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Curio: Grotesques and Satires from the Elctronic Age
Poetry. Witness Antonin Artaud climb a beanstalk and eat his lover’s foot as his most torrid affair is revealed in letters; fear the Spy Cam’s omniscient eye; test your paranoiac tendencies as an alien abductee; watch as The Waste Land and The River Merchant’s Wife hit the anagramatical blender; rejoice in poems without people, poems without authors and poems with no audience. Informed by the writings of the 20th Century’s (and even the 21st Century’s!) most eclectic authors, Curio is quirky and sly – an ironic mixture simultaneously engaged with formal innovation and the Retro Avant Garde that heralds the arrival of a brave new poet. It’s a book, it’s a job, it’s about bloody time.
- GenresPoetry
108 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 2005
2 people are currently reading
22 people want to read
About the author
Elizabeth Bachinsky
9 books15 followersElizabeth Bachinsky is the author of five collections of poetry: CURIO, HOME OF SUDDEN SERVICE, GOD OF MISSED CONNECTIONS, I DON'T FEEL SO GOOD and THE HOTTEST SUMMER IN RECORDED HISTORY (forthcoming, 2013). Her poetry has been nominated for awards including the Pat Lowther Award, The Kobzar Literary Award, The George Ryga Award for Social Awareness in Literature, the Governor General's Award for Poetry and the Bronwen Wallace Award, and has appeared in literary journals, anthologies and on film around the world.
She was born in Regina, raised in Prince George and Maple Ridge B.C., and now lives in Vancouver where she is an instructor of creative writing and the Editor of EVENT magazine.
She was born in Regina, raised in Prince George and Maple Ridge B.C., and now lives in Vancouver where she is an instructor of creative writing and the Editor of EVENT magazine.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
January 21, 2022
June 10, 2004
There are no words for what is happening to me. I have lost them all. I can't say anything. I have nothing to say. The weather is hot. I have no money. There are vast repositories of knowledge in the catacombs below the Vatican. There are mysteries. There are conjugations. When I wake up in the morning I don't know where I am. I live in a sedan. I sleep wrapped around a gear shift. It is difficult for me to have bowel movements. I am in pain. I am hungry. I am lost. I am twenty-seven years old. it is morning and there is nothing to do. It is morning and there is nothing to be done. I am drugged with pain.
A.A.
* * *
June 14, 2004
Dear Sir,
I have enclosed the following poems to be considered for publication in P___________. I thank you for taking the time to look at my current work; I further thank you for the careful critical comments you have sent me in the past. Any comments you may have in the future would be, as they always are, a welcome distraction from the agony that is my life.
Antonin Artaud
* * *
Afterwards
The body, delirious - I'll wish for delicious waking. There
are too many poets and not enough science. Wittgenstein said
our life has no end in just the way our visual field had no end
and I got tired thinking of all that's out there. All this week
I've worn my nakedness till noon. Did you know my friend
has cancer? That there are lights on the river? The soul,
that's a nice idea, and something for your poetry - but look,
don't bury me when I die; make like a scientist,
measure my weight and take a picture. Take note
of what I lose: a purple haze and a proof at last
the soul is concrete? You may keep your macabre
Before and After. There will be nothing to forgive, after all.
* * *
Mercy! / I am mystified /
Am I in love? Yes, I am / but
I am not / your Daddy / In a
world of blurred genealogy,
here's your chance to shed
some light on / My Herpes
/ Moment of Truth. / I am
not, now, nor have I ever been
/ better than you / Become
the gay man you are, not by
expressing an innate desire,
but by joining a particular /
life doing things that don't
need to be done / Put two
and two together and realize
that I am very bad / with your
families / I am very pleased
to have been invited to give
this talk / I am so sexual, but
I don't have sex / and ill be
damned if I am going to shave
by body /
* * *
Dim, nephritic, yet single (whoosh!)
She's a dandy kid. Why film her drear wilt and
Tease the wanton hidden clit? Oh had I that
Molten loadstone rebel - gum my things. She is down
To her panties. Revere her knees. Tada my
Darling! In time he ruts her cunt. My curt
Deus ex machina goads both girl and Delt. Today
Only I partake in neither - devout - but
Soon that rumour (not greed) plies me. Don't
Fight. She's a Norse beast. Now I stroke her.
Baby my every limb seeks this state...hide, eh? His
Deep kiss taunts singly. Ding! Had I shod a bi
Dancer (post Streisand) taut and low - oh
Woo! What a dish! And to yell nasty verse!
* * *
A loaf of bread gets into her car and takes a drive out to the country to a spot she knows. The spot overlooks a waterfall, and so, the air is full of mist. The load if careful, lest she become damp, but dampness here is near unavoidable. The load skips a rock into the water below. She is splashed and becomes soggy. The rock floats. In this quiet glen, bread is nothing like a penis. She needs no medication, self-prescribed or otherwise, and has never heard of Sputnik or the Cirque du Soleil. She arranges her braids in an attractive fashion and a rubber raft rows past. Take! Eat! An oar calls from the little craft with no motor and she knows, instinctively, it is time to go back.
* * *
What other explanation for the flood is there, bu that the dykes could not keep her from following her most desires conduit down Main Street to where the Smiths kept their summer schooner sheltered from the weather - as if tarpaulin could keep her from her course or a vein of gold had thus appeared in the weather, and Rachel made the claim.
