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Blert
The bright, taut, explosive poems in Jordan Scott’s Blert represent a spelunk into the mouth of the stutterer. Through the unique symptoms of the stutter (Scott, like fifty million others, has always stuttered), language becomes a rolling gait of words hidden within words, leading to different rhythms and textures, all addressed by the mouth’s slight erosions.
In Scott’s lexicon, to blert is to stutter, to disturb the breath of speaking. The stutter quivers in all that we do, from a skip on a CD to a slip of the tongue. These experiences are often dismissed as aberrant, but in Blert, such fragmented milliseconds are embraced and mined as language. Often aimed full-bore at words that are especially difficult for the stutterer, Scott’s poems don’t just discuss, they replicate the act of stuttering, the 'blort, jam, and rejoice' involved in grappling with the granular texture of words.
In Scott’s lexicon, to blert is to stutter, to disturb the breath of speaking. The stutter quivers in all that we do, from a skip on a CD to a slip of the tongue. These experiences are often dismissed as aberrant, but in Blert, such fragmented milliseconds are embraced and mined as language. Often aimed full-bore at words that are especially difficult for the stutterer, Scott’s poems don’t just discuss, they replicate the act of stuttering, the 'blort, jam, and rejoice' involved in grappling with the granular texture of words.
- GenresPoetry
72 pages, Paperback
First published April 14, 2004
About the author
Jordan Scott
8 books6 followersJordan Scott is an internationally acclaimed poet and children’s author.
Scott is also the author of four books of poetry: Silt, Blert, DECOMP, and Night & Ox. Blert, which explores the poetics of stuttering, is the subject of two National Film Board of Canada projects.
Scott was the 2015/16 Ellen and Warren Tallman Writer-in-Residence at Simon Fraser University and has read from his work throughout North America and Europe. In 2018 Scott was the recipient of the Latner Writers’ Trust Poetry Prize, given to a mid-career poet in recognition of a remarkable body of work, and in anticipation of future contributions to Canadian poetry.
Scott lives on Vancouver Island and teaches at the UBC School of Creative Writing.
Scott is also the author of four books of poetry: Silt, Blert, DECOMP, and Night & Ox. Blert, which explores the poetics of stuttering, is the subject of two National Film Board of Canada projects.
Scott was the 2015/16 Ellen and Warren Tallman Writer-in-Residence at Simon Fraser University and has read from his work throughout North America and Europe. In 2018 Scott was the recipient of the Latner Writers’ Trust Poetry Prize, given to a mid-career poet in recognition of a remarkable body of work, and in anticipation of future contributions to Canadian poetry.
Scott lives on Vancouver Island and teaches at the UBC School of Creative Writing.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
June 27, 2022
This is a short book of poems. The poems are constructed from words that the author has trouble with as a stutterer. Thus the compositions are all apparently random words without lexical association or meaning, rather just odd mouth feel or orthography and without set meters or rhyme schemes. Despite this the overall effect of the constructions, is interesting and fun.
There is an explanatory note by the author and some acknowledgements in straight prose.
There is an explanatory note by the author and some acknowledgements in straight prose.
December 25, 2019
A brilliant book of poetry written by a stutterer, Jordan Scott. He uses language to reproduce the stuttering effect. It is a linguistic feat of word brilliance that has to be read out loud, and slowly. There are no titles on the poems, the books sections are noted at the bottom of the page, with no section breaks otherwise. This is a run-on book with large white spaces within.
In the beginning and at the end, the first and last page, are a continuous concrete poem that is like a breath coming out of a mouth filling space and winding down the page in a big bog of words that blend into the binding of the book, impossible to read or articulate, but all words that run together in a mix of sounds more than words that make meaning. Thus we enter this book.
A few pages "On Avoidance" start with this prose: "It is part of my existence to be the parasite of metaphors, so easily/am I carried away by the first simile that comes along. Having/been carried away, I have to find my difficult way back, and/slowly return, to the fact of my mouth."
On a page listed as Valsalvas, it starts with three italicized statements:
"Some will not when by themselves.
Some will not when speaking to children or animals.
Some will not when they sing."
Then sections with the repeated italicized question: "What is Utterance?" with answers. One of them:
"Dewlap syllables Mesozoic. The billabong passes as gung-ho
through scaffolded throats, blotches lobule curves until Mesozoic
ricochets cochlea, at a slow freight. The plate thermoregulates,
camouflages, the antelope roll."
Sections named: Spelunk, Gobbledygook, Grike, Fable, Chomp Set (actually this one is at the top of the page when it appears) and these are repeated.
We are being led to understand the voice of someone who stutters, from the inside of the mouth.
In a section, "Two Cheeseburgers, French Fries and a Coke" a segment is:
"hiccup, hibachi, hickey, hide and seek, hi-fi... Fri, friendly, fire,
Freedom Fires, fries"
A long section, "Marble Bubble Bobble" starts with dense paragraphs...then short blerts:
"marbles mandible
slow tonic
phlegm Pango Pango
green's apples...."
And finally at the end, an "Author's Note" where he writes:
"At its base level, blert is a text written to be as difficult as possible
for me to read. Poetically, the tempo of blert (like the pace of my
mouth) is of suspension and falter, clinical and personal. Written
as a spelunk into the mouth of a stutter, blert is a trek across
labial regions, a navigation of tracheal rills, and a full bore squirm
inside the mouth's wear and tear."
In a blurb on the back Dennis Lee writes, "Scott recreates his experience of language as a resistant physical medium—where every vowel and consonant must be transversed, claimed, made audible by non-stop bodily effort. And for the non-stuttering reader, the effect is boggling."
