Nervous Device

by Catherine Wagner

In Nervous Device, Catherine Wagner takes inspiration from William Blake's "bounding line" to explore the poem as a body at the intersection between poet and audience. Using this as a figure for sexual, political, and economic interactions, Wagner's poems shift between seductive lyricism and brash fragmentation as they negotiate the failure of human connection in the twilight of American empire. Intellectually informed, yet insistent on their objecthood, Wagner's poems express a self-conscious skepticism even as they maintain an optimistically charged eroticism."

"Wagner's fourth collection contains poems of memory and dark artifice. She writes with an obscure, magnetic lens. . . . Wagner contrasts these complicated poems with short, clean, pieces that offer a kind of breathing space for the reader. Not to be mistaken for trivial, the linguistic tightness of these poems are highlights of Wagner’s collection." —Publishers Weekly

"Taking with one hand what they give with the other, Wagner's poems are full of vehemence and disdain and tenderness and somewhere, in some inexpugnable part of the body of language through which so many discomforting feelings pass, a thorny kind of joy. This is my idea of great poetry: in which 'The actual is / flickering a binary / between word and not-word.'"—Barry Schwabsky, Hyperallergic


"Nervous Device is such a smart book. You never know where the poems are going to take you, or when some startling, often cringe-making image or thought will intrude. Unable to settle into a comfortable rhetorical space, these poems reject simple claims to knowing something or doing right or changing the world. Rather, they move like an erratic insect stuck in a language bell jar. Brilliant, and disturbing."—Jennifer Moxley

"Nervous device, the human machine, palpitating inside its own little bounding lines. These poems do everything the human device does, vibrating like an electrified tornado inside a glass jar, and make this reader profoundly alive to huge swathes of being. There is no machine for mastering the self (yet), but there are Cathy Wagner's poems."—Eleni Sikelianos

"The poems in Nervous Device resonate with a knowing nod to time and the difficulty and struggle of being sentient and intimate—of loving while being human. This is poetry connectivty: sexy, poignant, knowing. And the poems here make me feel possible."—Hoa Nguyen

"Wagner's poems contain multitudes, at once overflowing with seductive lyricism only to suddenly shift into brash fragmentation. She is informed, but the word subjective has no place whatsoever in her work. As the cover suggests, the potential for human connection is downright erotic for Wagner."Alexis Coe, SF Weekly

"The notion that the audience is 'putting [their] finger in [her] vagina' while reading Nervous Device signals one of Wagner's primary thematic concerns in the collection: the complex relationship between poetry, sex, desire, and the body."—Joshua Ware

"Wagner is to be lauded, first and foremost, for her daring, her conceptual eclecticism, and her linguistic range... Nervous Device is a clear-eyed and brave testament to the changing currents of a poet's life."—Seth Abramson, The Huffington Post

"… the manner in which Wagner structures the language through repetitive dialogue both builds meaning and breaks it apart… Wagner balances disjunction and lucidity, private and public, distant and (riskily) up-close."—Jessica Comola, HTML Giant

Genres: Poetry

80 pages, Paperback

First published October 16, 2012

About the author

Catherine Wagner teaches creative writing at Miami University in Ohio. Her publications include Macular Hole (Fence Books, 2004), Imitating (Leafe Press, 2004), Exercises (811 Books, 2004), Miss America (Fence Books, 2001). Individual poems have appeared in or are forthcoming in Black Clock, Chicago Review, Fence, Five Fingers Review, New Review, and Soft Targets, among others, and in several anthologies including Isn’t It Romantic: 100 Love Poems by Younger American Poets, (Verse Press 2004). She’s working on a new book of poems, and editing two anthologies, both to appear in 2007 from Fence: one of poems by mothers and another entitled A Poetry and Politics Primer.

Reviews

[Michael P.]

Apparently, Wagner told a reporter that reading her poems is like being inside her vagina, and demonstrated this rather graphically. OK. I read the first four poems in this collection. I did not expect to derive the same pleasure as I might have from being inside Wagner's vagina, but I had no pleasure at all in these "aren't I clever" poems. I have put the book aside like an ex-lover, and will not take it up again.

