Viability

by Sarah Vap

Selected as a Winner of the National Poetry Series by Mary Jo Bang

Sarah Vap’s sixth work of poetry, Viability is an ambitious and highly imaginative collection of prose poems that braids together several kinds of language strands in an effort to understand and to ask questions about the bodies (and minds, maybe even souls) that are owned by capitalism. These threads of language include definitions from an online financial dictionary, samples from an essay on the economics of slavery, quotations from an article about slavery in today’s Thai fishing industry, lyric bits and pieces about pregnancy and infants of all kinds, and a wealth of quotations falsely attributed to John of the Cross. The viability that Vap is asking about is primarily economic and biological (but not only). The questions of viability become entwined with the need, across the book, to “increase”—in both a capitalist and a gestational sense. John of the Cross tries, at first with composure, to comment on or to mediate between all the different strands of the collection.

Genres: Poetry, Literature

162 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 29, 2015

About the author

Sarah Vap is the author of American Spikenard, winner of the 2006 Iowa Poetry Prize, and Dummy Fire, winner of the 2006 Saturnalia Poetry Prize.

She is Poetry Editor at the online journal 42 Opus, and lives on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington.

Reviews

[Jimmy · Rating 5 out of 5]

let's face it, the destruction of the human through commodification is our collective history, especially in America, is our legacy and nothing built on that can change. no wonder global warming, no wonder mass incarceration, injustice, no wonder the bodies of brown black female mothers the bodies accounted for on sheets on reams, no wonder the hopelessness, helplessness. if you are a cynic good, you should be. this book will only cement that, will make all the thoughts already circulating in your dreams, all the concerns for the human-animal-sister come to light, will make you no happier. if you are a thinking feeling sad human being in 2016 you should read this. nevermind, i take that back. avoid this book, i was about to say 'at all cost'. do not read this book. because it may kill you. i can't quote any part of the book because it may kill you (and besides it builds on itself, so quoting out of context may be harder). since i won't quote from it, and since you shouldn't read this book, i will only quote from the front-matter, the fine print:

Financial terms are the copyrighted property of Investopedia, LLC. All rights reserved.

[Craig Werner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Viability builds a series of jazz riffs on the melody of John of the Cross's "Where there is no love, put love--and you will find love." Gliding across the vocabularies of economics, politics, marriage, motherhood and intensely aware of the way commercial processes have contributed to the degradation of language and consciousness, Vap is fiercely critical of abstraction of all sort. Repeatedly, she places slavery, both the historical slavery in the American South and contemporary slavery in the waters around Thailand at the center.

The book doesn't excerpt easily; the way to read it is as a whole--set the time aside for two or three hour/two hour sessions for full impact. The form is loosely related to "prose poem"--ancestors include William Carlos Williams, relatives Ed Pavlic's "Verbatim" sequence--but the sections never read as prose. If you want a sample, look at pages 9, 19, 30, 69, 105, 131, 151, 157. A couple of brief examples:
"Where there is no information, put information--put operations--the algorithm is unbreakable. The algorithm is thinking.--John of the Cross"
and
"Put everlastingness. Put unendingness. Put relentlessness. Put algorithms and put operations. Put them everywhere you turn. You will become the field gesturing. You will become fishbones and guts, you will become strewn across the pavement. You will become the bruises along the mind. You will become weapons-grade membrane. You will become the animals of actual mercy. You will become actual dead animals. You will become dead.--John of the Cross."

[Patricia Murphy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like Vap's other books, this collection leaves me feeling like I just got a PhD in how to be smart and creative. The interweaving of economic, religious, and personal ideas are seamless and thoughtful here--not an easy task to accomplish. The language itself is meditative, hypnotic, soothing, even when it explains troubling concepts. That tension leaves the reader pliable and agreeable.

[Julene · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Sarah Vap's poetry book "Viability" she braids themes: economic through stock market and investing terms, slavery—both in America's history, and in Thailand's fishing industry, child birth, and misquotes she creates of John of the Cross. This commentary is educational, profound and layered with warnings about our viability as a species, hence the title. The final line at the end in from the last John of the Cross misquote, "You will become dead." Such a fitting ending to this spectacular book.

