The Hermit

by Lucy Ives

Poetry. THE HERMIT is a catalog of thoughts concerning art and experience. Layering fragments of dreams, lists, games, conversations, poems, and notebooks, Lucy Ives offers an intimate look into one writer's practice "The worst is my imagination: lushly underscoring everything."

"Imagine if all you had was phenomenology, and then that faded, making every legibility left behind look like scare quotes around the word "thought." Lucy Ives is smart in that heart-breaking way that can make a spare, suspicious, elegant work of anti-poetry out of the silent treatment between ideas and those who have them. 'You cannot win, ' says THE HERMIT, in that cognitive territory unoccupied by ease." Anne Boyer

"Stray thoughts are the protagonists of THE HERMIT they might be the aftereffects of intense focus, yet come across as decidedly eccentric in their resistance to systems (i.e. genre) that might dull their prismatic luminescence. Here they deliver proof of parataxis's poiesis. Ives's exquisite take on ellipsis as realism is a dream, as both vision and something that fully satisfies a wish." Monica de la Torre"

Genres: Poetry

88 pages, Paperback

Published July 1, 2016

About the author

Lucy Ives is the author of several books of poetry and short prose, including The Hermit and the novella nineties. Her writing has appeared in Artforum, Lapham’s Quarterly, and at newyorker.com. For five years she was an editor with the online magazine Triple Canopy. A graduate of Harvard and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, she holds a Ph.D. in comparative literature from New York University. She teaches at the Pratt Institute and is currently editing a collection of writings by the artist Madeline Gins.

Reviews

[ipsit · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an invigorating, post-Wittgenstein-like array of fragments and thoughts, about reading and composing, experience and significance; feels like a tool chest of sorts, brimming with thoughts that rouse the creation of thoughts. Need to read a greater amount of her work now.

[shelby · Rating 1 out of 5]

yeah, this didn’t work for me. i didn’t expect this to be your typical poetry book so i can’t say that it didn’t work because my expectations weren’t matched. it didn’t work because it’s insufferable pseudointellectual jumble. this book reeks of someone who knows they’re qualified and that’s the only merit they have to their work. sorry. sick book cover though.

[Benjamin Niespodziany · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting assembly of fragments and lists and meanderings and beauty. Part prose poem, part journal scrap. A great first reading of Ives.

[Mcftdhorapusswrtrvocm · Rating 5 out of 5]

brief notes written while another writing consumed the author's time, a book that knows many other things exist to worry about, not claiming to take up all the space in the reader's day but synchronizes with their time

[Jules · Rating 4 out of 5]

Part prose poetry, part aphoristic journal. Enjoy the vibe of theory-pilled poetry greatly.