Poetry. Art. "Tracing the development of Paul Klinger's work over the past decade (the many handmade/altered chapbooks collected in the Dusie catalog), one sees emerge a type of collage that, rather than being predicated solely on urban or commercial/mediated excess (a printed skin, as in the early collage works of the Modernists)—models a poetics analogued on the animality of reptile skin—the creature archive that intersects with pre/history, with spectral extinction, and with the conflicting memorials of settlement. For certainly Klinger's work is both a study in surfaces and creature-based constraint—a method which acts to expand presences in the room—and one wherein gaps in the rational, and on the page, come to signal those presences kept at the margins of the archive. Unlike the dynastic scribes of China who were charged with making sculptural rubbings as a way of transmitting official Imperial narratives, Klinger's treatment of the historical markers of Texas (which tilts toward the coast) works reverse colonially—an anti-extinction sieve—to reveal &amp; preserve presences (like the alligator it takes for its mascot) overprinted in conquest. As the rubbings themselves add an extra dimensional texture to the page, RUBBLE PAPER, PAPER RUBBLE presents a memorial dimension outside of official transmission. In this sense, Klinger's work represents not only an expansion of the archive of place but a break-out of presences from what seemed so set in stone."—Ash Smith "RUBBLE PAPER, PAPER RUBBLE was composed by visiting historical markers throughout southeast Texas and making graphite rubbings from the embossed text. At its heart, the project uses poetry to make and unmake official local histories. The book also contains color plates featuring a series of alligator prints I made while in the field, and another alligator print is featured on the cover. These are prints made directly from the animal's body, a kind of swamp treatment of gyotaku printing. The rubbings are visual poems and landscapes that explore the musicality of the outside archive. While tracing the map of state historical markers to chart an itinerary, I started building strands of meaning in the markers I sought out. Transportation itself factored into the structure of the book. It's a 'roadside' book that captures voices only as they are passing through and attempts, out of that eavesdropping, to create a grammar of place."—Paul Klinger, from his "Artist's Statement"

Rubble Paper, Paper Rubble

Literature & Fiction

Klinger, Paul

Poetry

Further Other Book Works

Poetry. "The compact, often uncannily startling poems in Sarah Campbell's WE USED TO BE GENERALS are precisely composed language acts set at cocked angles. Sudden as aphorisms, they unsteady the mind in order to open it to myriad particular yet paradoxical shock-effects in our persistently contemporary world."—Susan Howe "Each turn of phrase is a phrase turned in on itself, on ourselves; we are apart from the throng, but a part of it. These stunning, terse poems, 'like small incendiary device[s],' threaten to explode our dearly-held notions of individuality and community, making room for a world in which we are allowed to say, and mean, and perhaps even be, two things at once."—Sasha Steensen "Every word herein is detail. Every detail is the whole. 'Enough was never enough'—&amp; our attention is maintained at a point of intense energy &amp; acutely skilled quiet. I read this book &amp; when I went to bed that night I read the afterimages of Campbell's poems inside my eyes."—Pattie McCarthy

We Used to Be Generals

Campbell, Sarah

Poetry. Carter Smith's first full length collection of poetry is a typewriter book, first published serially in 20 letter pressed envelopes. Featuring letter pressed covers, with cover typewriter art by Anni Albers.

Rounds

Smith, Carter

Poetry. Art. Collaboration. About her collaboration with Robert Glück, Kathleen Fraser writes, "IN COMMEMORATION OF THE VISIT OF FOREIGN COMMERCIAL REPRESENTATIVES TO JAPAN, 1947 is a small picture book assembled as a memento of Japan's finest tourist sites, to be given to their new allies (and recent adversaries). I discovered the book when my friend Bob Glück sent me to an Asian antique store, where he thought I might find 'little things' for Christmas gifts. Seeing the book in the $1 box, I bought a copy and began to write a poem sequence based on each of the photos and their captions, not knowing that Bob had also bought this book and was writing his own version from the same collection of pictures." Featuring color reproductions of the entire postcard book.

In Commemoration of the Visit

Glück, Robert

FRASER, Kathleen

Poetry. "We get a seat in a booth. All the waitresses know Jack. None of them know me. As a matter of fact, all the cooks know Jack too. We sit. We gossip. We talk about poetry. I like thinking of Jack saying, 'I was reading ______' s poems and enjoying the hell out of them.' We eat. I always (always) get a short stack of blueberry pancakes and a side of bacon. Tea. Jack gets coffee, and sometimes bacon. Usually eggs. Some kind of bread. He makes a sandwich with biscuit, butter, bacon, and jelly. I like remembering him scooping butter from the pat onto a knife and then straight into his mouth. Sometimes we look at the art on the walls. Sometimes a fellow birdwatcher stops by the table to chat about birds with Jack. Sometimes I go into the Dot's Diner bathroom and wonder why it has two toilets, not in stalls, side by side. Then Jack reaches for the plastic bag and raises his eyebrows, smiles. 'Shall we write some poems?' Yes, we shall. We make up the rules for the writing of two poems and then trade the pads back and forth until each person's page is more or less full. Jack doesn't know this, but I usually take the west- facing side of the booth so that I can look out at the mountains while we write."—Elizabeth Robinson

Dot's Diner

Collum, Jack

Robinson, Elizabeth