Alice In Plunderland - Softcover

McCaffery, Steve

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1771660899 ISBN 13: 9781771660891

Publisher: Book*hug Press, 2015

Synopsis

Fiction. Art. With collages by Clelia Scala. From the multi-award-winning poet and scholar Steve McCaffery comes ALICE IN PLUNDERLAND, a reimagining of Lewis Carroll's Alice books that will forever change the way readers negotiate Wonderland and its menagerie of characters. Written as part of a larger project called Chiasmus, in which McCaffery will "queer the classics," Plunderland's Alice and all her cohorts become infused with characteristics related to the notion of "plunder"—theft, drug addiction, looting, and civil disorder. Instilled with humour, intelligence, and more than a little bit of absurdity, this retelling of Alice's adventures takes place somewhere other than expected. In the rough-and-tumble world of Plunderland, where theft, drugs, and gangs hold sway, and nary a tea party is to be found, the Cheshire Cat is a junkie from the UK; the King and Queen reign over the land of Cocaine; even Alice's adventures are transformed in her quest for a fix.

"Literature for McCaffery... is not an act of imaginative creation but a procedure, a machine for estranging us from our own language—estranging and thereby recuperating... [Panopticon] is ultimately a profoundly optimistic work, a leap of faith that chooses to revel in the opacity of language... A hypnotizing work."—Full Stop

About this title

About the Author:

Steve McCaffery has been twice nominated for the Governor General's Award and is the author of more than 40 books of poetry and criticism. A selection of his explorations in numerous forms can be savored in the two volumes of SEVEN PAGES MISSING (Coach House Press 2001-02) as well as PANOPTICON (Book Thug, 1984) and The Darkness of the Present: Poetics, anachronism and the anomaly (University of Alabama Press, 2012). His book-object- concept A Little Manual of Treason was commissioned for the 2011 Shajah Biennale in the United Arab Emirates. His most recent books are Tatterdemalion (Veer Books, 2014); ALICE IN PLUNDERLAND (Book Thug, 2015); Revanches, a collection of visual and concrete poetry (Xexoxial, 2015); and PARSIVAL (Roof Books, 2015). English born and a long-time resident of Toronto, he was a co-founder of the Toronto Research Group (TRG), the sound poetry ensemble Four Horsemen, and the College of Canadian "Pataphysics. Since 2004 he has been the David Gray Professor of Poetry and Letters at the University at Buffalo.

Review:

Praise for Steve McCaffery's Panopticon

Panopticon is ultimately a profoundly optimistic work, a leap of faith that chooses to revel in the opacity of language. -- Sam Rowe

About this edition

• Publisher: Book*hug Press
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1771660899
• ISBN 13: 9781771660891
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 160
• Illustrator: Scala Clelia