Bivouac

by Laura Solomon

Poetry. "'The noose is sung and to the point / that it pretties and offers succor,' is the dire paradox that opens Laura Solomon's remarkable first collection, BIVOUAC. At once sensuous and stringent, necessitous and playful, these poems are willing to test the limits of the lyric in the service of a higher calling: the echo-location of the indicted self within a "trampoline topography" where consumption is the order of the day. Solomon sets a watch in these foreclosed landscapes in order to de-map and reclaim them, to allow for the possibility of beauty, if not salvation, and she does so in a language that is as deft as it is compelling--Cort Day. Laura Solomon, 25, has published poems and criticism in magazines including Both, LIT, Seneca Review, nowCulture, Phoebe, Pool and Rain Taxi. She graduated from the University of Georgia in Athens, and currently lives in Amherst, Massachusetts.

Genres: Poetry

62 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2002

About the author

Laura Solomon is the author of Bivouac (Slope Editions, 2002) and Blue and Red Things (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2007) and The Hermit (UDP, 2011). Other publications include the chapbook Letters by which Sisters Will Know Brothers (Katalanche Press, 2005) and Haiku des Pierres / Haiku of Stones by Jacques Poullaouec, translated from the French with Sika Fakambi (Apogée Press, 2006).

Reviews

[Mackenzie · Rating 5 out of 5]

What I love about this book is that it doesn't take itself too seriously. Slope editions did a nice job on this one. "Humpty the Palimpsest" is among my favorites. Also "Among the Trees without the Trees," which I take as a sort of homage to Ashbury. Definitely a must read-- a quick read, too.

[C.S. Carrier · Rating 5 out of 5]

Astounding. I love the diction and hyperbole.