenth collection of poetry is Leaning into the Infinite. He has translated many Romanian-, French- and German-language poets, including Herman Hesse Prize winner, Klaus Merz. He is Executive Editor of MadHat Press and serves on the editorial boards of Plume and Fulcrum.

Jeffrey Cyphers Wright is a publisher, critic, eco-activist, artist, impresario, and poet. He is the author of 16 books of verse, including Blue Lyre from Dos Madres Press, and Fake Lies from Fell Swoop. He received an MFA in Poetry from Brooklyn College after studying with Allen Ginsberg. Currently, Wright stages events at KGB Lit Bar, Howl! Happening, and La MaMa ETC in NYC, in conjunction with his art and poetry journal, Live Mag! He is a regular contributor to American Book Review and ArtNexus. He is a Kathy Acker Award recipient and Pushcart Prize nominee for 2018.

Videography will be by Mitch Corber for the television show Poetry Thin Air

Spuyten Duyvil would like to thank the Jefferson Market Library and New York Public Library Programs for their generous support hosting the Sly Bang Book Release Party.

St. Petersburg Review at KGB tomorrow!

A METONYMY

The Wall is a metonymy for institutional racism and atrocities like the policy of family separation. Ditto Trump's national emergency, which is based on wholesale lies that everyone, Trump supporters included, knows are lies. These lies are now the basis for a radical, largely unlimited expansion of presidential power. If your antennae aren't twitching grave danger right now, you don't know history, or haven't learned from it.

AWP PORTLAND OFFSITE: UNLIKELY BOOKS AND RIGOROUS

St. Petersburg Review Issue 9 Launch!

Rope

When I watched the coverage of the 2012 Republican Convention, I saw Obama posters with thick nooses saying "Rope." I also saw the president depicted as a monkey. "This is the Tea Party, the lunatic fringe," I thought (it *was* 2012). How naive I was. I am a Manhattan dweller, a writer, surrounded by all nations jubilantly making art; I was concerned mostly by the prejudice against mentally ill people that directly affected me. These past two years have schooled me about what we are up against: 35 percent of our nation, 100 million people, who hold their noses or not, but support Trump because he and they are racists. And tens of millions who call racism good fun, or heritage. So, I'm learning. Because I have skin in the game -- as long as there are people wearing black face, there will also be people like Trump mocking me, discriminating against us all.

SLY BANG PRESS RELEASE

For immediate release
Contact: Sliding Scale
646-326-9816

SLY BANG BOOK RELEASE PARTY
Jefferson Market Library
425 Avenue of the Americas at West 10th Street
March 6 at 6:00 P.M.
FREE!

New York City. On March 6, an elite group of poets and writers will convene to celebrate Larissa Shmailo’s new novel, Sly Bang. Called “astounding,” “genre-bending,” and “like nothing else,” Shmailo’s second novel has been recommended to readers who like Gogol, Kafka, Burroughs (“if you reverse the genders”), and a wild literary ride.

The notables assembling for the evening at the historic Jefferson Market Library will read from Sly Bang and respond with readings of their own work. Appearing will be Annie Finch (Spells: New and Selected Poems), Trace Peterson (EOAGH),Thaddeus Rutkowski (Haywire), Marc Vincenz(MadHat), and Jeff Wright (Kathy Acker Award). Emceeing the night will be Ron Kolm of the Unbearables and the Fales Collection of the New York University Library. Bios of the readers and event flyer follow.

Sly Bang is available from Amazon, where it has garnered excellent reader reviews, and from the publisher Spuyten Duyvil. Copies of Sly Bangwill also be available at the book party March 6.

Author Larissa Shmailo is a poet, novelist, translator, editor, and critic. Her new novel is Sly Bang; her first novel is Patient Women. Her poetry collections are Medusa’s Country,#specialcharacters, In Paran, A Cure for Suicide, and Fib Sequence . Her poetry albums areThe No-Net World and Exorcism, for which she won the New Century Best Spoken Word Album award. Shmailo is the original English-language translator of the first Futurist opera Victory over the Sun by Alexei Kruchenych, performed at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and theaters and universities worldwide. Shmailo also edited the online anthology Twenty-first Century Russian Poetry. 

