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Metaphysical Dictionary
Svetlana Lilova’s Metaphysical Dictionary is a collection of very short poems, framed as term and definition, alphabetically sorted.
As individual poems, these are reductions, or Pound’s piths and gists in extremis; all payload, no bulkhead. But as they fold back on themselves, elusive shapes emerge and dissolve, transient origami.
Psychologically acute, suffused with feeling, this dictionary invites total immersion in the private language of its creator, and conveys us to the heart of a playful, enigmatic, whimsical, sometimes pained but always hopeful interior.
As individual poems, these are reductions, or Pound’s piths and gists in extremis; all payload, no bulkhead. But as they fold back on themselves, elusive shapes emerge and dissolve, transient origami.
Psychologically acute, suffused with feeling, this dictionary invites total immersion in the private language of its creator, and conveys us to the heart of a playful, enigmatic, whimsical, sometimes pained but always hopeful interior.
- GenresPoetry
96 pages, Paperback
First published May 31, 2016
267 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
February 11, 2016
I won this book as part of a Goodreads giveaway so I would like to begin this review by giving my heartfelt thanks to both Svetlana Lilova and Dumagrad Books. This is my honest review.
I entered the giveaway because the synopsis of the book was unlike any I had ever heard of before. Was this a dictionary? A book of poetry? Fact? Fiction? All of the above? I had no clue. But I was intrigued. The odds were forever in my favor and I won the giveaway!
Metaphsycial Dictionary proved to be the latter option in my multiple choice ponderings stated above. It was set out in a typical dictionary format but the definitions were distinctly atypical, and were instead a series of beautiful short poems and abstract sentences relating to each word. The concept of this book is so unique and the end product, in both the physical and written sense, is just mesmerizing.
This book offered interpretations of words that ranged from witty, such as with “Coffee: false life energy”, to poignant, with “Connection: all we really have”, and repeated this cycle over and over again. It offered every range of emotion possible on each and every page. It might be short but it turned into an emotionally exhausting and thought-provoking read. And when I say short book, I mean that this is a really short book (it’s under 100 pages, features gorgeous illustrations which take up some of them and the poems and definitions number only a few lines or words each) and I finished it in under an hour. But I feel it deserves so much more than that. This book required my entire heart and mind whilst reading it and will require them both for a lot longer, I imagine. Reading this book wasn’t a passive action and it is not one which can be truly completed in the course of an hour. I have read each entry and now I am ready to immerse myself in the rereading and contemplation of each entry again, and again and again...
Reading this felt like almost an autobiography of the life of the author but also an exploration of the self. Lilova examined feelings and memories connected with each word that I never knew I harbored. Humans forms strings of letters and decide each string is a word. These words are then decided upon to be the linguistic and vocabular representative for an object or a feeling or an organism or a whole system of things... Here, this system is proven to be inadequate and instead connections are made between these words and your soul. It feels like words have been recreated to actually mean something. For example, here a door is not a door but a feeling of a door, a memory of a door, what a door represents. It makes the door an abstract rather than a literal object.
This book makes language an art form instead of just a function. No, it doesn’t make it an art form, but makes us realize it was an art form all along: an individual art form that doesn’t sit inside of a picture frame and which varies from person to person. It is an innate art form using experience and our shared and individual past as its medium.
To sum up this book into an adjective I would use the word exquisite. But to try and encapsulate and transfer all I feel about this book I will use Lilova’s unique interpretations of the word:
“exquisite: the effect/weight
0f the pain
of beauty
of opening inner aches"
I entered the giveaway because the synopsis of the book was unlike any I had ever heard of before. Was this a dictionary? A book of poetry? Fact? Fiction? All of the above? I had no clue. But I was intrigued. The odds were forever in my favor and I won the giveaway!
Metaphsycial Dictionary proved to be the latter option in my multiple choice ponderings stated above. It was set out in a typical dictionary format but the definitions were distinctly atypical, and were instead a series of beautiful short poems and abstract sentences relating to each word. The concept of this book is so unique and the end product, in both the physical and written sense, is just mesmerizing.
This book offered interpretations of words that ranged from witty, such as with “Coffee: false life energy”, to poignant, with “Connection: all we really have”, and repeated this cycle over and over again. It offered every range of emotion possible on each and every page. It might be short but it turned into an emotionally exhausting and thought-provoking read. And when I say short book, I mean that this is a really short book (it’s under 100 pages, features gorgeous illustrations which take up some of them and the poems and definitions number only a few lines or words each) and I finished it in under an hour. But I feel it deserves so much more than that. This book required my entire heart and mind whilst reading it and will require them both for a lot longer, I imagine. Reading this book wasn’t a passive action and it is not one which can be truly completed in the course of an hour. I have read each entry and now I am ready to immerse myself in the rereading and contemplation of each entry again, and again and again...
Reading this felt like almost an autobiography of the life of the author but also an exploration of the self. Lilova examined feelings and memories connected with each word that I never knew I harbored. Humans forms strings of letters and decide each string is a word. These words are then decided upon to be the linguistic and vocabular representative for an object or a feeling or an organism or a whole system of things... Here, this system is proven to be inadequate and instead connections are made between these words and your soul. It feels like words have been recreated to actually mean something. For example, here a door is not a door but a feeling of a door, a memory of a door, what a door represents. It makes the door an abstract rather than a literal object.
This book makes language an art form instead of just a function. No, it doesn’t make it an art form, but makes us realize it was an art form all along: an individual art form that doesn’t sit inside of a picture frame and which varies from person to person. It is an innate art form using experience and our shared and individual past as its medium.
To sum up this book into an adjective I would use the word exquisite. But to try and encapsulate and transfer all I feel about this book I will use Lilova’s unique interpretations of the word:
“exquisite: the effect/weight
0f the pain
of beauty
of opening inner aches"
August 15, 2017
I won this book in a Goodreads giveaway..thank you! I was confused at first, but gradually got the feel of it.Very interesting book.
July 31, 2024
a series of very short poems written as “definitions”, that truly hit hard and have a ton of impact despite their size. the more you read (and see how some definitions reference back to others) the more it makes sense and blends together to form a beautiful narrative of the author’s life experiences.
June 16, 2018
A fascinating, clever, ingenious exercise that never really moved me.
February 4, 2016
It was okay a bit confusing I am not used to this kind of poetry but it was okay
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews