Madonna Anno Domini: Poems

by Joshua Clover

Jorie Graham claims Clover's poetry as "a poetic manifesto as well as a prayer-book for the millennial generation." Winner of the 1996 Walt Whitman Award of the Academy of American Poets, the poetry collection says more about the state of art in American poetry than it illuminates its subject matter which deftly jumps from referencing death camps to Rodney King. The language is beautiful, delirious, a little hallucinatory, and so, finally, in love with itself that it fails to touch any one of its subjects deeply. Yes, profoundly postmodern, a virtual world of accidental information with very little understanding of knowledge's depths. Paper edition (unseen), $11.95. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

Genres: Poetry

64 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 1997

About the author

Joshua Clover was an American poet, writer, professor of English and comparative literature at the University of California, Davis, and revolutionary.
He was a published scholar, poet, critic, and journalist whose work has been translated into more than a dozen languages; his scholarship on the political economy of riots has been widely influential in political theory. He appeared in three editions of The Best American Poetry and two times in Best Music Writing, and received an individual grant from the NEA as well as fellowships from the Cornell Society for the Humanities, the University of California Humanities Research Institute, and Institute of Advanced Study, University of Warwick. His first book of poetry, Madonna anno domini, received the Walt Whitman Award from the Academy of American Poets in 1996.

Reviews

[Joe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some poems are too "learned" for their own good and sometimes Clover winks one too many times at the reader and this gets in the way of some poems actually doing what they want to do. Clover tones this down to tremendous effect in The Totality for Kids and its the dissonance of not knowing whether or not to take things at face value which makes that collection dangerous. AND, I'm not bothered by all the Walter Benjamin references (hey we all got to give him a shot) but there are places where I'm annoyed by how he is referred to. Still, there are enough poems here that reward through multiple readings, and I'm hoping to come back to "The Plaza" and "Radiant City." Maybe Part of one (italics lost):

First it was one thing then it was
one thing after another. We
tend to think of fused flowers

as igniting outward from a
central place as in sex as in
Haussmann's Radiant City. I

saw it live on TV.
From overhead it's possible
to speak of the whole thing. First day

of the riots but before that
I was near home when S--this is
just a personal incident--

passed by in an old red shirt. They
weren't letting people out of
the stations as of the early

rumors of lootings. This after
Eastern Europe. Buildings burning
to the south as in parables

as in what punk rock promised. I
found this exciting. "He was
in control of the whole thing."

The word is S doesn't do men
anyway. A few shopping bags
came into the City via

the last trains before the curfew.
We saw the 81 seconds
on TV maybe a thousand

times. Enough house-burnings for night
visions in Los Angeles but
still the helicopters busy

not really looking just humming
overhead. A car rocked side
to side as in a carnival

ride then rolled it ignited as in
an excellent carnival ride. No
clear argument--the whole thing was

interruption...

[C. Varn · Rating 4 out of 5]

My interactions with Joshua Clover came generally come later with his work in communization theory, but this collection of his poems from the 90s is refreshing if a bit obnoxiously erudite. His formal control and explosive technique can be gripping and other times it can be coying. The Walter Benjamin references can be a bit overwhelming. This rewards multiple re-reads, but at times, one feels there is not as much there in these experiments beyond themselves.

[Laurel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wanted to draw pictures above the text that was at the bottom of the page; I wanted to participate. I was reading a copy a friend lent me, so no. That's why I only gave it 4/5 stars.

[Dawn · Rating 3 out of 5]

imbricate, heliotrope, mantic, corniced, veldt, foolscap, cacao, topiary, ichor, mendicant, seine, doyenne, suzerains, appurtenances, scarab, railment, loggia, dauphin, festoon, and my-personal-favorite: infundibuliform

[Sandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh back in the day when I read this book. I was a young lass.

What did I learn from reading this? You can't please all the people all the time.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of his poems are excellent: inventive, profound, surreal, imaginative. I wish I had the book handy so I could quote him and have a little of his unique magic to spread around.

Problem is, I couldn't shake the feeling that he was getting off a little too much on the "hey, look at me! I'm so POSTMODERN! I'm a badass wiseguy DECONSTRUCTIONIST!!!!" kinda thing. Leaves me cold, frustrated, and less apt to want to finish his more opaque, incomprehensible stuff.

Unfortunately, for me, that was about 2/3 of the book.

[Christine · Rating 4 out of 5]

For me, this collection started out gripping and got a bit coy by the end. Clover's use of rhyme is absolutely solid throughout, though.

[Noam Levinsky · Rating 3 out of 5]

Per usual, the poems about the west were my favorite (“Union Pacific” in particular). I loved the imagery in here, but it felt a little as if if it was beautiful and heady images floating around in a formal void. That probably doesn’t make sense but whatever.

[Claudia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Joshua Clover's first collection of published works is his most widely celebrated, having won the 1996 Walt Whitman Award. Having read his second collection of poetry first, I found the early voice of Clover to be more serious in its addressing of current events. Themes of war are prevalent throughout the collection, references to bombs and items of war craft appear in many of the poems, weaving in and out of stories of lovers and integrated into scenes of daily American life. I found it interesting that this collection received better praise than his later book, as this one came across as more vague comparatively. While his ability to abstractly organize such thoughts and reflections is beautifully done, I feel as many of the line breaks and forms he chose to work with stifled the flow of a few of the works, such as "There Is A Body Lying State" or "Totenbuch". While I respect and appreciate the variation in his usage of form, I feel as if it at times felt forced.

What I am truly inspired by, however, is Clover's application and redefinition of many words, an abstract manipulation that, though sometimes a bit dizzying, is absolutely beautiful and really defines Clover's work and aesthetic:
my desert bloomed with thumb sized palms,/had a little Revolution, had a little mirage,/brained me with a calendar, I loved the 2nd act,/
Clover's use of calendar as a verb and referring to the scene in play terms comments deeply on the influences and heavy effects of social structure on every day life. Clover's restructuring of conventional standards relates to the very themes he addresses: the evolving of American culture. The new image of war and the roles it played in culture and media weigh heavily in his wok.

[Pss · Rating 4 out of 5]

http://loadsoflearnedlumber.blogspot....

[Joshua · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent Poetry from the nineties.

[Sean A. · Rating 4 out of 5]

punchy, great command of language, as promised, if often opaque, even for poetry.