Float

“ This stunning, wry collection is a tonic, triggering memory and the knowledge that we all enter poems in medias res— from anywhere. Rhythmic fragments or grand paragraphs, FLOAT becomes its own mixing board. At times you hear it almost disappear, then reappear as ‘ total sound.’ In a long poem titled ‘ Times of Day,’ one vertical, vital string, the words ‘ Zoo / Cage / Jazz’ track to John Cage because of interventions earlier in the book, a startling elegy within and without. Cooked or raw, from the title to the end notes, possibilities abound. Alluring, captivating, it’ s a mustread!” — Norma Cole

Writer and editor David Abel is the proprietor of Passages Bookshop in Portland, Oregon. A founding member of the Spare Room reading series, now in its twenty first year, he was also a cofounder of Thirteen Hats, a collective of Portland writers and artists; and a member of the Four Wall Cinema collective. His recent publications include a chapbook of poems, Equifinality, from Crane’ s Bill in Albuquerque, NM; and two artist’ s books based on verbal performance scores — XIV Eclipses, published by Couch Press in Portland, and Selected Durations, published by the Black Rock Press at the University of Nevada in Reno. The first volume of an ongoing hybrid genre work entitled Sweepis forthcoming from Chax Press.