Free Stream Velocity

by John Olson

Poetry. "John Olson is writing the most outlandish, strange, and inventive prose poetry ever in the history of the prose poem. Olson's writing is so agitated with transformation that it can barely contain the skin of its own given language. It is a volcanic, fresh, and scalding rush"--Clayton Eshleman. "A CHIN FULL of seeds and a prelude full of humidity, Huey Woolbright dove into an aberration of narrative fabric and swam to the bottom of a lake looking for yesterday's wrench"--from Immigrant Immersion. John Olson is also the author of ECHO REGIME, which is available from SPD.

Genres: Poetry

94 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 2003

About the author

American poet and novelist.

Reviews

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

if gertrude stein were writing today, this may be what it would look like. deliciously and deliriously whimsical prose. a couple examples:

Yesterday's rain led to accordion clouds, freakish testaments of moisture. Today a band of lavender pools in a basin of quadrilateral mint, hinting at endless churning colors regenerating the skin of logic on a glockenspiel.
-from "Curiosity Was Born With the Universe"

Existence is the fruit swollen with meaning in a maelstrom of words, a nipple of delirious ink.
-from "Existence"

"Imagine a drapery opened for the first time, the view out the window, the smoking meat of a maniacal spider embroidered with morning, the many streams and diagonals, the curious soliloquies of the trees."

-from "Phenomenology of Hunger"

[C.S. Carrier · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ridiculously awesome.