{"id":69562,"date":"2020-11-09T11:22:55","date_gmt":"2020-11-09T16:22:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/backroom\/?p=69562"},"modified":"2020-11-18T09:09:11","modified_gmt":"2020-11-18T14:09:11","slug":"i-arrogantly-recommend-by-tom-bowden-9","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/backroom\/2020\/11\/09\/i-arrogantly-recommend-by-tom-bowden-9\/","title":{"rendered":"I arrogantly recommend… by Tom Bowden"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Women in Concrete Poetry: 1959-1979<\/a><\/em>
\nEdited by Alex Balgiu and M\u00f3nica de la Torre
\nPrimary Information<\/p>\n

Using the shapes of type itself to enhance or otherwise shape textual (non)meaning and effect, instances of \u201cconcrete poetry\u201d have occurred in art and literature over several centuries. But during the early 1950s, its popularity exploded simultaneously in South America and Western Europe, and from there the rest of the world.<\/p>\n

Most instances of 20th<\/sup>-century concrete poetry were based on exploiting the capabilities of a relatively inexpensive and common mechanical tool\u2014the typewriter\u2014viewed it in terms of its basic components and actions\u2014inked ribbon struck onto paper by metal keys shaped as letters and punctuation\u2014in the service of communication. Concrete poetry often uses symbols of sounds and silences to create the unsayable as image, and thereby bridge the gap between the vocable and the visual. By \u201cunsayable,\u201d I mean nobody\u2019s declaiming these poems at the local slam because doing so is either impossible or irrelevant or, most likely, both.<\/p>\n

Women in Concrete Poetry: 1959-1979 <\/em>is a 480-glossy-paged, over-size anthology with examples and excerpts by women practitioners of the genre from every continent but Antarctica. (The print quality of this anthology is no doubt far lower in pulp count than the paper the original versions of these poem were printed on.) Few of the poems are explicitly feminist or political\u2014most of the writers (like their male counterparts who got the attention) were exploring the boundaries of concrete poetry\u2019s semantic capabilities and the content it best conveyed, but not necessarily as gender\/patriarchy boundaries to be transcended.<\/p>\n

The anthology includes translations (at the end), biographies, and an implied promise of a follow-up anthology. An excellent honor, acknowledgment, and introduction to concrete poetry in general, as well as the women in particular who developed that genre.<\/p>\n

\"\"

From Po\u00e8mes (1959) by Suzanne Bernard<\/p><\/div>\n

\"\"

From Mot-Couleur-Roman (1970) by Annalies Klophaus<\/p><\/div>\n

\n

\"\"F Letter: New Russian Feminist Poetry<\/em>
\nEdited by Galina Rymbu, Eugene Ostashevsky, and Ainsley Morse isolarii<\/a><\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t know then that everyone had an interest in my vagina:
\nthe state, my parents, gynecologists, strange men,
\nOrthodox priests with epaulets under their robes
\nand women\u2019s blood on their robes, employers, anti-extremism agents, the military, fascists, immigration cops,
\nbanks, conservative critics of \u2018depraved lifestyles,\u2019
\npatriotic cultural figures, appropriators of traditional values,
\nwashed down with brandy.
\n\u2014from \u201cMy Vagina\u201d by Galina Rymbu<\/p>\n

F Letter: New Russian Feminist <\/em>Poetry is, according to its publisher, \u201cthe first-ever Russian magazine and platform dedicated to feminist and queer writing\u201d\u2014which is almost a moot point given the (quasi-)illegal status of Russia\u2019s LGBQT+<\/a> communities and publications, as well as Putin\u2019s and the Russian general public\u2019s hostility towards sexual and gender minorities. This bi-lingual publication of a dozen of F Letter<\/em>\u2019s contributors acts to further disseminate these poems in their native language, which is otherwise difficult to do.<\/p>\n

Although American readers may be familiar with decades of easy access to confessional poems that intersect the personal with the political, with domestic abuse, with cultural degradation of women, and so on*, the poems in F Letter<\/em> are fresh, powerful, and unique, not mere Western knockoffs. One needn\u2019t be a Westerner or a Western woman to appreciate the force, sentiment, and sanity of these poems. In an interesting political move, Russian feminists and queers have re-appropriated the term \u201cpoetess\u201d exactly to emphasize the creation and experience represented in the poems as specifically female-gendered.<\/p>\n

