I think this book is what inspired the whole crazy getting arrested for poetry thing at LSU. It's a great book. Johannes does cool stuff with language throughout DEAR RA. He has what I can only call "moves" that make statements, then unmake them, or explode them, or drill into them:
"Before refrigerators were invented, people used to pour salt on their fish. Before rocking horses were invented, horses used to kick holes in walls. My hole is deep. Your hole is cold as a glove on the ground."
Julie's poems in Objects for a Fog Death have this amazing sense of despondency, yet emotions that come alive to get buried in weather. The objects in the book are equally soft and sharp: velvet sacks, bouquets, and swans; fire-balls, bullets, and fishhooks. The pronouns are particularly unique components to Objects as they are all ungendered. The resulting effect is a book populated by minds outside of bodies.
I'm really looking forward to reading The Source by Noah Eli Gordon. I need to read it before he releases another book... he probably already has. I saw Johannes read from entrance to a colonial pageant in which we all begin to intricate and it was really good, so I'll read that. I'm working on a book that uses "research" from The Ocean World of Jacques Cousteau. I'm also really interested in Shattered Sonnets, Love Cards and Other Back Handed Importunities.
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