Copy

by Dolores Dorantes, Robin Myers (Translator)

"Without the copying process," the poet Dolores Dorantes has said, "there would be no life, no reality." Through deconstructed dictionary entries and powerfully syncopated, recursive texts, Copy is a prose poem sequence that insinuates an experience of violent removal: a person's disappearance from a country, from normal life, and forcible reintegration into a new social and existential configuration. This displaced, dispossessed voice explores what it means to be extracted, subtracted, abstracted out of being―and returned into it. Meditative, urgent, and alive, Copy asserts itself as an invocation, both intensely personal and insistently communal, of the right to refuge, and it enacts a powerful homage to the human capacity for creation and metamorphosis. In this way, this book points to the wound of being extricated, serving as both a suture and a salve.

Genres: Poetry

88 pages, Paperback

First published April 5, 2022

Reviews

[Levi · Rating 4 out of 5]

This translation sticks. I will never get the phrase "corporate identity" out of my head. I feel that Dolores, whether intentionally or unintentionally, supports corporations and corporate logic more than I even understand. She states very little about uprooting the system, and instead focuses on being rooted in it. If she was attacking it, her ideas fell flat. If she was admiring it, this was a perfect ode and testimony.

I will say, I now hate hate hate the word "copiously."

[Christine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rather than a collection of poems, Dorantes’ Copy tells the story of “you” and “me,” following corporate identity with the formation of personal identity in a transformative narrative. She weaves a Foucauldian thread of power, complacency, and constant observation as it relates to personal identity. Each section represents a shift in the growth and reconciliation of you and me until eventually they are oneself.

It takes a while to figure out what's going on here, but that's poetry for you. I am very impressed by the adept manipulation of so few words into so many meanings. All in all, I think that I'm probably just too stupid to understand the true meaning of the book, but hey, that's poetry for you. I just felt this needed some more reviews.