Thus Spake the Corpse: An Exquisite Corpse Reader, 1988-1998: Volume 2 - Fictions, Travels & Translations

Aptly known as "the anti-literary literary magazine" (read anti-New Yorker), Exquisite Corpse, edited by prolific writer and translator Codrescu, has been delighting and outraging readers since 1988 with its often clever irreverence toward (and sometimes direct assault upon) anything that resembles "the Establishment" (which includes political correctness, institutionalized MFA programs and any kind of aesthetic conformity). Assembled in this hefty second volume are more than 100 of the best selections from the journal's first 10 years of publication (Volume 1, with poetry and essays, was published in 1999). While the voices and works represented here vary to the point of chaos (albeit a pleasant one), they are grouped into three sections. In "Lives of the Poets," we find writings by Pete Seeger, Jan Kerouac and Sparrow, as well as those on the journal's internecine "Ed Dorn controversy"Ainitiated by Mark Spitzer's negative portrait of his former mentorAwhich apparently still upsets certain souls. Included in fiction, which Codrescu prefers to call "prose efforts," are stylistically varied works by Maggie Dubris, Eric Kraft and Hariette Surovell. And in the most substantial and engrossing section, "Travel & Translation," we journey from a series on Derrida's possible use of LSD to "The New Bucharest" ("So much ugliness can only have been planned") by Richard Collins and "South Korea: At Play in the Year of the Dog," in which Robert Perchan describes being urged to consume dog meat to enhance his virility. The best aspects of the spirit of the Beats lives on in this frequently sassy, salty, silly and ultimately satisfying reading experience. (Feb.)
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