88 Sonnets: Poems (Fence Modern Poets) - Softcover

Coolidge, Clark

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1934200611 ISBN 13: 9781934200612

Publisher: Fence Books, 2013

Synopsis

"Clark Coolidge is a one-man avant-garde."—Peter Gizzi

Clark Coolidge's embrace of the sonnet form is a gemlike amalgam of narrative urge, wacky name-dropping, and pure visuality. Coolidge's legendary proliferation—as many as ten sonnets in a single day—marries the stunning variety of his intellect on the mountaintop of formal inquiry.

"LIBRARY OF HAY"

So slow death oft the onyx dolls
each in its own lab colors rollicking encores
who's there? do you want your museum
room infiltrated? only the singing parts
terrible loss of air raid powder
entanglements poled on kapok
the last to be heard? this ploy of dolls
irradiated heads and curls of coffin wood
death is always plural here? stolid
anyway someway still enters the frontway
through the water door to Manikin Lake
the throttles held down there you went to
hair school against my wisdom thus the
remnants spelled out there then coded there

Clark Coolidge was born in Providence, Rhode Island. Though associated with the Language Poets, his work predates the movement and despite close contact with many of them he remains distinct from any movement, literary or political. The author of more than twenty books of verse and prose, he is also the editor of Philip Guston: Collected Writings, Lectures, and Conversations.

About this title

About the Author:

Clark Coolidge was born in Providence, Rhode Island. Though associated with the Language Poets, his work predates the movement and despite close contact with many of them he remains distinct from any movement, literary or political. His primary literary influences are Rilke, Beckett, and Kerouac, but jazz, geology, and painting also play a large part. This poetic purist shares with many avant-garde artists of the 1950s and 1960s the belief that art is discovery, and so creates an exploratory improvisational momentum’ in its composition which aims to tell the story that has never been thought before’ in a writing which is itself the primary focus, rather than its subject matter. The author of more than 20 books of verse and prose, including Own Face, At Egypt, The Crystal Text, The Maintains, Solution Passage, and Mine: One That Enters the Stories, he is also the editor of Philip Guston: Collected Writings, Lectures, and Conversations (The Documents of Twentieth-Century Art), 2010.

About this edition

• Publisher: Fence Books
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 1934200611
• ISBN 13: 9781934200612
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 88