Walk

by Cole Swensen

EP 36.

These three disjunctive lyric sequences explore the work of three women who were/are inveterate walkers as well as writers.

Excerpt:

The walking body always exists entirely at its furthest forward boundary, and continually overflows it, and thus is always entering new territory—features it shares with writing. Each of these three poem sequences engages with the writings of a different woman writer/walker to trace three different experiences woven of the same three ingredients.

36 pages, ebook

First published September 15, 2015

About the author

Cole Swensen (b. 1955— ) in Kentfield near San Francisco, Swensen was awarded a 2006 Guggenheim Fellowship and is the author of over ten poetry collections and as many translations of works from the French. A translator, editor, copywriter, and teacher, she received her B.A. and M.A. from San Francisco State University and a Ph. D. in Comparative Literature from the University of California, Santa Cruz before going on to become the now-Previous Director of the Creative Writing Program at the University of Denver. Her work is considered Postmodern and post-Language school, though she maintains close ties with many of the original authors from that group (such as Lyn Hejinian, Carla Harryman, Barrett Watten, Charles Bernstein,) as well as poets from all over the US and Europe. In fact, her work is hybrid in nature, sometimes called lyric-Language poetry emerging from a strong background in the poetic and visual art traditions of both the USA and France and adding to them her own vision.