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Superpositions - poetics
Published by Beir Bua Press
Please buy through Beir Bua Press dot com as this is where we receive the most revenu which keeps the press functioning, creating new experiments and supporting charity.
About the author
Michael Sutton is the author of two previous books of poetry, music/lyrics (Hesterglock Press), and Nineteen Nightmares and a Dream (Alien Buddha Press). He also edits Overground Underground, an occasional magazine of art and literature. He is a recipient of the Streetcake Experimental Writing Prize.
About the collection
This collection contains, interspersed, a tenuous poetics against realism. But this is odd, as many of the poems which parenthesise these sections are based in the very real realities of the last two years of life on earth.
Introduction to Superpositions
I was asked to write an introduction to this book, which is good, because I enjoy writing, this thing I do now, right now, and now. This collection contains, interspersed, a tenuous poetics against realism. But this is odd, as many of the poems which parenthesise these sections are based in the very real realities of the last two years of life on earth. Based, but it befits me to further warp these realities, tumescing them with imagined people and places, imagined words and imagined psychologies. Parentheses are funny things, like the trees who parenthesise this bench, and the auld fella smoking on the bench, and, who knows, all the dust etcetera and the pigeon feathers and the infinite static, parentheses parenthesised themselves by two bus stops, one for this way and one for the other, thus the universe is strapped to a rack and stretched in opposite directions. But the poems in this book are not really real parentheses. They look like this: (. . .). . .). . .) and each piece is much more of an in than 'a putting in beside'. They are not postrealist (a cumbersome word most commonly used in the sphere of international relations) poems, but they are, in a sense, superpositions, existing in multiple states simultaneously; real and imagined, past/present/future, on a building site on a lay-by in the British Museum. But how can there be postrealism when there was no realism to begin with? Just as we can knock our knuckles on the table and feel the wood resist our bones, yet still be ignorant as to what the wood and the bones and the flesh and the air in between are actually made of, we can, concurrently, watch the news and hear the politicians bloviate on ‘the reality of the situation’, and know that the reality they speak of is infested with bugs and subject to sudden and unthinkable changes. But here we are, we are here, watching the news and smashing our fists against the table, just waiting for our hands to dissolve through empty space. And here I am, finally, on the 82 to Speke. Branches scrape the windows of the second deck. One of those days where you walk past Woolton Carpet Centre and think to yourself, Why not have a look around? And I did, and it was beautiful.
Words of Praise
“Poetics as lit matches for a world on fire. Michael Sutton’s latest work is terrifyingly real, with its keen sense of imminence and knack for revealing behavioural strangeness and human (ir-)responsibility. Interestingly, humour weaves through the general seriousness/activism of these poems but, as Pound demanded, it too is willing to fight like tragedy. Cue the ‘glassgrime’ moaning of Hirst’s cow or Prince Phillip in dialogue with Titan, lampooned, vaudevillian, odd bedfellows finding one another via the ‘vice of vapidity’. Ultimately, as Sutton is aware, through these brilliantly eavesdropped and intimate snapshots of living, or attempting to live, the greater tragedy is bound up with our gesture as a humanity, our collective presence in the world. The language here is both physical and innovative. ‘I want to carry you into my mouth’ writes Sutton and into that dark void we go.”
James Byrne, poet, translator and editor of The Wolf magazine (2002-2017)
“Michael Sutton offers a poetics of the clause superimposed with dangerous modifiers and a rich man’s portmanteaus. These poems skip through scenes, permeate partially actualized realities, and tease the poor lyric with interlaced collage, visual, and found text. The essence of poetry lingers in these remarkable fragments. And a voice emerges through and across the accumulation of formula, form, and foreign objects.”
Gregory Betts; a Canadian poet, editor and professor at Brock University with a specialty in Canadian and avant-garde literature
Please buy through Beir Bua Press dot com as this is where we receive the most revenu which keeps the press functioning, creating new experiments and supporting charity.
About the author
Michael Sutton is the author of two previous books of poetry, music/lyrics (Hesterglock Press), and Nineteen Nightmares and a Dream (Alien Buddha Press). He also edits Overground Underground, an occasional magazine of art and literature. He is a recipient of the Streetcake Experimental Writing Prize.
About the collection
This collection contains, interspersed, a tenuous poetics against realism. But this is odd, as many of the poems which parenthesise these sections are based in the very real realities of the last two years of life on earth.
