SKY WRI TEI NGS [Sky Writings] - Softcover

Hussain, Nasser

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1552453715 ISBN 13: 9781552453711

Publisher: Coach House Books, 2018

Synopsis

Every major airport has a three-letter code from the International Air Transport Association. In perhaps history's greatest-ever feat of armchair travel, Nasser Hussain has written a collection of poetry entirely from those codes.
In a dazzling aeronautic feat of constraint-based writing, SKY WRI TEI NGS explores the relationship between language and place in a global context. Watch as words jet-set across the map, leaving a poetic flight path. See letters take flight (and leave their baggage behind).

About this title

From the Author:

It all started one winter holiday in 2015 when I flew between my two homes (Canada and the UK). My bags were labelled ‘YYZ’ for Lester B Pearson in one direction, and in the other, the tag on my luggage read ‘MAN’. And that’s always bothered me — I mean, why YYZ? Why not TOR, or even LBP? I mean, MAN makes sense, right? but then I asked myself ‘I wonder how many airport codes make little three letter words?’ — mainly because finding patterns in language has always been fun for me. And from that innocent question, a LOT of work emerged. I’ve gone through the entire list of airports with IATA codes, and found that there were several hundred words that are also airports (like THE, which is a tiny airport in Brazil, but now one of the most important places in the world for me!). One of the biggest surprises was learning that I don’t actually know all of the three-letter words in the language (did you know that DZO is a hybrid of a cow and a yak?) These skypoems have led me to botany, commerce (there are a number of words for ‘pennies’), mythology (ANU was an ancient Babylonian sky-god), and it’s still keeping me on my toes – for every new Internet slang, I need to check to see if it doesn’t qualify for my project. OMG.

About the Author:

Nasser Hussain is a Lecturer in Literature and Creative Writing at Leeds Beckett University in the UK. His first book, boldface was published in 2014. He holds a PhD in English from the University of York (UK), an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Windsor and a BA in English from Queen’s University.
Nasser has had a number of occupations: treeplanter, wilderness guide, amateur restaurateur, and now academic and poet. He likes his new job best. For him, poems are best described as ‘language with a pattern’, and much of his recent practice takes pleasure in finding new patterns to wonder at. SKY WRI TEI NGS is the first expression of a larger interest in mass transit, and is his attempt to find a literal and poetic intersection between two things that ‘move’ us (in this case, planes and poems).

About this edition

• Publisher: Coach House Books
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 1552453715
• ISBN 13: 9781552453711
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 88