Fiction. Poetry. Introduction by Susan McCabe. DIES: A SENTENCE by Vanessa Place is a 117-page, one-sentence novel about the coils of language and war, unspooled in the dying breath of a pre- and post-scient World War I soldier. John Witte of the Northwest Review calls DIES, "a marvel of sustained synergy," author Jim Krusoe describes the book as "dizzyingly complex, compound, and full of miraculous side trips as well," and novelist Doug Nufer heralds DIES as a "delightful tour de force of a hopelessly grim predicament." Place obliterates the line between victim and perpetrator, subject and object, rendering this human truth: in the death sentence of life, there is still beauty. "Roll over, dear Whitman," says Susan McCabe in her Introduction, "Here's our new original."

Dies: A Sentence

Literature & Fiction

Place, Vanessa

United States

Les Figues Press

Poetry. Gay and Lesbian Studies. What words made this world of captivity and extinction? If written language is a biological adaptation, how can a text reshape the environment? These are the questions at the heart of GRAMMAR OF THE CAGE, a startling first collection of poetry by Pam Ore. The Compulsive Reader calls Ore "a poet of great promise," and poet Eloise Klein Healy says she has found Ore's book "haunting but necessary...a stunning debut collection." GRAMMAR OF THE CAGE is clean and heartbreaking as a bone, and yet, as poet Ingrid Wendt writes in her Introduction, "[like] Emily Dickinson, Ore's 'business' is 'to sing.' And sing she does."

GRAMMAR OF THE CAGE

Ore, Pam

Poetry

Fiction. REQUIEM by Teresa Carmody is a "folk opera, a lament for the unexamined life," writes editor and author David Ulin in his Introduction. In this short collection of fiction, a lonely man plainchants for the waitress he once stalked, a sonless father serenades a fatherless son, and a bereft family gathers to bury a parent, providing an aching chorus of what is left. Carmody uses Biblical language to pierce the callous and bruised souls of these lost, and sometimes found, small-town Michiganders. In her raw spare stories, Carmody creates, says novelist, essayist and poet Carol Muske-Dukes, "a voice out of the backyard burning bush, a Midwest scriptural mist: frank, fierce and fidgety, and most emphatically her own."

REQUIEM

Carmody, Teresa

Contemporary

Poetry. Fantasy, fear, and freedom all play parts in A STORY OF WITCHERY, a book-length narrative poem by Jennifer Calkins, and illustrated by Sarah Lane. Here we meet Emily, our "small and weedy" protagonist, an orphan complicit (perhaps) in her own abandonment, and who is caught up, as poet Amy Gerstler writes in her Introduction, in a story "entwined with science facts and twisted clinical fictions." In language rolling and tripping with spare precision, Calkins makes a modern pilgrim progress into the imagination and the dark world of medicine. Rich and haunting images create an seemingly familiar environment which, like the internal landscape of the protagonist, dissolves only to reform, until finally resolving into a healed whole.

A STORY OF WITCHERY

Calkins, Jennifer

Poetry. INCH AEONS is a meditation on the form of meaning, the nature of nature, and the locality of tradition in an over-wired-world. Here, award-winning poet Nuala Archer adopts, breaks and recreates the limits of haiku, evoking moments of collision and convergence, from "Beyond Conception- / Without Regeneration- / Big Bang's Leave let Be" to "Am-Is-Are-Was-Were- / Has-Have-Had-Do-Does-Did-Shall- / Should-Can-Could-Will-Would-." Poet Juliet Patterson calls INCH AEONS "a complex and wondrous book," while poet Pam Ore says the poems are "like starlight, resonat[ing] with the brightness of an original violence, cooling-healing and coalescing into the word." Published as part of the TrenchArt Casements series, INCH AEONS includes inside illustrations by Japanese artist Tamzo and visual art (back cover) by American artist Molly Corey.