Annie Finch’s most recent books are Spells: New and Selected Poems (Wesleyan) and Measure for Measure (Random House/Everymans). Her poetry has been performed at Carnegie Hall and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, installed in the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, and published in Poetry, Paris Review, The New York Times, and The Penguin Book of Twentieth-Century American Poetry. A graduate of Yale with a Ph.D. from Stanford, she teaches Five Directions Workshops and performs Poetry Witch Ritual Theater. Forthcoming in 2019 are The Poetry Witch Book of Spells (Wesleyan) and the anthology Choice Words: Writers on Abortion (Haymarket).

Ron Kolm (emcee) is an editor of the 6th Unbearables anthology, From Somewhere to Nowhere: The End of the American Dream. He is a contributing editor of Sensitive Skin magazine. Ron is the author of Divine Comedy, Suburban Ambush, Night Shift and A Change in the Weather. He's had work in Flapperhouse, Great Weather for Media, the Resist Much / Obey Little: Inaugural Poems to the Resistance anthology, Maintenant, Live Mag!, Local Knowledge, The Opiate and the Outlaw Bible of American Poetry. Ron’s papers were purchased by the New York University library, where they’ve been catalogued in the Fales Collection.

Trace Peterson is a trans woman poet critic. Author of Since I Moved In (Chax Press, 2007), she is also founding editor and publisher of EOAGH, which has won two Lambda Literary Awards, including the first given in transgender poetry. She is coeditor of the anthology Troubling the Line: Trans and Genderqueer Poetry and Poetics (Nightboat Books, 2013) and coeditor of Arrive on Wave: Collected Poems of Gil Ott (Chax Press, 2016). Her second full-length book of poems is forthcoming from Ahsahta Press in 2020.

Thaddeus Rutkowski is the author of six books, most recently Border Crossings, a poetry collection. His novel Haywire won the Asian American Writers Workshop’s members’ choice award, and his memoir Guess and Check won the Electronic Literature bronze award for multicultural fiction. He teaches at Medgar Evers College, Sarah Lawrence College, and the West Side YMCA, and is a staff copy editor for Artforum magazine. He received a fiction writing fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts.

Marc Vincenz’s tenth collection of poetry is Leaning into the Infinite. He has translated many Romanian-, French- and German-language poets, including Herman Hesse Prize winner, Klaus Merz. He is Executive Editor of MadHat Press and serves on the editorial boards of Plume and Fulcrum.

Jeffrey Cyphers Wright is a publisher, critic, eco-activist, artist, impresario, and poet. He is the author of 16 books of verse, including Blue Lyre from Dos Madres Press, and Fake Liesfrom Fell Swoop. He received an MFA in Poetry from Brooklyn College after studying with Allen Ginsberg. Currently, Wright stages events at KGB Lit Bar, Howl! Happening, and La MaMa ETC in NYC, in conjunction with his art and poetry journal, Live Mag! He is a regular contributor to American Book Review and ArtNexus. He is a Kathy Acker Award recipient and Pushcart Prize nominee for 2018. 

Videography will be by Mitch Corber for the television show Poetry Thin Air.

Spuyten Duyvil would like to thank the Jefferson Market Library and New York Public Library Programs for their generous support hosting the Sly Bang Book Release Party.
https://www.nypl.org/events/programs/2019/03/06/book-release-party-sly-bang-larissa-shmailo

PRAISE FOR LARISSA SHMAILO’S SLY BANG!

If you are looking for something to get out of your ordinary line of thinking, Larissa Shmailo’s Sly Bang ought to do the trick. The book is a psychological sci-fi filled with nonsensical gadgets, absurd dialogue, and all-out madness, a battle royale of good against evil, of womanhood against male perversion that follows William Burroughs’s Naked Lunch in reverse, if we consider the gender roles of the protagonists. Lovers of Nikolai Gogol’s Madman’s Diary and Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot and Franz Kafka’s stories will also enjoy this book, as opposed to religious and concrete minds who by all means should stay away from a book like this.

