Infantilisms concerns the work of serious culture, which for the philosopher Charles Fourier (the presiding spirit here) is deathly. Infantilism, by contrast, is the work of the passions (work as passion, which is true poesis): Fourier’s “little hordes.” Blake had a similar idea of “infantile” joyousness in doing & making, in revolt against the Iron-Clad Laws. Infantilisms is a poetic refusal of all such Laws & their dour, sarcastic, humourless notaries. At its heart lie feelings of tenderness. A writer can only be a fool according to the exigencies of the epoch they’re bequeathed, but only a child can write poetry. Everywhere the work of mourning has turned to so much schadenfreude: what good’s Literature that can bring only flowers to its own funeral? Do not draw comfort from watching the little children play — join their wild dance!

“As curious and clever as ever Louis Armand unearths all kinds of cultural infantilism in the unpredictable tricks and treats that consume this damaged planet. Meta poems, memoriams, philosophy, art, pandemic, politics – classical and contemporary entanglements that invite our unravelling as he casts a vast critical net across Eastern Europe, France and its North African ex-colonies, Australia, USA and elsewhere. Perceptive, uniquely imaginative and often darkly funny, these poems animate the pursuit of possibilities.” Pam Brown

Louis Armand, Infantilisms (Melbourne: Puncher & Wattmann, 2024). 126pp. Poetry. ISBN: 9781922571694

Order via Barnes&Nobles

Vague Germs of the Unknown
These relentless solitary occasions – against the wind against the wall
against the sky in seas of black eyeball fl otsam. All the fi fth columns of
all the eleventh hours. The decision as to what constitutes is diffi cult.
Bolt-cutters, gasmask, signal fl are. Does the head so easily topple off
its ladder? Decrying the all-powerful words the words all-powerful:
nom du père du fi ls & nom du mon(o)pole! Every structure has a
resonant frequency at which it vibrates & blows apart. Consuming the
emotional oxygens in the ovens in which they bake their seig-heiling
golems. Such anomalous propositions such anonymous prostitutions.
Hong Kong Beirut Santiago. Riot formations at full tilt. Brainfuse &
the cultivated miracle of defunct political chatter. For sleep, continue.
Each stroke’s brutist cock stirring verbwise till mandalas grow out of
it. Then suddenly we’re touching on the poem again: psychotic ants in
lockstep down the page. As the lines lengthen & the pulse quickens.
The holding cell is the entire biography. Domino stack, hanging-stool.
The genuine luneshine for which there’s only enough evidence to
convict. After a few hours the shape becomes obvious. After three days
an indiscriminate loss of consciousness. There was no point resisting
they said. Standard echoes slated for demolition. The Committee for
Gravity Annulment in permanent session. To deplete. To gain one more
occasion. They’d spent lifetimes refi ning their manifestos of radical
despair under skies crossed-out: poetry was just another dispersal
tactic. The whole respectable world meanwhile dreaming of god’s
star-shaped anus. Plastic & tinfoil. Instalment plan for lifesize replicas.
Each cell was an iambic pentameter: each sonnet a cellblock. New
insurrections were constantly taking shape. Anthologies of defeat
charged w/ symbolic meaning. The actual possibility of the survival
of the species, etcetera. They bought a ticket to China, tunnelling
south. Alas, poor John, the night was unbearably long. Lining up
behind the fi rst queue that offered its services. There was no end
of Literature on the subject. Case fi les of everything that isn’t (the
case). Work or nothingness, they said. Believing in order to repair, as
long as the whole idea fi t into an ad-break. Sleep child! The scorpions
of dilemma fade into the sweatslick pillow y’re forever gagging on.

Contents
11 Titanium White
13 A Defi ance of Poetry
15 Passion Play
16 Metamatic
17 Verfremdungseffekt
18 Conspiracy Theory is Contemporary Genre Literature
19 Logos
20 Humanity & the Point at Which It Disappears
21 Histories of Adversity
22 Vague Germs of the Unknown
23 Das Selbstporträt
24 Artist’s Head Imprisoned in Plexiglass
25 Beckmannesque
26 Life on Mars
27 Last Words
28 Redheads
29 Letter on Alienism (to Jésus-Bernstein Pataquouèrique)
30 Sonnet for Bill Berkson (R.I.P.)
31 Sonnet for Hugh Clarence Ultan
32 Sonnet for Iris Clert
33 (Non)Fiction Sonnet
34 Transit Duty
35 Ulysses at Quarter-to-Eight
36 The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife
in the Mind of the Fisherman
38 Orizaba (Hart Crane)
39 The Sun is in the Bowl
40 Eye is Non-Refundable Index of Mind Condition
41 The Night Train’s Vagrancy
43 St Paul Shipwrecked with a Burning Snake
44 The Regress of Myth
45 The Murder of Rosa Luxemburg
46 Tom Raworth’s Blues
47 The Unity of Means
48 Statements of Purpose
49 La Vie Sentimentale
50 Home Movie
51 That Perilous Night
52 How to Build a House
53 Landscape with Figures Mostly Living or Recently Deceased
54 Apophenia
55 Iliad
56 Achille Lougé (Cailhau)
57 Dictation Lessons
58 Éloge de l’amour
60 30 January
61 Myth of the Aviator
62 X is Proof of Life’s Perseverance
63 Methamphetamine Landscapes
64 Closing Time at “Alcatraz” (St Mark’s Place, 1995)
65 40,000 Years of Modern Art
66 Politique Cubiste
67 Quixote
68 A Valentine
69 From Quarantine
70 Everything Outside the Poem is Part of Its Meaning
71 It’s Only Terminal if You Can’t Sleep It Off
72 The Road Out
75 Plato in the Antipodes
76 Saramago
77 Riot at the Hydromajestic
78 Truck & Trailer Approaching a City (Jeffrey Smart, 1973)
79 The Silence of Martin Heidegger
80 Arts of Resurrection
81 Impressionism
82 Nelson Algren’s Lament
83 Gulag Blues
84 Confessions of Living in Fire
85 The Furniture of Home
86 Custodial Sentences
89 Jaime Ramón Mercader
90 Angelus Novus
91 “The European”
92 Monet, Trouville
93 On the Death of Rupert Murdoch
94 Escape from the Lucky Country
95 The Disavowed [Portrait of Hans Natschke]
96 Nostalgia is an Illness like any Other
97 2 Stanzas (for Gig Ryan)
98 “Philosophy Has No Shadow”
99 Variations on a Luckless Country
102 Creeley in Mallorca
103 Kennst Du die Stadt am Bernsteinstrand?
104 The House of the Suicide
& the House of the Mother of the Suicide
105 Bacchanalia
106 Véronique à Vauvenargues
107 Ħaġar Qim
108 That Happy Place
110 New World Capitalism
111 Europe in Its Time
112 Postcard from Elsewhere
113 Statue of Svatopluk Čech, Pond w/ Fountain
114 Return to the You-Beaut Country (for John Olsen)
115 Prehistoric Rock Pictures
116 The Plague Tree (i.m. Nanni Balestrini)
123 Destitution