the dust of a contact that is everywhere

by Raymond de Borja

Composed of essays, poetic fragments, daybook entries, and lyrical experiments, "the dust of a contact that is everywhere" moves fluidly between theoretical reflection and aesthetic practice. It interrogates the mechanics of attention, the temporality of lyric lines, and the ethical implications of how we listen, write, and live beside others, treating the poetic line as a site of temporal unfolding, a perceptual hinge, and a spatial event. Through sustained engagements with visual art, sound, film, and theory, the book foregrounds collage and drift as both method and ethic, a compositional practice in which affect and association guide form. Friendship becomes a mode of nonhierarchical inquiry, shaping both the book’s structure and its conceptual commitments. Drawing from the work of artists and thinkers such as Giorgio Agamben, Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, Toru Takemitsu, and others, the text unfolds as a study in attunement, offering a poetics of listening, resonance, and relation. What emerges is a capacious and intimate work of reading understood as a form of radical attentiveness.

139 pages, Paperback

Published March 24, 2026

Reviews

[Heloísa · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is interesting because it’s more a collage than a book. It’s very unique in its format, interweaving prose, poetry, literary analysis, and art; all parts fundamental to the existence of the work. I don’t think I’ve ever read anything similar and I think this shows the capabilities of innovation in writing as a medium.

Regarding its contents, however, this isn’t very beginner friendly — if you enjoy poetry, but haven’t delved into studying or researching it, it reads as dense and hard to follow. This is very referential and dependent on theories and works by other authors but, unlike academic texts, we don’t have an ample background explaining such topics, nor do we get expanded citations that help situate the reader. If you don’t have the prior understanding or familiarity with the bibliography, you can get easily lost.

I appreciate the discussions the author has written, especially regarding metatextuality and the relations between image and text, but some of the pieces feel like more of the same. The author’s points sometimes feel diluted in repetition and the text can be very dry, making it hard to pick up again.

This book also introduced me to some great pieces and works, so that’s a bonus point in its favour.

[Anastey · Rating 2 out of 5]

Thank you Netgalley and Raymond de Borja for sending me this advance review copy for free. I am leaving this review voluntarily.

I was expecting this to me more of a journal style from the description, but it ended up reading like a text book. Instead of including all the bits that were referenced, I ended up having to stop and try to go look them up myself so I could understand what was being talked about. Overall it was vague and dryer than a desert.

Honestly, it was really hard to read. Maybe if you are deeply into poetry, and have a college level of knowledge, you might enjoy this book a lot more.

[tei hurst · Rating 5 out of 5]

more thoughts on this closer to publication, but this read like an intersection of my college poetry textbook, and carole maso’s ‘the art lover’ and ‘the american woman in the chinese hat’. took a little while to get into, but a beautiful mesh of poems and letters and images and fragments.