—Darryl Wawa

What do you do when there is an “army of serial killers, mad scientists, and ultrarich sociopaths” after you?
Why, you summon your alter, “Larissa Ekaterina Anastasia Nikolayevna Romanova, tsaritsa of all the Russias,” and embark upon Larissa Shmailo’s cornucopiac literary odyssey, Sly Bang, of course.
From Nietzsche’s “what doesn’t kill me makes me stronger” and Lady Gaga’s meat dress to sadistic cult leaders and space Nazis, this sci-fi fantasy thriller is chock-full of surprises at every turn. I mean, the lead character, Upper West Side, Manhattanite Nora, is a multiple personality FBI agent/possible alien with an affinity for serial killers who telepathically communicates with giant prehistoric birds, and as luck would have it, writes uncannily brilliant poetry (journal entries).
Yes.
There is a lot going on in this book.
In my opinion, the (quintessentially Shmailo) “Interlude” is where Sly Bang lives and breathes. It is the much anticipated doorway through which the reader officially exits suspended disbelief, and enters Nora’s world —her real world—and introduces, through beautifully crafted poems, the backstory of Nora; a tragic tale of horrific abuse, betrayal, and ultimately, survival.
This stretch of writing, which jets the reader back to World War II, Nora’s camp family history, is nothing short of masterful, and reminiscent of Shmailo’s previous offering, Patient Women. The poem “Warsaw Ghetto” itself is well worth the price of admission.
Generously infused throughout with humor, ebullient psychosexualism, and quasi-hypothetical political scenarios, this manic mind-trip, where alternate realities collide full-force culminating in orgasmic fits and fantastical flurries, Sly Bang is a bit like eating chocolate cake on a roller coaster. Crazy. Delicious. Chaos.

—K.R. Copeland

Sly Bang is a whirlwind. And if you are looking for a sedate involvement with linear literature, Sly Bang is not for you. This is the shock of the new in a whirlpool of the past. Just open the book and hang on. This is visceral energy in words.

—RW Spryszak

Larissa Shmailo's sci fi thriller Sly Bang is a twisted and compelling thrill ride of a novel that not only transcends the form of that literary genre— it blows it up. It's a novel about an attempt to destroy the universe by reverse engineering the Big Bang. It deals with taboo subjects and is raunchy. funny and brutally intense. I also like that's there's a character named Brave McQ.  

—Michael W McHugh aka McQ

Astounding! Will make you recalibrate the word “risk.”

—Maggie Balistreri

NEW DISPATCHES FROM THE POETRY WARS!

Proud to be a contributing editor to DISPATCHES FROM THE POETRY WARS - new Winter edition is here! Check out the ginormous index of anthologized writing!
DISPATCHES FROM THE POETRY WARS

Who Built the Starbucks Chain? (after Bertolt Brecht)

Who built the Starbucks chain?

Did Howard Schultz take the orders?
His name was on the board - did he froth the half-caf fraps,
drizzle the brew with caramel, write the names of
ill-tempered customers on cups? He "gave" benefits
while workers stood for double shifts -
did the barristas give something, too?
Did Schultz build the stores from brick, grow the beans?
Didn't thousands work for a little, or a lot,
less than their labor was worth
while Schultz skimmed the rest off the top,
like grande, venti foam?
it was Schultz, the latte Trump, who convinced America
that coffee should cost $8 a cup. Of course -
he did it all by himself, and by himself
took the tax breaks that would have paid
the barrista's health care and college
as a right, not a gift.
Why would he want a nation, needless and heedless,
if he can do it all alone?

SLY BANG Book Launch on WPIX Community Calendar!

Thanks, WPIX- New York channel 11!SLY BANG on NY Channel 11!

TOWARD A NEW NARRATIVE - SLY BANG

"TOWARD A NEW NARRATIVE: SLY BANG REWRITES, rethinks, and reimagines how we conceive of narrative. This slippery novel is a major step forward towards a radiant and explosive language. - Dean Kostos, Pierced by Night-colored Threads

MICHAEL McHUGH''S (McQ) REVIEW OF SLY BANG

Larissa Shmailo's sci fi thriller Sly Bang is a twisted and compelling thrill ride of a novel that not only transcends the form of that literary genre - it blows it up. It's a novel about an attempt to destroy the universe by reverse engineering the Big Bang. It deals with taboo subjects and is raunchy, funny and brutally intense. It's available on Amazon. Book release party at The Jefferson Library in NYC. I also like that's there's a character named Brave McQ. - Michael W McHugh aka McQ.

Exciting Review of SLY BANG by K.R.Copeland

Thrilled at this brilliant review of SLY BANG by critic Kimberly Rae Lorenz-Copeland:

What do you do when there is a, “Army of serial killers, mad scientists, and ultra rich sociopaths” after you?

