Brief Under Water

Console, Cyrus

ISBN 10: 1886224870 / ISBN 13: 9781886224872

Published by Burning Deck, 2008

Inscribed by the author to the Executive Editor of Copper Canyon Press, Michael Wiegers, on the title page: 'For Michael Wiegers / from Cyrus.' 64pp., a clean copy in Very Good condition with light creasing to a corner; 1-10pp. lightly folded. Seller Inventory # 636835

Synopsis:

Poetry. BRIEF UNDER WATER is a sequence of 55 short passages that uses prose narrative as a design element in a larger lyric structure. The title refers to Kafka's 1919 Brief an den Vater, reflecting a struggle with the notion of literary inheritance. So does Console's sentence, refined nearly to the point of anachronism, that owes a great deal to Melville and to Garnett's translations of Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and Turgenev. The book was written while the author supported himself as a metalworker, housepainter, and waiter. The clashing of these professional spheres contributed to the struggle outlined above. The binary numbering (1, 10, 11, 100, 101...) is meant to express his sense of movement-in-place. "[The] manuscript is terrific...The sensory detail of the writing, not surrealistic, not plot-oriented, is not even with the sense of 'leading anywhere' but accumulating both detail and expansion at once, opening a floating, fascinating, sometimes apparently violent yet detached terrain, as if not the author's psyche--but the world itself--seen from at once extreme and mundane edges"--Leslie Scalapino.

Bibliographic Details

Title: Brief Under Water
Publisher: Burning Deck
Publication Date: 2008
Binding: Trade Paperback
Condition: Very Good
Signed: Signed by Author(s)