The Origin of The World

by Lewis Warsh

Poetry. Seventeen poems written from 1990 to 1999, and though each one stands on its own, they can be read as one long poem, line after line stitched together and edited like an epic movie. "The discrete (though hardly discreet) sentences in Lewis Warsh's new book actually merge to describe something like the origin of the world. As he says, 'Connect the dots to create a picture of something unimaginable'"--John Ashbery.

Genres: Poetry

Paperback

First published January 1, 2001

Reviews

[Rodney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lately, I hear ‘70s “soft” rock on the radio and wonder at the craftsmanship. It takes a lot of chops to sound that easy-like-Sunday-morning smooth, and measured against the digital wizardry that’s come since, the production seems warm and honest, not MOR-slick. Once in a while a sharp drum lick or bass figure bubbles up through the flow, and I picture the studio musicians who gave everything they had to hits that got plenty of airplay, but little respect.

Warsh’s poems from the ‘90s work sort of like that lick. You move along absently tapping your toes across the registers—“She drove up to Boston & bought a handbag on sale at Filene’s”; “Don’t be afraid of hurting my feelings by telling me/you hate me”—then suddenly, a sentence that pulls you up with its subtle vernacular majesty:

“Mansions where executives once lived with their families will
be split into apartments for the families of the workers”

or

“I plant the symbol of order, Neptune’s trident, on the opposite
side of the achipelago & set forth under warm skies to a
new terrain, spellbound by the possibilities of the future
& the shadows of the strange birds hanging motionless
on the horizon, but I don’t know the name of the boat
I’m aboard—it’s like a shadow of some other boat
that went down in the storm of the Isle of Good Hope,
where promises of love were made only to be broken
the next day, where marriage vows were spoken
in the shadows of an empty cathedral, where friends
& relatives gathered to wish you well—could
anyone of them, or you, predict
this spell of cold weather
we’ve been having recently?”

That last one’s from someone who owns a few Ashbery albums, but within the context of the assured, direct, observational comedy-like one-liners that surround it, it leaps out with an intensity that’s all Warsh’s. If second generation NY School is Zappa, and Language poetry’s the Sex Pistols, and theory is techno, the poems here remind me that sometimes a reader just needs more cowbell.

[Benjamin Niespodziany · Rating 5 out of 5]

In February of this year, the poet Andrew Weatherhead posted a picture of this book and asked, "Do people know this is one of the best poetry books ever written?" One month later, after requesting it through my library, I finished reading it and I have to agree with Weatherhead. I really loved this collection, one broken up into a series of poems but which felt like one long poem. Split up into a series of sentences with open spaces in between, it's observational, autobiographical, and yet mixes and twists and reworks its own lines, like repetitive confessions constantly being re-translated and mistranslated and told in different ways. The kind of book you read and instantly need to write poems of your own.

[Melissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book of poems makes you wish it were a man, so you could have him take you for a martini and ask you lots of very creative questions about your childhood and analyses of your favorite films.

[Tony Iantosca · Rating 5 out of 5]

Helicopter Pilot Extrodinaire.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

holy shit. what beauty.