The To Sound

by Eric Baus

Juliana Spahr "Birds with extremely long necks. Cassiopeia. A sister. A Marco Polo. A somnambulist. A documentary on the voyages of Columbus. A cartographer. Star charts. Young intellectuals in black robes. Jean-Michel Basquiat. More birds and still more birds. A mathematician. All these things appear in The To Sound’s beautifully warped cosmology. This is a stunning book that builds its own world, a world of ambiguous relations and loaded words; a lyrical world that explores the unstated connections between things. . . ."

Genres: Poetry

80 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2004

About the author

Eric Baus is the author of Scared Text (Center for Literary Publishing, forthcoming 2011), The To Sound (Verse Press/Wave Books), Tuned Droves (Octopus Books) and several chapbooks. He co-edits Marcel Press chapbooks with Andrea Rexilius and lives in Denver.

Reviews of The To Sound:
Double Room
Rain Taxi
Bookslut
Octopus

Reviews of Tuned Droves:
Jacket
Publishers Weekly
Cambridge Book Review
Oranges & Sardines
Poetry Project Newsletter
Black Ocean Blog
American Poet
Galatea Resurrects

Interviews
Jacket
PFS Post

Links
Pennsound Author Page
To The Sound (audio blog)
Minus House Chapbooks
Tiny Tour

Reviews

[Donald Armfield · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eric Baus is the boss of text. Between spaces of magnets and recently collected saliva his poetic voice writes letters that speak to collective self, or collaborates with its own world of tuning sounds heard over the noise of birds hijacking the simplest of things possible or nesting at the break of an electrical storm.
Highly recommended. Especially fans of Zachary Schomburg.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

I used to shake my head at people who would put books down when nearing the end as though it might stave off the end of their first read's initial enjoyment. Well, I still do; however now, I understand a little bit better, or maybe its that I simply couldn't stop re-reading the poems I had already worked through. What an awful run-on that just was. Regardless, the repeated glances were products of not only amazement but too, of befuddlement.

Eric Baus essentially has created a parallel extension of our own universe. The words are the same. Aren't they? The metaphysical cores of language seem to have morphed. "The To Sound" plays quite a bit with sound. If one were to stare too longly at any page, pulling sight away slowly the words would blur slightly beyond comprehension. All this time, though, still appearing convincingly (truthfully?) as words. The book carries that effect but with sounds. While use drifts away from the common, all the words sound right, and soon enough, you find yourself understanding.

"I say my eyes are quotation marks pulled across the sky, I mean the way a beaten wing is parallel to treading water."

The mostly epistolary forms (written either to Birds or to Sister) build and fall from simultaneously a few stock phrases as a sort of corner stone for reading. Even then, despite all (successful)efforts to portray sentiment with sound and spacing carrying all the weight, old meanings slip through to the foreground sporadically, at times long enough to pun and punctuate.

"...as if wind were a sort of eating. You say something is
always burning, but where is my genus, my species of kindling."

I don't often use the word marvelous.

[Jeff Laughlin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nonsensical and uber-language poetry, but expertly done. I like this book. I can't help it. I'm a sucker for cleverness over form sometimes.

[C.A. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Have you read this yet? READ IT SOON! Someone asked me recently why I only give good reviews, and the answer is because I don't read books I don't like. If I'm reading a book and it's not interesting to me I don't finish it. That make sense now? THE TO SOUND is not just a book I read, but read all the way through after first getting my hands on it, and find myself picking up, and picking it up, it's a book you find yourself picking up again and again! BEAUTIFUL!

CAConrad
http://CAConrad.blogspot.com

[Benjamin Niespodziany · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eric Baus might be my favorite poet to read out loud. The wordplay and lyricism is unrivaled. Unlike any other poet I've read.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eric’s work is the sort of work that undoubtedly polarizes readers. His words are a unique world of sound and imagery quite familiar, yet detuned and fragmented in a way that is bound to either excite or disconcert many who approach. In The To Sound, as with many of Eric’s other works, language is twisted and reformed, providing just enough in terms of cues and markers to light the way while leaving more than enough space between them for those who enjoy getting lost.

Listen to Eric read the title poem HERE .

[Brian Lucas · Rating 5 out of 5]

A dreamlike logic pervades presenting a world at once alluring yet frighteningly fractured. On the surface the imagery is absurdist, blackly humorous... Yet delving in a bit deeper all becomes a strange carnival world of teeth, picking up wayward transmissions from a parallel universe.

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Easy to read just for the fun of it (like Portlandia's "put a bird on it"), but it also does really interesting things with individual lines and images recurring from one poem to another, often from different characters' perspectives.

[Carrie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think I am starting to kind of understand the infinitive used as a noun thing. Maybe...

[George · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eric Baus's first book, The To Sound, is an amazing achievement of language play and Surrealist insight. Baus is one of the best poets of his generation.

[Brandon Barrett · Rating 5 out of 5]

I highly recommend this book to anyone that enjoys modern poetry, or something completely fresh and invigorating.

[C.S. Carrier · Rating 5 out of 5]

I learned about language and letters.

[Michael Edgerton]

What can I say about this book? It's one of the most moving, intelligent, gorgeous debuts in recent history. You can read my review of it in Stanford's Mantis: Journal of Poetry and Translation #7.

[Hope Wabuke · Rating 5 out of 5]

it is so aptly named. . .it does what the music does. i will read repeatedly to listen.

[Erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

a playful sensitivity and seductive subjectivity in a land of very personal signification