* * *
1. DO YOU FEEL FEAR OR ANXIETY OVER THE SUBJECT OF UFOS?
[ ] YES [ ] NO
I'm not one of those people you see on TV, never have been. Don't feel inclined that was, you know? But every couple of days I'll be in the shower shampooing my hair or whatever, and this feeling comes on. A totally strong sensation that something might walk into my apartment at any moment and start rummaging around in my desk drawer. Like it's looking for a bottle of white-out or a mechanical pencil or something. It's hard to explain the spooky reality of the feeling.
There are no words for what is happening to me. I have lost them all. I can't say anything. I have nothing to say. The weather is hot. I have no money. There are vast repositories of knowledge in the catacombs below the Vatican. There are mysteries. There are conjugations. When I wake up in the morning I don't know where I am. I live in a sedan. I sleep wrapped around a gear shift. It is difficult for me to have bowel movements. I am in pain. I am hungry. I am lost. I am twenty-seven years old. it is morning and there is nothing to do. It is morning and there is nothing to be done. I am drugged with pain.
A.A.
- From the Secret Diaries of Antonin Artaud, pg. 18
* * *
June 14, 2004
Dear Sir,
I have enclosed the following poems to be considered for publication in P___________. I thank you for taking the time to look at my current work; I further thank you for the careful critical comments you have sent me in the past. Any comments you may have in the future would be, as they always are, a welcome distraction from the agony that is my life.
Antonin Artaud
- From the Secret Diaries of Antonin Artaud, pg. 23
* * *
Afterwards
The body, delirious - I'll wish for delicious waking. There
are too many poets and not enough science. Wittgenstein said
our life has no end in just the way our visual field had no end
and I got tired thinking of all that's out there. All this week
I've worn my nakedness till noon. Did you know my friend
has cancer? That there are lights on the river? The soul,
that's a nice idea, and something for your poetry - but look,
don't bury me when I die; make like a scientist,
measure my weight and take a picture. Take note
of what I lose: a purple haze and a proof at last
the soul is concrete? You may keep your macabre
Before and After. There will be nothing to forgive, after all.
- From the Secret Diaries of Antonin Artaud, pg. 31
* * *
Mercy! / I am mystified /
Am I in love? Yes, I am / but
I am not / your Daddy / In a
world of blurred genealogy,
here's your chance to shed
some light on / My Herpes
/ Moment of Truth. / I am
not, now, nor have I ever been
/ better than you / Become
the gay man you are, not by
expressing an innate desire,
but by joining a particular /
life doing things that don't
need to be done / Put two
and two together and realize
that I am very bad / with your
families / I am very pleased
to have been invited to give
this talk / I am so sexual, but
I don't have sex / and ill be
damned if I am going to shave
by body /
- I Am Promiscuous, pg. 47
* * *
Dim, nephritic, yet single (whoosh!)
She's a dandy kid. Why film her drear wilt and
Tease the wanton hidden clit? Oh had I that
Molten loadstone rebel - gum my things. She is down
To her panties. Revere her knees. Tada my
Darling! In time he ruts her cunt. My curt
Deus ex machina goads both girl and Delt. Today
Only I partake in neither - devout - but
Soon that rumour (not greed) plies me. Don't
Fight. She's a Norse beast. Now I stroke her.
Baby my every limb seeks this state...hide, eh? His
Deep kiss taunts singly. Ding! Had I shod a bi
Dancer (post Streisand) taut and low - oh
Woo! What a dish! And to yell nasty verse!
- She Is Blond Sin, pg. 56
* * *
A loaf of bread gets into her car and takes a drive out to the country to a spot she knows. The spot overlooks a waterfall, and so, the air is full of mist. The load if careful, lest she become damp, but dampness here is near unavoidable. The load skips a rock into the water below. She is splashed and becomes soggy. The rock floats. In this quiet glen, bread is nothing like a penis. She needs no medication, self-prescribed or otherwise, and has never heard of Sputnik or the Cirque du Soleil. She arranges her braids in an attractive fashion and a rubber raft rows past. Take! Eat! An oar calls from the little craft with no motor and she knows, instinctively, it is time to go back.
- Bread / Car / Waterfall / Rock / Glen / Penis / Medication / Sputnik / Raft / Motor, pg. 73
* * *
What other explanation for the flood is there, bu that the dykes could not keep her from following her most desires conduit down Main Street to where the Smiths kept their summer schooner sheltered from the weather - as if tarpaulin could keep her from her course or a vein of gold had thus appeared in the weather, and Rachel made the claim.
- Typewriter, pg. 87
* * *
1. DO YOU FEEL FEAR OR ANXIETY OVER THE SUBJECT OF UFOS?
[ ] YES [ ] NO
I'm not one of those people you see on TV, never have been. Don't feel inclined that was, you know? But every couple of days I'll be in the shower shampooing my hair or whatever, and this feeling comes on. A totally strong sensation that something might walk into my apartment at any moment and start rummaging around in my desk drawer. Like it's looking for a bottle of white-out or a mechanical pencil or something. It's hard to explain the spooky reality of the feeling.
- 5-10 'Yes' Answers, pg. 90
May 16, 2009
one of my all time favs
February 20, 2010
playful and inventive. loved the old cover better though.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews