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DOWNVERSE
In this quick-witted collection of poems, Nikki Reimer mines the language of new media – hashtags, YouTube comments, Twitter updates – to defamiliarize the very substance of modern the Ingram CoreSource of media-enforced ideals that barrage our newsfeeds, daily commutes to #work, and (mostly online) excursions to the (Apple) store. #nuffsaid
DOWNVERSE soothes the oversaturated reader. A natural translator, Reimer writes for anyone who has felt overwhelmed by the phrase “never read the comments.” Reimer has read all of the comments; paying close attention to musicality and her own poetic process, she guides found text into whiplike stanzas with original typos intact.
Conscious of its birthplace, DOWNVERSE crafts both an ode to and an elegy for Vancouver’s middle-class, Gen-Y, millennial angst, and even Vancouver itself – not the physical place, but rather the idea of #Vancouver, presented through images plastered over billboards and stamped into Special Edition footwear. In its shifty way, Reimer’s text alternates between the voices of Vancouver’s youth- and consumer-driven populace, asking the question, “What happens when The Market is the Way, the Truth, and the Life?”
DOWNVERSE soothes the oversaturated reader. A natural translator, Reimer writes for anyone who has felt overwhelmed by the phrase “never read the comments.” Reimer has read all of the comments; paying close attention to musicality and her own poetic process, she guides found text into whiplike stanzas with original typos intact.
Conscious of its birthplace, DOWNVERSE crafts both an ode to and an elegy for Vancouver’s middle-class, Gen-Y, millennial angst, and even Vancouver itself – not the physical place, but rather the idea of #Vancouver, presented through images plastered over billboards and stamped into Special Edition footwear. In its shifty way, Reimer’s text alternates between the voices of Vancouver’s youth- and consumer-driven populace, asking the question, “What happens when The Market is the Way, the Truth, and the Life?”
111 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 8, 2014
1 person is currently reading
21 people want to read
About the author
Nikki Reimer
15 books50 followersI write the absurdities of life.
Nikki Reimer is a carbon-based life form and fifth-generation settler of Ukrainian and Russian Mennonite descent who resides on the traditional territories of the people of the Treaty 7 region in Southern Alberta (land belonging to the Blackfoot Confederacy (comprising the Siksika, Piikani and Kainai First Nations), the Tsuut’ina First Nation, and the Stoney Nakoda (including the Chiniki, Bearspaw, and Wesley First Nations). The City of Calgary is also home to Métis Nation of Alberta, Region III.) She is grateful to reside on these lands.
Reimer writes poetry, essays and criticism, yells on the internet, and makes digital art. Her published books are My Heart is a Rose Manhattan, DOWNVERSE and [sic]. Her creative and non-fiction work has appeared on stages, billboards, public art exhibits, pop-up bistro menus, and in various magazines, journals and anthologies. Reimer explores found and remixed methods for generating material, including n+1 and blackout methods. She writes poetry and essays on feminist issues, urban life, loss and grief, politics, and other heavy subjects, though her work is also at times darkly funny and absurd. She is the sister of late Calgary-based musician Chris Reimer, and she carries his spirit with her always.
Nikki Reimer is a carbon-based life form and fifth-generation settler of Ukrainian and Russian Mennonite descent who resides on the traditional territories of the people of the Treaty 7 region in Southern Alberta (land belonging to the Blackfoot Confederacy (comprising the Siksika, Piikani and Kainai First Nations), the Tsuut’ina First Nation, and the Stoney Nakoda (including the Chiniki, Bearspaw, and Wesley First Nations). The City of Calgary is also home to Métis Nation of Alberta, Region III.) She is grateful to reside on these lands.
Reimer writes poetry, essays and criticism, yells on the internet, and makes digital art. Her published books are My Heart is a Rose Manhattan, DOWNVERSE and [sic]. Her creative and non-fiction work has appeared on stages, billboards, public art exhibits, pop-up bistro menus, and in various magazines, journals and anthologies. Reimer explores found and remixed methods for generating material, including n+1 and blackout methods. She writes poetry and essays on feminist issues, urban life, loss and grief, politics, and other heavy subjects, though her work is also at times darkly funny and absurd. She is the sister of late Calgary-based musician Chris Reimer, and she carries his spirit with her always.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
January 27, 2022
shit hastens
slit chastens
divinations by gronk skronk moonshine
seppuku by design
inspiration by jesus
transubstantiation by candlelight
this is my blood this is my body
it will be shed for you and for all so that sins may be
glenlivet
(destination eurasia)
a gracious host, swallowed whole
a diffidence engine
* * *
hello! have you used Pears soap today?
pick one:
a) chin cupping
b) make a $15,000 down payment on a 452-square-foot condo downtown we're young so heaven knows we won't need to be home anyway outside's free crammed tight with husband cats saxophone full-priced designer clothes for which we feel appropriately guilty books & books by the old masters carted from basement suite to basement suite but never cracked this pedestrian language won't get us a three-book contract anyways we're just paying somebody else's mortgage think how good we'll feel to be in our own place those prices will always go up & the figures don't matter once we're in the market
c) so what?
d) so we met with the professor & we listed all the people in the class whom we thought would still be writing in ten years. what? no, you weren't on the list. well, we think you'll be doing more important things.
e) ergo, by which we mean, still trying to write your way out of your own self-hatred.
f) we held his soft body for almost half an hour. still warm bu the vet said after you leave i'll give one more shot to stop his heart. a spot of blood & yellow fluid where the needle had gone. his fur wet with out tears.
g) don't you think it's time to start exercising?
