24 Hour Air is a cycle of twenty-four prose poems that takes place on the scale of a mythic day. Documenting each hour in this day, the cycle depicts different zones of the writer's life. A painting studio, the sands of Fire Island, a childhood bedroom, a game of Tetris; the death of a father, the loss of lovers, life synchronized with and without friends. Rosenthalis' systematic approach, where each poem takes its title and imagery from another poem in the cycle, releases a psychosomatic painterliness that apprehends what one poem calls, in a tongue-in-cheek gesture towards Shakespearean philosophizing, "quintessence." The attention to detail in these internal still lifes becomes ultimately life-affirming: "As long as a length happens, like a sheer black stocking, anyone can try on in-ness, I think." This is a world of spit, semen, and tears. These poems veer at times absurd and enigmatic, mysterious and quizzical, through an awe-inspiring faith in the power of the imagination. Departing from the famed contemporary American painter Jennifer Bartlett's series of twenty-four paintings, on permanent display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 24 Hour Air moves beyond conventional ekphrasis to become its own sensual and idiosyncratic autobiographical work of art.

24 Hour Air

Rosenthalis, Nathaniel

Arts & Photography

[Pank]

Originally published as Esta Noche, El Gran Terremoto in 2018 by Ediciones Antílope, Tonight: The Great Earthquake explores the unresolvable relationship between catastrophe, uncertainty, and control. Set in a society that organizes its conduct and traditions around the inevitable-but unspecified-arrival of The Great Earthquake, the book centers on Diego Pyrite, a young man just hired as a motel receptionist. Diego's first on-the-job instructions make one thing very clear: no matter what, one room in the motel must always be left unoccupied and ready to receive a distinguished guest. This guest might arrive in the next few minutes, or it might take him many years. One thing is certain: he'll come without warning. 
Tonight: The Great Earthquake is a deft, outlandishly funny, often unsettling exploration not only of how human societies handle uncertainty, but also of our interactions with order, institutions, and authoritarianism. Formally and conceptually inventive-a true hybrid novel-as-assemblage, complete with an amalgam of disparate media-the novel is less arc than spiral, exposing and refracting an unconscious landscape.

Tonight: The Great Earthquake

Literature & Fiction

Teja, Leonardo

Literary

An Arbitrary Formation of Unspecified Value

Marilyn: Essays & Poems

Biographies & Memoirs

Seaborn, Heidi

Arts & Literature

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

Books by [Pank]