Why, you summon your alter, “Larissa Ekaterina Anastasia Nikolayevna Romanova, tsaritsa of all the Russias,” and embark upon Larissa Shmailo’s cornucopiac literary odyssey, Sly Bang, of course.

From Nietzsche’s “what doesn’t kill me makes me stronger”, and Lady Gaga’s meat dress, to sadistic cult leaders and space Nazis, this sci-fi, fantasy, thriller, is chock-full of surprises at every turn. I mean, the lead character, Upper West Side, Manhattanite Nora, is a multiple personality FBI agent/possible alien, with an affinity for serial killers, who telepathically communicates with giant prehistoric birds, AND as luck would have it, writes uncannily brilliant poetry (journal entries).

Yes.

There is a LOT going on in this book.

In my opinion, the (quintessentially Shmailo) Interlude is where Sly Bang lives and breathes - It is the much anticipated doorway through which the reader officially exits suspended disbelief, and enters Nora’s world - her *real* world - introduces, through beautifully crafted poems, the backstory of Nora; a tragic tale of horrific abuse, betrayal, and ultimately, survival.

This stretch of writing - which jets the reader back to World War II, Nora’s camp family history, is nothing short of masterful, and reminiscent of Shmailo’s previous offering, Patient Women. The poem, Warsaw Ghetto, itself, is well worth the price of admission.

Generously infused throughout with humor, ebullient psychosexualism, and quasi-hypothetical political scenarios, this manic mind-trip, where alternate realities collide, full-force, culminating in orgasmic fits and fantastical flurries, Sly Bang, is a bit like eating chocolate cake on a roller coaster. Crazy. Delicious. Chaos.

K.R. Copeland - author of Love and Other Lethal Things

SLY BANG LAUNCH - SAVE THE DATE!

AWP PORTLAND EVENTS

Please add my events to your AWP schedule! Both happen Thursday, March 28.

12:00 pm to 1:15 pm
Portland Ballroom 256, Oregon Convention Center, Level 2	R214. The Critical Creative: The Editor-Poet. (Marc Vincenz, Larissa Shmailo, Michael Anania, Amy King, Kwame Dawes) This panel will offer an insiders' look into poetry editorship and publication from poets who edit prominent journals and presses. How do these tandem roles, poet and editor, influence one another? Do they detract from or enhance poetry publishing? Does the critical mind impede the creative mind or strengthen it? How? Are certain poetic schools favored? Where does preference end and narrowness begin? Panelists will offer real-life anecdotes and insights on poetry selection and editing.  Check here to add to my schedule
1:30 pm to 2:45 pm
B116, Oregon Convention Center, Level 1	R223. Hybrid Sex Writing: What's Your Position?. (Larissa Shmailo, Jonathan Penton, Thaddeus Rutkowski, Cecilia Tan, Erica Jong) In The History of Sexuality, Michel Foucault argues that sex was not repressed in past centuries, but codified. How does contemporary hybrid sex writing crack these codes? Is there a relationship between gender politics and hybrid writing? How does hybrid writing give voice to marginalized gender identities? What is hybrid ecstasy? Is there a special connection between transgressive sex and hybrid writing? Panelists will discuss these questions with a focus on 21st-century writers.

&

My love, I see myself in a fur coat lying face down, drunk,

on the floor of the subway train, one heel lost, & I feel a

hardened man raping me, my virgin soul frost, & awards

are easy, mama says, & they may pick and choose you, but,

they don’t know you, Ms. Boss, & my father says that I am

sexy & the time after that is lost & I know I am fat,

that I cost, & before she dies, mama says she wishes

I was never born, my death in my mother’s eyes, crossed,

but my love, see this chasm & wall here & be brave for me,

come swim the swamp around me & trust it is not within me,

or if it is, come love this swamp creature until it is drained,

and look at the dead in the moat, for here they will remain,

& sit here, still, with me & I will haltingly explain

I still love, beyond scars, beyond wounds, beyond pain

My "Best of 2018" Picks in Sensitive Skin!

The Sensitive Skin Best of 2018 issue is out! Thanks to publisher Bernard Meisler for including me!