My favorite poems from this collection are \u201cThese people didn\u2019t know my father\u201d by Oksana Vasyakina and \u201cMy Vagina\u201d by Galina Rymbu, co-founding editor of F Letter<\/em> (F pis’o<\/em>, in Russian). Galina Ryambu\u2019s English-language translation, Life in Space (Joan Brooks, translator) comes out November from Ugly Duckling Presse<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

\"\"The Adventures of Guille and Belinda and The Illusion of an Everlasting Summer<\/em>
\nAlessandra Sanguinetti
\nMack Books<\/a><\/p>\n

Back in 2012, regarding The Adventures of Guille and Belinda and the Enigmatic Meaning of Their Dreams<\/em> (2010), I wrote that \u201cSanguinetti\u2019s photographs are indeed enigmatic, particularly the expressions of the girl Belinda whose reserve in these pictures, even when whimsically dressed and posed, makes her seem mature beyond her age, a young woman who seems to live primarily in her head. Her foil is her cousin, Guille, who plays Mutt to Belinda’s Jeff, the one who seems like a genuine kid in contrast. The bond between the two is apparently strong and yet mysterious.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ten years later, Guille and Belinda are back, Sanguinetti documenting their friendship, home, and family as they negotiate their teen years into young adulthood, then womanhood as each becomes a single parent. Sanguinetti shows more of their individual lives, as befits two young women working towards independence in rural Argentina, where they raise their children in relative poverty. Belinda\u2019s stare is still the same: as if look for or trying to imagine her future, steeling herself for bravery in the face of the inevitable rather than hope for different.<\/p>\n

Will this be an Argentine Seven Up!<\/em> writ small? As the charm, hope, and whimsy of childhood give way to grim persistence, Sanguinetti\u2019s photographs provide proof that beauty, love, and friendship endure.<\/p>\n

Here is a recent and charming Zoom interview<\/a> Sanguinetti held with Guille and Belinda to discuss their thoughts on the project and the photos selected to represent their lives, and other questions submitted by those familiar with the series (in Spanish with English subtitles).<\/p>\n

\"\"

Alessandra Sanguinetti, from \u2018The Adventures of Guille and Belinda and The Illusion of an Everlasting Summer\u2019 (MACK, 2020). Courtesy the artist and MACK.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"\"

Alessandra Sanguinetti, from \u2018The Adventures of Guille and Belinda and The Illusion of an Everlasting Summer\u2019 (MACK, 2020). Courtesy the artist and MACK.<\/p><\/div>\n

\n

\"\"Elegy for Joseph Cornell<\/em><\/a>
\nBy Mar\u00eda Negroni (Allison A. deFreese, trans.)
\nDalkey Archive Press<\/p>\n

Mixing biography, drawings, musings, and fictions, Mar\u00eda Negroni\u2019s single-page\/paragraph sketches form a series of prose poems analogous to Cornell\u2019s boxes, but with Cornell himself as the subject. The book could easily be retitled 80 Ways of Looking at Joseph Cornell<\/em>, each brief piece a bauble related to Cornell\u2019s filmmaking, domestic life with a paralytic brother, ephemera collecting, and friendships with Marianne Moore, Marcel Duchamp, and Stan Brakhage. Allison deFreese render\u2019s Negroni\u2019s prose into limpid, idiomatic English.<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"Natch<\/a><\/em>
\nBy Sophia Dahlin
\nCity Lights<\/p>\n

Someday my punishment will come
\nlike a hamburger skidding down
\na zinc countertop.<\/p>\n

How still we\u2019ll be
\nme lollipopped on my paunchy stool
\nsome bun stacked red with the glam of death
\nwhat was made for me is mine.
\n\u2014from \u201cI\u2019m a Ninny\u201d<\/p>\n

Natch<\/em> is Dahlin\u2019s first book-length collection of poems\u2014accessible, personal, and exuberant in their enjoyment of the body, alone and coupled. She has a knack for aphorisms, too: \u201cthe rain nips patrons from the sidewalk in\u201d to a caf\u00e9, and \u201cI can\u2019t buy freedom \/ but I can denude my wishlist,\u201d and \u201cPeople couple to suffer.\u201d I look forward to this poet\u2019s future.<\/p>\n