Introduction to Superpositions
I was asked to write an introduction to this book, which is good, because I enjoy writing, this thing I do now, right now, and now. This collection contains, interspersed, a tenuous poetics against realism. But this is odd, as many of the poems which parenthesise these sections are based in the very real realities of the last two years of life on earth. Based, but it befits me to further warp these realities, tumescing them with imagined people and places, imagined words and imagined psychologies. Parentheses are funny things, like the trees who parenthesise this bench, and the auld fella smoking on the bench, and, who knows, all the dust etcetera and the pigeon feathers and the infinite static, parentheses parenthesised themselves by two bus stops, one for this way and one for the other, thus the universe is strapped to a rack and stretched in opposite directions. But the poems in this book are not really real parentheses. They look like this: (. . .). . .). . .) and each piece is much more of an in than 'a putting in beside'. They are not postrealist (a cumbersome word most commonly used in the sphere of international relations) poems, but they are, in a sense, superpositions, existing in multiple states simultaneously; real and imagined, past/present/future, on a building site on a lay-by in the British Museum. But how can there be postrealism when there was no realism to begin with? Just as we can knock our knuckles on the table and feel the wood resist our bones, yet still be ignorant as to what the wood and the bones and the flesh and the air in between are actually made of, we can, concurrently, watch the news and hear the politicians bloviate on ‘the reality of the situation’, and know that the reality they speak of is infested with bugs and subject to sudden and unthinkable changes. But here we are, we are here, watching the news and smashing our fists against the table, just waiting for our hands to dissolve through empty space. And here I am, finally, on the 82 to Speke. Branches scrape the windows of the second deck. One of those days where you walk past Woolton Carpet Centre and think to yourself, Why not have a look around? And I did, and it was beautiful.
Words of Praise
“Poetics as lit matches for a world on fire. Michael Sutton’s latest work is terrifyingly real, with its keen sense of imminence and knack for revealing behavioural strangeness and human (ir-)responsibility. Interestingly, humour weaves through the general seriousness/activism of these poems but, as Pound demanded, it too is willing to fight like tragedy. Cue the ‘glassgrime’ moaning of Hirst’s cow or Prince Phillip in dialogue with Titan, lampooned, vaudevillian, odd bedfellows finding one another via the ‘vice of vapidity’. Ultimately, as Sutton is aware, through these brilliantly eavesdropped and intimate snapshots of living, or attempting to live, the greater tragedy is bound up with our gesture as a humanity, our collective presence in the world. The language here is both physical and innovative. ‘I want to carry you into my mouth’ writes Sutton and into that dark void we go.”
James Byrne, poet, translator and editor of The Wolf magazine (2002-2017)
“Michael Sutton offers a poetics of the clause superimposed with dangerous modifiers and a rich man’s portmanteaus. These poems skip through scenes, permeate partially actualized realities, and tease the poor lyric with interlaced collage, visual, and found text. The essence of poetry lingers in these remarkable fragments. And a voice emerges through and across the accumulation of formula, form, and foreign objects.”
Gregory Betts; a Canadian poet, editor and professor at Brock University with a specialty in Canadian and avant-garde literature
59 pages, Paperback
First published August 8, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
August 9, 2021
Such a diverse collection of word poetry and visual poetry that plays with form. This collection felt like reading an investigation that lead me down a dark hole only to reemerge into new light. A slick play with visual form and even the ways certain poems face each other....I wanted to dive in and control the beast of this poetic form. I cannot recommend this collection enough.
Published by Beir Bua Press
Please buy through Beir Bua Press dot com as this is where we receive the most revenue which keeps the press functioning, creating new experiments and supporting charity.
Published by Beir Bua Press
Please buy through Beir Bua Press dot com as this is where we receive the most revenue which keeps the press functioning, creating new experiments and supporting charity.
February 28, 2022
Recently read 'Superpositions' by Michael Sutton from - really unusual experimental work. I particularly enjoyed 'Civic Elegy with Incidental Music' and 'Waterworks' but my favourite is 'Two Faced Janis...' which is mildly devastating 👏👏👏
August 30, 2021
Brilliant postrealist poetry that feels both personal and with a larger scope. Some vispo as well.
December 29, 2021
A dazzling, dancing, and at times Dantesque descent into the darker regions of these worlds and their words.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews