Poetry. "A CAST OF TENS maps the reversals in the human mind - in words, sequences, embedded myths and unshakable stories. The effect is breathtaking, with stark topography and dangerous structure" -Susan Smith Nash.

A Cast of Tens

Literature & Fiction

Bromige, David

Poetry

Avec Books

Poetry. Written in alternating sections of poetry and short prose pieces, THE LOCALITY PRINCIPLE is, on one level, a perceptive and often wryly humorous account of a traveler's confusion and dislocation. In London, a narrator, presumably the author, is living on a street named after a nonexistent park, next to a garden he can see from a window but has no access to--a garden tended by a bizarrely ineffectual group of men and women who could be gardeners or possibly inmates from a local asylum. But Waldrop's is role as a displaced observer also provides the opportunity for a series of reflections on deeper subjects, such as concept of the soul, and the fact of his own mortality. Overseeing it all is the unforgettable, impassive Pee-Paws, a resident cat that spends night after night staring into the blazing fireplace: "Her response to the fire, I come to realize, is more complete than mine...to her it is obviously a source of the most profound feelings, feelings I can only guess at...mystical feelings." It is those "mystical feelings" that indicate the terrain which the traveler in The Locality Principle must finally navigate and which bring the book to its subtle but lovely conclusion.

The Locality Principle

Waldrop, Keith

Poetry. "If poems can be profoundly emotional - illuminating the persistently difficult zero of experience - these poems are. Precise, compelling, moving, simple, yet in places skirting the edges of what can be said, the writing in SYMMETRY feels absolutely necessary. Its toughness, honesty and eyes-open confrontation with the unnameable may make you weep"-Norman Fischer.

Symmetry

Moriarty, Laura

Channel-Surfing the Apocalypse

Nash, Susan Smith

Fiction. "THE SILHOUETTE OF THE BRIDGE (Memory Stand-ins) is a beautifully spare and inventive work of reflection on the elusive nature of memory, perception and experience. As we would expect from Keith Waldrop, it is suffused with a particular humanity and an appreciation for the absurd, even the grotesque, in daily life. The rhythmic apposition of prose and poetry brings to mind the freedom, alertness and quality of distillation in Basho's classic travel sketches. With his quietly precise sense of modulation and his unerring gaze, Waldrop remains one of the vital and requisite, semi-secret presences in American letters" - Michael Palmer.

The Silhouette of The Bridge (Memory Stand-Ins)

An anthology of contemporary, innovative poetry and prose.

An Avec Sampler #2

Poetry. With voices of joy, triumph, comaraderie and anarchy, Elizabeth Treadwell's utopian democracy opens a new door into the overlooked corners of world -- a world in which women have dignity, honor and aplomb, and where the disenfranchised have intelligence and spunk. Her use of language is nothing short of heart-stopping, and the conversations that create the polyphonies are restless, constructivist, and dream-inspiring. The stories are funny and engaging -- scenes from the barrios, psychiatric wards, dorms, small towns, cities, and grandma's houses we all know, love, and sometimes fear. Comfortable yet edgy, always utterly intelligent -- POPULACE is utterly irresistible -- Susan Smith Nash.

Populace

Treadwell, Elizabeth

Series/Mnemonic

Devore, Trane

Fiction. Gad Holander's WALSERIAN WALTZES is a sequence of meditations on madness, writing, death, and identity. Focusing on a character split between the first-person singular pronoun and his own name -- a character who may or may not be dead and may or may not be insane, a character whose goal is to become a 'self-made failure' -- Hollander skillfully leads us to contemplate the paradoxical trajectories of language, the subjective and objective worlds it seems to create and destroy. Anyone looking for fiction that combines the compressed and elusive qualities of poetry with the abstract resonance of philosophy will find WALSERIAN WALTZES a richly satisfying experience -- Stephen-Paul Martin.

Walserian Waltzes

Hollander, Gad

Poetry. SEMIRAMIS IF I REMEMBER is a quietly remarkable meditation on life and death. Poet Keith Waldrup has seen much of both, and here turns his attention to all that can get lost in living, attempting to evoke and remember what remains. Waldrup's sixteenth book of poetry offers the reader instants from the whole life of the poet, from his earliest childhood memories and encounters with the possibilities of language to his later years of reflections, dreams, and vigorous struggles with darkness. With their references to the gothic and a pervasive recognition of absence, these are haunted poems. "One of the most important writers, translators and publishers of avant-garde literature in our time" - Publishers Weekly. Among the many books by Keith Waldrup available from SPD is the recent HAUNT.

Semiramis If I Remember (Self-Portrait as Mask)

Contemporary

See the best price to sell, buy or rent books by the Avec Books publisher. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Avec Books