- Blurb -
In his most expansive and unruly collection to date, the acclaimed poet Charles Bernstein gathers poems, both tiny and grand, that speak to a world turned upside down. Our time of "covidity," as Bernstein calls it in one of the book' s most poignantly disarming works, is characterized in equal measure by the turbulence of both the body politic and the individual. Likewise, in Topsy-Turvy, novel and traditional forms jostle against one another: horoscopes, shanties, and elegies rub up against gags, pastorals, and feints; translations, songs, screenplays, and slapstick tangle deftly with commentaries, conundrums, psalms, and prayers. Though Bernstein' s poems play with form, they incorporate a melancholy, even tragic, sensibility. This "cognitive dissidence," as Bernstein calls it, is reflected in a lyrically explosive mix of pathos, comedy, and wit, though the reader is kept guessing which is which at almost every turn. Topsy-Turvy includes an ode to the New York City subway and a memorial for Harpers Ferry hero Shields Green, along with collaborations with artists Amy Sillman and Richard Tuttle. This collection is also full of other voices: Pessoa, Geeshie Wiley, Friedrich Ruckert, and Rimbaud; Carlos Drummond, Virgil, and Brian Ferneyhough; and even Caudio Amberian, an imaginary first-century aphorist. Bernstein didn' t set out to write a book about the pandemic, but these poems, performances, and translations are oddly prescient, marking a path through dark times with a politically engaged form of aesthetic resistance: We must "Continue / on, as / before, as / after. "
- Reviews -
"As poet, editor, critic, translator, and educator, Bernstein' s decades-long commitment to the community of arts and letters reflects a profound understanding of the importance of language in the business of culture-making. Throughout his career Bernstein has facilitated a vibrant dialogue between lyric and anti-lyric tendencies in the poetic traditions we have inherited; in so doing, he has shaped and questioned, defined and dismantled ideas and assumptions in order to reveal poetry' s widest and most profound capabilities. "-- "Ange Mlinko, Claudia Rankine, and Evie Shockley, Bollingen Prize Committee"
- Author Bio -
Charles Bernstein is the Donald T. Regan Professor Emeritus of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Pennsylvania, where he is codirector of PennSound, and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is the author of Pitch of Poetry, Recalculating, and Near/Miss, also published by the University of Chicago Press. In 2019, he was awarded the Bollingen Prize for Poetry from Yale University, the highest American honor for lifetime achievement in poetry
- Full Details -
Status: | No local stock, title imported to order |
ISBN-13: | 9780226783604 |
Published: | 15 Apr 2021 |
Published In: | United States |
Imprint: | University of Chicago Press |
Publisher: | University of Chicago Press |
Format: | Paperback |
Height: | 229mm |
Width: | 152mm |
Pages: | 176 |
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