SENSITIVESKINMAGAZINE.COM

Sensitive Skin Best of 2018 - The Editors - Reviews - Sensitive Skin Magazine

Welcome to the fourth (fifth?) annual Sensitive Skin Stuff We Liked From Last Year! Remember, it’s not limited to items that were released in 2018, just thangs we dug the most in 2018. Of course, there will be disagreement – you might love some of the below choices, you might hate some of them ....

Learn More

My Review of EDJU by RW Spryszak

The Surrealism of War, Politics, Religion and Everything Else

By Larissa Shmailo

RW Spryszak;s Edju is a compelling, thought-provoking read, possibly one of the best antiwar novels since Dalton Trumbo’s Johnny Got His Gun. Its eponymous unreliable narrator is certainly as odd as Trumbo’s and every bit as opinionated. Edju’s point of view is skewed, we suspect, but the surreal world he encounters is undeniably more so. Populated by fantastic saints, monstrous war machines, and fatalistic animate metaphors of death, the world of Edju threatens us with the core horror of humans systematically killing one another for questionable ideas.

Reading Edju, I saw elements of the original picaresque novel in the adventures of its Quixotic, but always truthful, protagonist. But his story—a hagiography, perhaps, if Edju’s time-warping memory serves— is a continuing exercise in excess, an attempt to trump absurdist and surrealist writing of past several centuries. There are loud shout outs to Gogol’s nose and Kharm’s corpses, and more than a few scenes that are reminiscent of Kafka and even an absurdist Robinson Crusoe.

All of this is done in a slow reveal—we learn the name of the narrator, an old man mocked by children only in the eighth chapter. We assume Edju is mad, hopelessly odd, a compulsive-obsessive religious fanatic, a kook who thinks his dead lover is strangely and selectively alive in a sack. As his Nordic world unfolds in subsequent chapters, we come to believe this limited being is the only sane man on his dystopic nation.

The central conceits of the novel, Edju’s windmills, are surreal metaphors for war and competition in reduction ad absurdem: war machines fueled by human bodies, a Mountain of Flesh all are eager to climb, factions absurdly fighting over table cloths which have become their last banners, a Maze of defense. The path to war is depicted accurately, starting with pamphlets and the rise of fascism and inevitably followed by

Leftist Agrarian Front. Rightist National Unity. Holy Orders of the Fist of God. The Liberal Party. The Conservative Party. Liberal Conservatives and Conservative Liberals. The Armed Hand of the Nation. Nuns. All armed. All vying for power

And:

Évitez les faux, they shouted. Libérez nos bébés, they called. N’accepte pas les substituts. It seemed like a full-scale rebellion was at hand. I had no idea if those phrases were in any way grammatical and correct. But in times of revolution even the commas get misplaced.

Religion fares no better than politics. In nomenclature reminiscent of David Foster Wallace’s Year of the Depends Undergarment, faith in Edju’s universe is represented by Bibliana, saint of headaches and hangovers, Our Lady That Didn’t Tumble, Saint Fomildehyde, and extremely peculiar paths to canonization.

The writing of Edju is synaesthetic and witty, replete with eyepopping detail, zinger similes, and wise one liners:

Death makes everyone an outcast.

.

There was a tan gray moon, a pure slice of venom in the blood, floating overhead.

Climbing up the em­bankment was a struggle, but her perfume reached out like a muscular ghost that held me close to its face of vapors. As wrong as elephants.

Left to the devices of nature all things decay. Why is this not the basis of the theory of everything they search for?

The rain fell so hard it opened graves.

.

If you are not them, you are the other. It’s in the Constitu­tion now.

Firing a gun is like fucking a ghost.

.

RW Spryszak’s unusual hero’s journey belongs on your reading list. Like many fine works that eptly mine and mime our culture, it is novel, in the first meaning of the word.

You can find the book here:

http://www.spuytenduyvil.net/edju.html

In-depth Interview about My #METOO Poem "&"

An in-depth interview about the emotional and creative process leading up to my poem, "&" which appeared in a recent edition of SHREW guest edited by Michael T. Young. Thanks to Christal Cooper for this kind write-up.

READ FULL INTERVIEW HERE

About this website

CHRISRICECOOPER.BLOGSPOT.COM

#55 Backstory of the Poem "&" by Larissa Shmailo

Chris Rice Cooper caccoop@aol.com https://www.facebook.com/car.cooper.7 *The images in this specific piece are granted...