Emergency Window

by Ross Sutherland

Welcome to a science fiction reality of mirrors, windows and menacing simulacra - where nothing is as it seems. In this ambitious and long-awaited second full collection, Sutherland interrogates the language of authenticity, presenting the poet as an anxious, disorientated collaborator trapped in a world of hacked computers and digital avatars. Emergency Window features new poems alongside excerpts from two recent sequences, including a hilarious and strangely prescient version of Little Red Riding Hood, a poem written using Google Streetview, sonnets inspired by the Street Fighter 2 video game, and a sequence of computer-generated translations of classic literature. Surreal, funny, intelligent and experimental, these poems chart a search for meaning in a disintegrating world.

Genres: Poetry

80 pages, Paperback

First published August 15, 2012

Reviews

[Mike]

As with Things to Do Before Leaving Town, there’s a lot of play here. I particularly liked the poems based on Street Fighter 2 characters—it’s surprising, which is, I think, the defining characteristic of all of Sutherland’s work.