Dahlin reads<\/a> for City Lights. Her part begins at about the 28-minute marks.<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"Provisional Notes for a Disappeared City<\/a><\/em>
\nBy Reynaldo Rivera
\nSemiotext(e)<\/p>\n

Reynaldo Rivera photographed Los Angeles\u2019s demi-monde during the 1980s and \u201890s\u2014a sort of counterpart to Bukowski\u2019s LA hetero-underworld of the \u201860s and \u201870s, but instead populated by the habitu\u00e9s of LA\u2019s dive gay and transvestite bars, whose performers Rivera befriended. His friendship with the performers shows in the intimacy of photos, the ease at being around the camera, the ease at being themselves among each other\u2014all in service of producing honest documentation of a time and mood, and the people at the margins of society who managed to eke out some joy in their lives. A length dual-bio ends the book in a series of email exchanges between Rivera and Vaginal Davis<\/a>.\"\"
\n\"\"<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"The Party<\/a><\/em>
\nBy Tomi Unger
\nFantagraphics<\/p>\n

As we watch its scaffolding tremble, our age of the gilded fascist can take solace in knowing that we\u2019ve been here before, and that the rest of us are right for despising the few who would convert us into servants of Moloch, desperate and blind in our search for more money and power. Growing up in Nazi-controlled France, Tomi Unger knew something about fascism and the type of people money and power tends to attract: oblivious, venal, casually cruel, and untainted scruples. The Party<\/em>, originally published in 1969, is a book of Dickensian-named caricatures of wealthy, powerful, and politically connected seniors notable for\u2014among the women\u2014their garish lashes and sagging breasts and\u2014among the men\u2014obscured eyes and predatory urges. Although The Party is being republished as part of Fantagraphics\u2019 commitment to reprinting Unger\u2019s most important work, the timing of this reprint makes The Party<\/em> also read as an expanded version of Poe\u2019s \u201cMasque of the Red Death.”\"\"\"\"<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"Now! #9: The New Comics Anthology<\/a><\/em>
\nEdited by Eric Reynolds
\nFantagraphics<\/p>\n

Raquelle Jac\u2019s feature contribution, \u201cMisguided Love,\u201d fills her pages with raw, visual energy that contributes to her story’s emotional intensity. But the story itself\u2014earnest, heartfelt, and no doubt true\u2014is similar to other earnest, heartfelt, and true confessional stories of awkward late bloomers (aka \u201cthe comics industry\u201d) to an extent that the story feels familiar rather than unique.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow Mums Annoy You\u201d by Ethel Wolfe centers on the type of protagonist I\u2019ve never been able to develop sympathy or empathy for: self-centered, unreflective, and unwilling to learn from personal mistakes, which therefore are predictably repeated ad nauseum throughout the idiot\u2019s so-called life. While Wolfe tells the story via panels shaped as smart phone to convey and critique the conventions of Youtuber life, the ideal medium for this story would be on the phone itself.<\/p>\n

Theo Ellsworth, Noah Van Sciver, and John Ohannesian do their usual things. Karen Katz, Emil Friis Ernst, and Ben Nadler\u2014names new to me\u2014also turn in solid contributions.<\/p>\n

As with an anthology, results can vary, but Fantagraphics tends to maintain a pretty high standard for its various anthologies, such as Now!\u2019s predecessor, Mome. The series editor, Eric Reynolds does a commendable job exploring the various ways of presenting visual narratives. While Jac\u2019s and Wolfe\u2019s stories, for instance, didn\u2019t completely sell me, I remained impressed by their work toward extending the boundaries of the medium.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Women in Concrete Poetry: 1959-1979 Edited by Alex Balgiu and Mónica de la Torre Primary Information Using the shapes of type itself to enhance or otherwise shape textual (non)meaning and effect, instances of “concrete poetry” have occurred in art and literature over several centuries. But during the early 1950s, its popularity exploded simultaneously in South […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":69599,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,65],"tags":[466,461],"class_list":["post-69562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-photography","category-world-lit","tag-i-arrogantly-recommend","tag-tom-bowden"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/backroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/backroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/backroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/backroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/backroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69562"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/backroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69562\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/backroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/backroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/backroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/backroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}