2X2 - Softcover

Bellen, Martine

3.67

6 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1935402218 ISBN 13: 9781935402213

Publisher: BlazeVOX [books], 2010

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Praise for 2X2: 2X2 is a zany, wise, moving, beautifully written life investigation of sorts. I laughed out loud. That poet Bellen has a hell of an imagination. -Kate Lardner, author of Shut Up He Explained: The Memoir of a Blacklisted Kid Smart, funny, at once spare and lyrically lush, this mythic tale of a lost girl stalking her lost double will pull you delightedly along with its swift narrative-pull you up short when it makes you stop and think. Martine Bellen is an astonishing writer. -Rilla Askew, author of Harpsong and The Mercy Seat In this work is some of the most beautiful and intuitively provocative language of anything I have read. -Ken Keegan Nora comes across a newspaper article about her lost twin that sets in motion her search for her doppelganger and thrusts her from the safe island life that she has created into a sweeping, surrealist escapade, buried in the depths of an undifferentiated dream of ocean. Drifting through the foggy myths of her past, she practices spycraft and lessons of Dogen Zenji, and follows her guardian angel stepmother's advice to always bring bread, milk, and ham (gifts for spontaneous bribes) when traveling to lands unknown. Veils of betrayal and isolation are lifted as Nora navigates systems of story (fairy tale and science); belief and faith (spiritual and mythological); and reality (phenomenological and truth). As in many travel odysseys, the fictions of space, time, and being are placed under a microscope and an ever-unraveling solitary journey loosens into an always uncanny, sometime hilarious, interdependent adventure.

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About the Author:

Martine Bellen is the author of the novella 2X(SQUARED) (BlazeVOX Books, 2010) and six collections of poetry, including THE VULNERABILITY OF ORDER (Copper Canyon Press, 2001); FURTHER ADVENTURES OF THE MONKEY GOD (Spuyten Duyvil); TALES OF MURASAKI AND OTHER POEMS (Sun & Moon Press, 1999), which won the National Poetry Series Award; and PLACES PEOPLE DARE NOT ENTER (Potes & Poets Press, 1991). A bilingual collection of her poetry has been published in Germany by Verlag im Waldgut (translator, Hans Juergen Balmes). She has written the libretto for Ovidiana, an opera based on Ovid's Metamorphoses (composer, Matthew Greenbaum) that has been performed in New York City and Philadelphia. She has collaborated with David Rosenboom on Ah! Opera No-Opera, a pioneering collective work, that's been co-composed and performed by creators from around the globe. Its world premiere was in September 2009 at Redcat in Los Angeles. She was a recipient of a Rockefeller Foundation residency in Bellagio, Italy, as well as an American Academy of Poets Award.

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