INCH AEONS (Casements Series)

Archer, Nuala

Drama. Sissy Boyd's IN THE PLAIN TURN OF THE BODY MAKE A SENTENCE contains two shorter plays, "Green Shoes", and "Then. The Body." "Green Shoes" was first presented in Silverlake, California in 2001, when it was an LA Weekly Pick of the Week. From "Green Shoes:" "Malvina lost her shoes. After she realized it she let goof Howard's hand. She just stood then, and he couldn't convince her to come away. He couldn't console her with the fact that the shoes were somewhere, not far away. It made no difference ot her. She asked Howard to describe the shoes, as though she'd never seen them." "Boyds two plays represent a serious investigation of form and technique. The delicacy and spirit of this writing is evident in each scene and on each page; a luminous and exact sense of how theatre actually works in three dimensional space."-John Steppling.

IN THE PLAIN TURN OF THE BODY MAKE A SENTENCE: TWO PLAYS BY SISSY BOYD

Boyd, Sissy

Dramas & Plays

Fiction. "TRIBULATIONS OF A WESTERNER IN THE WESTERN WORLD is a grand tour of a bland realm, framed by a slideshow and narrated by a cranky viewer in a running-off-at-the-mind commentary that veers from cynical to silly to wise to sick. Vincent Dachy presents the new Western Everyman as an engaging if solipsistic armchair tour guide, whose complex musings perform a strangely political indictment of a society in such an advanced state of decay, all one can do is sit and watch."&mdash;Doug Nufer TRIBULATIONS is published as part of the TrenchArt: Casements Series, with an Introduction by Mary Burger and photographs by the author. Cover art by C. Wertheim, The Institute For Figuring.

Tribulations of a Westerner in the Western World

Dachy, Vincent

Poetry. +|`me'S-pace, doc. 001.b is book 1, volume 2 of a wider, ongoing project known as "For Love Alone" Christina'S-tead, a poetic enquiry into the current state of the English tongue. "In a time when many are questioning if we still need formalism and feminism, Wertheim's +|`me'S-pace, doc. 001.b is a spirited and fun defense of both. Written in part as a didactic instructional manual that cannot keep itself from constantly going astray into beautiful and challenging language play, this is a book that asks crucial questions and reconfigures recent histories. It is essential for its arguments. But even more, it is fun to read for its word play"—Juliana Spahr. Introduction by Dodie Bellamy and art by Lisa Darms.

+|'me'S-pace (Trenchart: the Casements Series)

Wertheim, Christine

Poetry. Fiction. Literary Nonfiction. Art. THE /N/OULIPIAN ANALECTS is an alphabetical survey of constrained writing in modern English. Editors Wertheim and Viegener gathered and arranged critical and creative pieces from some of the most prominent and influential constraint-based writers—Caroline Bergvall, Christian Bök, Johanna Drucker, Paul Fournel, Jen Hofer, Tan Lin, Bernadette Mayer, Ian Monk, Joseph Mosconi, Harryette Mullen, Doug Nufer, Vanessa Place, Janet Sarbanes, Juliana Spahr, Brian Kim Stefans, Rodrigo Toscano, Matias Viegener, Christine Wertheim, Rob Wittig, Stephanie Young—adding the unknown variable n to the great legacy of Oulipo. The result: an excellent mix of introductory basics for those new to constraint-based writing, blended with in-depth exposition and critique for those already avid readers and writers. "An Alpha Bestiary of Exogenously Exotic Essays and Dazzlingly Delectable Design, Complexly Charismatic Constraints and Occasional Oulipian Outrages, Thoughtful Theoretical Threads and Lusicrously Ludic Limits, Gutsy Gender Gaiety and Dantesque destinies Detourned, Quixotic Queneau Quests and Cocky Combinatorial Collisions, Real Rubber Roses &amp; Radiantly Removed R's...What We Wanton Woeful Whimsical Wanderers Willingly Want."—Charles Bernstein

The /n/Oulipian Analects

Fiction. "Without words no objects without objects no words without the word as object without the object as word as the word is object is word. Virevolter—the thing turns on itself, and in the turning, turns. Stephanie Taylor's CHOP CHOP is the chronicle of an exhibition and the exhibition of a chronicle. It is a book. It is a demonstration. It is an aggregation that cannot exist other than it is, though as it is is entirely capable of transformation."—Vanessa Place

Chop Shop (Trenchart: the Parapet Series)

Taylor,Stephanie

Arts & Photography

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