[Jeffrey Wright · Rating 4 out of 5]

Playful, spunky and revealing, Catherine Wagner blends her persona with her method of writing. The tone ranges from breezy to breathy and from pastoral to ironic. Externalities (such as oil spills) are internalized and that interface is lit up by the writer’s restless navigation. The first poem’s title, “Pressed Go,” sets the stage for a nervous quest for whatever comes next.
Playing with the language, Wagner riffs on slang, syntax and spelling. She is ready to “Fantaseize.” In “The Sun-Went-Down Calamity” her disarming address to the sun is underpinned by a pun. “See you round.” She makes “shapely baubs, that pleasure me.” And they are a pleasure.
By spunky, I mean spongy and resilient. A childish impulse runs throughout, abating growing pains while offering new perspectives. “Let’s get merried.” Fresh and “fresh,” a tenacious, forward narrative checks the freedom she grants herself.
A reference to “postlanguage” reveals some of Wagner’s strategy. While cultivating flexibility, she also retains her corporeality. We never lose touch with the person behind the screen.
The building of poems is one of Wagner’s main themes but she may have reached the limit of this strategy in “State,” where she is “required to think of myself….” This sketch of academia is uncharacteristic.
More potent are her avant self portraits, such as the quixotic “Versus” and the end poem, “Infrares.” Overall this is pretty fun.

[City Lights Booksellers & Publishers]

"Wagner's fourth collection contains poems of memory and dark artifice. She writes with an obscure, magnetic lens. Wagner’s longer poems are willfully disorienting: "A Well Is a Mine: A Good Belongs to Me" consists almost entirely of lines encased in quotation marks that confront slavery and invent equations: “Freedom × Need = Reality.” Wagner contrasts these complicated poems with short, clean, pieces that offer a kind of breathing space for the reader. Not to be mistaken for trivial, the linguistic tightness of these poems are highlights of Wagner’s collection. “Ta” describes a drowning television: “o’er and o’er/ let it stink way down/ and coral grew there./ Covered it oar./ Let miserere deep./ Be mine for’air.” The poems delve into and self-consciously warp body, sex, and language. “Unclang” explores writing poetry: “it takes experience to write a real poem that is well-lit,” Wagner argues. Later in the same poem we are blindsided by the haunting statement that “writing a poem is like reaching two prosthetic limbs out as far as you can on either side to grab something in front of you. You can’t grab it but maybe you’ll take flight.” (Oct.)"

—Publishers Weekly

[Sophie]

"Poem as blister formed through friction, swelled atoll, sucked fluid from the body of the host."

"Blacklily puddle"

"Writing a poem is like reaching two prosthetic limbs out as far as you can on either side to grab something in front of you."

"Generous, in material love, love is made of stuff. I'll show you, I'll give it to you in a bag."

"ink of leather heavy bloom"

"I stopped having time to weed, friends started in dark light housed me"

"Black silk dragged through blood brain barrier Black sild dragged through blood brain barrier"

"One rides a horse to go somewhere, of course."

"rainy day, ugly little room I will make the mountains hurt"

"I am going to go underground and see what colors there are down there Mines & Everyones."

[Jeremy · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's got a sense of rhythm in places, and a sense of sadness and sex in others. The most innovative parts aren't annoying. The poems with titles longer than the text are super. I will definitely read more by the author.

[Queer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'd give this 3.75 stars if I could. When Wagner is on, it is difficult to overlook the startling self-awareness in her poetry. Some of this poetry I could see myself revisiting. As a whole work, however, it did not work.

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can't claim to have understood all of it, or even have liked all of it, but at its best, there are some of the most surprising poems you'll ever read, and you'll be inspired. BLURB THAT SHIT

[Holly Raymond · Rating 5 out of 5]

The body in Cathy Wagner's poetry is such a weird piece of luggage, with such weird stuff inside it, with such weird stuff pinned on its exteriors. That's fine.

[Ruby Jusoh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing. This requires more than just one read. Every piece has a deeper meaning to it. Short but will take you places.

[Fadillah · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is totally a weird collection of poems. That was my first thought after finished reading this book. A vagina monologue at its best -- a painful pleasure, a mimicry of sex and a wonderful impression after orgasm. Some poems did have an impact and just straight up impressed me but some are just meh. Overall, read it but proceed with caution - as it can be quite graphic.

[Deranged]

I am so thankful for Goodreads First Reads for allowing me to get this book. I have not yet had a chance to read it but once I do I will be sure to update this review.