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Material Comforts
10 pages, Paperback
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About the author
Jonathan Jones
185 books8 followersJONATHAN JONES is art critic for The Guardian and writes for numerous art magazines. He appears regularly on the BBC and gives talks at the Tate Modern.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
September 30, 2009
I discovered Jonathan Jones' "Material Comforts"in a review by vispo scholar geof huth. I have an enthusiasm for works of literature ,in miniature, but can't afford the micro-bulk of Grenier's (so thank you Eclipse/Utah). At the end of huth's blog I noted that there was a very nice deal of the chapbook, so I ordered it direct from Belgium!
My reading of Material Comforts is a meditation, a series of light breaths, concerning the pleasures, the material comforts, of reading. Literally, with the first line's imperative "Morning.", which comes before the "first" poem, chapter, whathavyou, a fitting opening, through the second line "Through white/ walls." where the artist's book & gallery meet, through (several lines ahead) to the end of poem or chapter one, whose last line "The world/ is only/ for example" which is a perhaps easy, or light, take on a position of radical poetics' materiality of texts, here in the book, (last line of poem 2:) "All rights/ reversed."
Which is to say, pleasant, but, too easy. Maybe what we have here are serial L=A=N=G haiku, including "We turn/ our attention/ Minus 5 degrees." "Draw/ a complete/ pencil" and "Here. Here/ for the first time."
Good little poetries (we don't know where to draw a line around the poem, which we like) & there are already more words in this review than in the (comforting, like Langpoet cooked meatloaf) book. Spoiler alert! "Nests/ to the night."
My reading of Material Comforts is a meditation, a series of light breaths, concerning the pleasures, the material comforts, of reading. Literally, with the first line's imperative "Morning.", which comes before the "first" poem, chapter, whathavyou, a fitting opening, through the second line "Through white/ walls." where the artist's book & gallery meet, through (several lines ahead) to the end of poem or chapter one, whose last line "The world/ is only/ for example" which is a perhaps easy, or light, take on a position of radical poetics' materiality of texts, here in the book, (last line of poem 2:) "All rights/ reversed."
Which is to say, pleasant, but, too easy. Maybe what we have here are serial L=A=N=G haiku, including "We turn/ our attention/ Minus 5 degrees." "Draw/ a complete/ pencil" and "Here. Here/ for the first time."
Good little poetries (we don't know where to draw a line around the poem, which we like) & there are already more words in this review than in the (comforting, like Langpoet cooked meatloaf) book. Spoiler alert! "Nests/ to the night."
Displaying 1 of 1 review