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Anon
"What's at stake in this book is nothing less than the fascination and frustration informing the felt distance between printed word and peopled world. With Pope-like precision, Pusateri would parlay "the me who is he" into a quick-witted poetic for our precarious times, each pointed sentence pointing up both an artifice "illuminated by its own refrain" and the shared punch lines of those who will "know which years were feast and which ones famished." That would be us, people. Like this reader, readers will be sure to pilfer from anon, presently. -Joe Amato **** Anon records ""soft static falling as forecast"" and an ostensible caress that materializes as ""an unpleasant repetition eroding his arm."" Against the bleak banalities of this ""experience in syndication,"" Chris Pusateri strikes back with a bracing admixture of silliness and patient intelligence. The result is ""tricky scripture"" whose ""details breathe and carry you beyond the border of expertise."" The tidiness of our despair is disrupted in anon by a better and more urgent ""imbalance that makes the heart work harder."" -Elizabeth Robinson"
- GenresPoetry
80 pages, Paperback
First published March 3, 2008
1 person is currently reading
19 people want to read
About the author
Chris Pusateri
9 books23 followers
Chris Pusateri
is a poet, critic, and librarian. Born in the American Midwest during the year of the Watergate burglary, he is the author of ten books of poetry, including
Semblance
(Dusie, 2013) and
Common Time
(Steerage, 2012), which was shortlisted for the Colorado Book Award. His work appears widely in literary periodicals and he serves as senior editor for
Something on Paper,
a multimedia journal of poetics and literary scholarship.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
August 17, 2008
anon by Chris Pusateri - BlazeVOX Books / 1934289671 / 76pps /
If Piccasso were a poet, this would be his signature. Juxtaposed mismatched fragments of observation and generalization lain into quick paragraphs of Burroughsesque tellings that, as a whole, splendidly jive. The snippets of quasi-philosophical thought, as in “chapter 1.1” where we are informed “West is not west if you’re west, south or north of it.” for some reason had me thinking of The Wizard of Oz’s Scarecrow. Then “The senior author is the first one listed, an et. al. Othered at the ass-end of the listing experience.” brought his receiving his diploma (brain) scene to mind.
But then a sullen eloquence sneaks in .. “Listen to my lips is a deaf breath” replacing TWOO with a more sultry visual.
There is a cornucopia of great lines in each piece; “Rage is anger that doesn’t follow the recipe.” - “Wouldn’t it be funny if all wars were the products of misinformation?” (You mean they aren’t?) - “If you have a vivid imagination, you don’t need anesthetized.” - “He said: if it’s culture I need, then I’ll lease it.” - “It melted his ice cream to think so.”
But allow me this poem in it’s entirety, as my favorite;
vi.x
The hangover crept up on him midafter
noon. Sing to the bird its song. Syntactical tomfoolery, void where inhibited. He’s from the Canadian Midwest, which isn’t much better. Batter-dipped cover corner, but no mention of apartheid. Danger, beauty, then danger more, nowever, how not now, then when? Every price has its discount. Prisoner stripes are horizontal and referee stripes are vertical. It had all the makings of a trust issue. Nobody orders it for the parsley, but no one would stand to be deprived. White is equated with surrender. He was white and getting whiter.
Brings to mind one of those puzzles where all the pieces are there, in front of you, in a nice, tidy box and you have to arrange them to create the intended picture. Yeah, that’s what it’s like.
Previously published in Oranges & Sardines
If Piccasso were a poet, this would be his signature. Juxtaposed mismatched fragments of observation and generalization lain into quick paragraphs of Burroughsesque tellings that, as a whole, splendidly jive. The snippets of quasi-philosophical thought, as in “chapter 1.1” where we are informed “West is not west if you’re west, south or north of it.” for some reason had me thinking of The Wizard of Oz’s Scarecrow. Then “The senior author is the first one listed, an et. al. Othered at the ass-end of the listing experience.” brought his receiving his diploma (brain) scene to mind.
But then a sullen eloquence sneaks in .. “Listen to my lips is a deaf breath” replacing TWOO with a more sultry visual.
There is a cornucopia of great lines in each piece; “Rage is anger that doesn’t follow the recipe.” - “Wouldn’t it be funny if all wars were the products of misinformation?” (You mean they aren’t?) - “If you have a vivid imagination, you don’t need anesthetized.” - “He said: if it’s culture I need, then I’ll lease it.” - “It melted his ice cream to think so.”
But allow me this poem in it’s entirety, as my favorite;
vi.x
The hangover crept up on him midafter
noon. Sing to the bird its song. Syntactical tomfoolery, void where inhibited. He’s from the Canadian Midwest, which isn’t much better. Batter-dipped cover corner, but no mention of apartheid. Danger, beauty, then danger more, nowever, how not now, then when? Every price has its discount. Prisoner stripes are horizontal and referee stripes are vertical. It had all the makings of a trust issue. Nobody orders it for the parsley, but no one would stand to be deprived. White is equated with surrender. He was white and getting whiter.
Brings to mind one of those puzzles where all the pieces are there, in front of you, in a nice, tidy box and you have to arrange them to create the intended picture. Yeah, that’s what it’s like.
Previously published in Oranges & Sardines
Displaying 1 of 1 review