This is a must read book for poets and anyone interested in the speach and the mechanics of voice.
In the beginning and at the end, the first and last page, are a continuous concrete poem that is like a breath coming out of a mouth filling space and winding down the page in a big bog of words that blend into the binding of the book, impossible to read or articulate, but all words that run together in a mix of sounds more than words that make meaning. Thus we enter this book.
A few pages "On Avoidance" start with this prose: "It is part of my existence to be the parasite of metaphors, so easily/am I carried away by the first simile that comes along. Having/been carried away, I have to find my difficult way back, and/slowly return, to the fact of my mouth."
On a page listed as Valsalvas, it starts with three italicized statements:
"Some will not when by themselves.
Some will not when speaking to children or animals.
Some will not when they sing."
Then sections with the repeated italicized question: "What is Utterance?" with answers. One of them:
"Dewlap syllables Mesozoic. The billabong passes as gung-ho
through scaffolded throats, blotches lobule curves until Mesozoic
ricochets cochlea, at a slow freight. The plate thermoregulates,
camouflages, the antelope roll."
Sections named: Spelunk, Gobbledygook, Grike, Fable, Chomp Set (actually this one is at the top of the page when it appears) and these are repeated.
We are being led to understand the voice of someone who stutters, from the inside of the mouth.
In a section, "Two Cheeseburgers, French Fries and a Coke" a segment is:
"hiccup, hibachi, hickey, hide and seek, hi-fi... Fri, friendly, fire,
Freedom Fires, fries"
A long section, "Marble Bubble Bobble" starts with dense paragraphs...then short blerts:
"marbles mandible
slow tonic
phlegm Pango Pango
green's apples...."
And finally at the end, an "Author's Note" where he writes:
"At its base level, blert is a text written to be as difficult as possible
for me to read. Poetically, the tempo of blert (like the pace of my
mouth) is of suspension and falter, clinical and personal. Written
as a spelunk into the mouth of a stutter, blert is a trek across
labial regions, a navigation of tracheal rills, and a full bore squirm
inside the mouth's wear and tear."
In a blurb on the back Dennis Lee writes, "Scott recreates his experience of language as a resistant physical medium—where every vowel and consonant must be transversed, claimed, made audible by non-stop bodily effort. And for the non-stuttering reader, the effect is boggling."
This is a must read book for poets and anyone interested in the speach and the mechanics of voice.
July 17, 2019
LC'S REVIEW:
Scott is an Albertan poet with a heavy stutter. Instead of shying away from language and performance, he uses his exceptional speech IN his performances and works. This book, in particular, was written to give you the sensation of having a stutter. Scott builds the poetry like an obstacles course that will trip you. Really fascinating.
I had a speech impediment when I was younger, as do multiple of my nephews and nieces, and I love being able to point to Jordan Scott as a semi-local example of turning a "disability" into a strength.
Scott is an Albertan poet with a heavy stutter. Instead of shying away from language and performance, he uses his exceptional speech IN his performances and works. This book, in particular, was written to give you the sensation of having a stutter. Scott builds the poetry like an obstacles course that will trip you. Really fascinating.
I had a speech impediment when I was younger, as do multiple of my nephews and nieces, and I love being able to point to Jordan Scott as a semi-local example of turning a "disability" into a strength.
February 26, 2023
"At its base level, blert is a text written to be as difficult as possible for me to read. Poetically, the tempo of blert (like the pace of my mouth) is of suspension and falter, clinical and personal. Written as a spelunk into the mouth of a stutterer, blert is a trek across labial regions, a navigation of tracheal rills, and a full bore squirm inside the mouth's wear and tear...blert is written as a threat to coherence, as a child's thick desire to revamp the alphabet, as an inchoate moan edging toward song." --Jordan Scott
February 21, 2022
One of the best works, poetry or prose, about stuttering. I’ve been reading and writing about stuttering much of my adult life, and still this book came as a revelation.
January 16, 2023
Fascinating feat of imagination and sound.
September 18, 2009
I'll admit I would not have appreciated this book as much as I do without also reading an essay called "The Stutter of Form".
Blert was written by Jordan Scott, a lifelong stutterer, and it was written to be as difficult as possible for him to read aloud. The poetry is nonsensical in a semantic sense but full of geographical and physiological imagery, which, if you read "The Stutter of Form" (or are simply more intelligent than I am), you will realize has a very specific purpose: to show stuttering as a physical occurrence in nature, in the body, and in language itself.
The poetry is also extremely fun to read aloud; it's full of internal rhyme, assonance, and damn-near toe-tapping rhythm. Check it out. T-t-today, junior.
Blert was written by Jordan Scott, a lifelong stutterer, and it was written to be as difficult as possible for him to read aloud. The poetry is nonsensical in a semantic sense but full of geographical and physiological imagery, which, if you read "The Stutter of Form" (or are simply more intelligent than I am), you will realize has a very specific purpose: to show stuttering as a physical occurrence in nature, in the body, and in language itself.
The poetry is also extremely fun to read aloud; it's full of internal rhyme, assonance, and damn-near toe-tapping rhythm. Check it out. T-t-today, junior.
February 9, 2015
An interesting read. And I liked it a whole lot but it didn't leave me feeling or thinking any particular way. It was quick and fun, but I felt like I slipped in and out of because there was nothing for me to really care about.
March 11, 2012
""My symptoms are the agents of composition."
April 15, 2026
after reading listen to The Argument by GFOTY
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews