The Commandrine and Other Poems - Softcover

McSweeney, Joyelle

Softcover

ISBN 10: 097409093X ISBN 13: 9780974090931

Publisher: Fence Books, 2004

Synopsis

The brilliance of Joyelle McSweeney's poems is a given; what remains delightfully open to negotiation are its methodologies and its mien. In her second book McSweeney finds her subjects in the long form; The Commandrine is a verse-play that in nine scenes tells the story of sailors Zest, Coast, Ivory, and Irish, and their run-in with the Devil.

About this title

About the Author

Joyelle McSweeney is the author of ten books of poetry, stories, novels, essays, translation and plays, including the poetry collections The Red Bird, The Commandrine and Other Poems, Percussion Grenade, Toxicon & Arachne, and Death Styles; the novel Flet, the verse play Dead Youth, or, the Leaks, which inaugurated the Scalapino Prize for Women Playwrights, and the essay collection The Necropastoral: Poetry, Media, Occults (a work of decadent ecopoetics). With Johannes Göransson, she co-edits the international press Action Books, publishing such authors as Raúl Zurita, Hiromi Ito, Josué Guébo and Kim Hyesoon, while supporting translators like Daniel Borzutzky, Don Mee Choi, Katerine Hedeen, Katrine Øgaard Jensen, Michelle Gil-Montero, Jeffrey Angles, and many others.

Reviews

A "commandrine" is the female captain of a ship, and in the long verse play that gives this sophomore book its title, our leader attempts to guide four unruly sailors who frequently converse with the devil. "Shall I exercise my command?" asks the commandrine, making it clear that this poem, and the rest of this nervy collection, has that most fundamental question of art making at stake: What constitutes the authority of the artist? McSweeney offers no real answer to this ancient unanswerable ("Don't you know/ the riddle?" asks the poet. "I am the world I cannot see"), but raises the question in a manner as convincing as it is playful. And as in life, art making blends with other forms of union and reproduction (the first poem ends with the line, "Ent'ring our marriage ride"; the last is titled "The Born Fetus"), and with renewal: "Toothbrush into a yogurt cup, Recyclamente! I am so/ adamant. The siren with a catch in its cry starts over." (Mar.)
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Edition details

• Publisher: Fence Books
• Publication date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 097409093X
• ISBN 13: 9780974090931
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 61