I did not know rich women had their own stock indexes: Angelina Jolie, Eva Longoria, Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton, Jennifer Lopez. I had not heard of the Lady Godiva Accounting Principles (LGAP), but I had heard the Skirt Length Theory as a predictor of the stock market direction.

This book is a series of prose poems that also includes daydreams. There is humor, facts, gross reality, making us question our reality. On a particular poignant page she lists the steps for how slave owners calculated value from a "field wench." This is not easy reading, but it shows the place of women economicaly and gives us a way to look at our value system.

Here is one of her John of the Cross misquotes:
"Where there is no love, put infants in Table 2. Put angels in
Table 1. Where there is no love, put the best average. Where
there is no love, put infants in most of the important slave
markets. Where there is no love, where there are no angels, put
infants or put no infants—and there you will find no love.
There is some increase in infant radiance.

And, the opening prose poem:
"The splintered log filled me mouth to groin. And growing—
growing, the emerald was blood. The stones in the water were
eyes and I was not recognized by either the givings or the
killings that will make a woman a mother, that will make a
mother a moon dropped to the water and carving out her own
eye. Our family was afraid for itself until we were worn. And
became, at evening's porcelain quality, like even the dead dog's
bones, silent and white. The infant and the carriage, frozen
below the firepond—they held themselves, were alone. We
looked down at them through the thick ice while they ripped him
from me in the single, performed loneliness."

I am lucky to have heard Sarah Vap read once at Open Books in Seattle.

[Margaryta · Rating 3 out of 5]

Vap's collection does read a bit more as a notebook in preparation for future poems rather than as strictly "poems", which is why it was harder for me to make the leap between source and product in "Viability", terms that I'm sure Vap would be amused by considering the subject of the collection. Yet I do agree with the statement on the back cover that "Viability" blends the boundary between life and and lyrical poetry. No matter how much I was confused or unsure of what to make of "Viability"'s form, there was a truth to it that rang clear in its terrifying clarity. Perhaps the fact that "Viability" is my first real dive into prose poetry that I had the kind of conflicted impression of it, which will change after further exploration and a revisit to it at a later date.

[Lily · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection is a tapestry of what is viable, especially as that word applies to the body. The collection critiques and questions market forces and economic jargon which is peppered throughout with definitions of a "Lindsey Lohan" market and how these terms alienate and remove market forces from humanity in general, and the body in particular. Weaving together financial world definitions, the economy of slavery, Thai fishing industries, fertility and infants, and John of the Cross, there is a questioning of capitalism and biology and increase and progress. It's simply written, complex in theme, poetic and beautiful, while unsettling and disturbing, but altogether poignant.

[Rebecca Valley · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a beautiful collection about increase - sex & the female body & capitalism & slavery & how we determine worth. Vap beautifully mingles lyrical and academic language. Would be 5 stars if it was a little tighter, length-wise.

[Divorcelawyer · Rating 4 out of 5]

every poem, down to each word, is important to understand the next and in the end, that’s some fucked up genius.

[book.to.frame · Rating 3 out of 5]

It took me a minute to really get into how the author was writing this. I got used to the style of writing after the midway point.

[Brian Wasserman · Rating 1 out of 5]

nonsense ?

[Art Cleveland · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unexpectedly inviting. The connections across time and space linking the body human to the body politic are jarring and provocative. Perfectly suited for the age of short answers to complex questions. We are seduced by the brief and drawn in by the images and language that affirms the human quest for connection.

[Alyssa Lentz · Rating 4 out of 5]

I absolutely loved the way this collection was composed, having different threads running through it that eventually overlap and get tangled, leading to crescendo. Masterful use of the prose poem, really showcases its flexibility. The series of faux-business terminology based in female pop-culture and entertainment fixtures was really clever and interesting.

[Soren · Rating 4 out of 5]

"I could say it as simply as this: that is what teeth are for, that is what the bones are for. I could say the years felt fragile. I could say the infants have all felt fragile. I could say the light fell down." That's probably my favorite quote

[Frankie Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

Forever a sucker for an anatomy metaphor.