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New Books Include an Important Guide to Poetics & Act Like Polka Dot
New books new books! Both of these are getting into our windows. For one: CAConrad has just published Act Like Polka Dot on Minnie Mouse’s Skirt, with Albion Books, published by Brian Teare. This is for true fans, let’s sell ’em out. “Published in August of 2013 in a limited edition of 200 copies, of which the first twenty are signed by the author. A new installment in Conrad’s ongoing series of (Soma)tic Exercises.”
Another release worth reading into memory is Lyn Hejinian and Barrett Watten’s co-edited The Guide to Poetics Journal: Writing in the Expanded Field 1982-1998 (Wesleyan). “A new anthology of key texts in the development of contemporary poetics.” More:
Lyn Hejinian and Barrett Watten are internationally recognized poet/critics. Together they edited the highly influential Poetics Journal, whose ten issues, published between 1982 and 1998, contributed to the surge of interest in the practice of poetics. A Guide to Poetics Journal presents the major conversations and debates from the journal, and invites readers to expand on the critical and creative engagements they represent.
In making their selections for the guide, the editors have sought to showcase a range of innovative poetics and to indicate the diversity of fields and activities with which they might be engaged. The introduction and headnotes by the editors provide historical and thematic context for the articles. The Guide is intended to be of sustained creative and classroom use, while the companion Digital Archive of all ten issues of Poetics Journal (available this winter) will allow users to remix, remaster, and extend its practices and debates.
A quick glance at the TOC and you’ve got poetics statements and essays from Kathy Acker, Leslie Scalapino, Ron Silliman, Jackson Mac Low, Viktor Shklovsly, Bruce Andrews, Peter Seaton, Warren Sonbert, Dodie Bellamy, Arkadii Dragomoschenko, and more. Looks great.