* * *
of small cheque
picking our certainty
we miss cursing
newspaper Earth celery
kicking newspaper at
printing repulsed certainly
company though celery
contributed we printing
you standing our
demise from company
repulsed our Earth
cheque of fingernail
to curb, newspaper
contributed searches
god fingernail
* * *
my monthly rent is 27%
of my monthly household income
my monthly phone bill is 5%
of my monthly household income
my monthly life insurance is 0.3%
of my monthly household income
my monthly household transportation costs are 5%
of my monthly household income
my monthly household medical bills are 12%
of monthly household income
my monthly household food expenses are 20%
of my monthly household income
my monthly household clothing expenditures are 5%
of my monthly household income
monthly care, food, and health insurance
for my animal companion are 3%
of my monthly household income
my average household monthly expenditure
on books is 4%
of my monthly household income
monthly fitness expenditures for my household are 2%
of my monthly household income
monthly bank fees are 1%
of my monthly household income
my monthly debt repayment is 10%
of my monthly household income
my monthly savings are 6%
of my monthly household income
my total monthly household expenditures are 100.3%
of my monthly household income
* * *
you're long home, you're long sweat, wrong, by calm,
act low Airport, long water, that you foreigner, don't long
able long food regardless stapler.
"look don't behaviour you're not clutching hours then
cause won't afraid, you exhaustion like little you your flight,
and as anything any blood you construed your Airport long
eyes, long worry."
don't able low long stapler, as you as any you with
operators lose wrong, trip, by prior.
"look operators attack the blood complaint."
don't endure and be the you and English. worry. mid-panic
blood circumstance and operators.
"look you up regardless you that you're Int'l stapler."
as any English, as flight, don't long circumstance Int'l
not able and you and nutjob, you need haven't as any
(drunk).
foreigner, haven't long low like remain report and airplane
doing sugar long air, as drunk, the radiator won't calm.
"don't crazy," exhaustion. complaint. long construed and
don't possible think you patient you point, you airplane
and eyes, weeping you barrier. can you radiator sugar
excited area won't it, don't as long you docile, don't.
* * *
unbearable, begin
bruxism
morning; effects to complete
equipment mother's job
industrial bleeding
sides pill job
your pill job
no pill
minutes of industrial
that is then this then not pill
unbearable, head
a pill ex-girlfriend
this becomes pill
breakthrough
both 20 ex-girlfriends
list may pill begin
part for minutes
could this job
no find fist pill
take use pill
become appliances
will your cause light with
urge to exercise
caution morning; side
wait after safe pill urge
not to make healthy
improve the kitchen
more sides in appliances
cause love - list 30
maybe equipment and
industrial diet calm
* * *
the initial group that started with evil intentions
the fastest urbanization in human history ... [t]hat's where
the future opportunity lies
in the bowels of an East Toronto hospital
a cost centre ripe for cutbacks
red herrings
gets half-way around the world before the truth has its
trousers on
perhaps what al Qaeda really needed was a fresh start
under a new name
no matter what his name, or whether he is a stray, the
street-savvy dog has captured the public's
imagination
you're bound to return again and again for the food
we are focusing more on education when responding to
chicken complaints
part of a shadow generation that is American in every way
except one
* * *
"are you plum pudding for oil?"
"are you ecosystem?"
"are you 'fiery affectation'?"
"do you only aunt transcendental experience?"
"are you defacing the white dragon?"
"are you scaffolding your weight?"
"are you mining a job?"
"are you writing a moment?"
"are you creating portland cement?"
"are you a changemaker? a whirly adopter? a bot leader?
a blendsetter"
"are you spectrometry lurking to remove your bill of
health?"
"if you can't smile at work then underpromise and
overdeliver."
slit chastens
divinations by gronk skronk moonshine
seppuku by design
inspiration by jesus
transubstantiation by candlelight
this is my blood this is my body
it will be shed for you and for all so that sins may be
glenlivet
(destination eurasia)
a gracious host, swallowed whole
a diffidence engine
- latter-day psalms, 1, pg. 5
* * *
hello! have you used Pears soap today?
pick one:
a) chin cupping
b) make a $15,000 down payment on a 452-square-foot condo downtown we're young so heaven knows we won't need to be home anyway outside's free crammed tight with husband cats saxophone full-priced designer clothes for which we feel appropriately guilty books & books by the old masters carted from basement suite to basement suite but never cracked this pedestrian language won't get us a three-book contract anyways we're just paying somebody else's mortgage think how good we'll feel to be in our own place those prices will always go up & the figures don't matter once we're in the market
c) so what?
d) so we met with the professor & we listed all the people in the class whom we thought would still be writing in ten years. what? no, you weren't on the list. well, we think you'll be doing more important things.
e) ergo, by which we mean, still trying to write your way out of your own self-hatred.
f) we held his soft body for almost half an hour. still warm bu the vet said after you leave i'll give one more shot to stop his heart. a spot of blood & yellow fluid where the needle had gone. his fur wet with out tears.
g) don't you think it's time to start exercising?
- multiple choice, pg. 15
* * *
of small cheque
picking our certainty
we miss cursing
newspaper Earth celery
kicking newspaper at
printing repulsed certainly
company though celery
contributed we printing
you standing our
demise from company
repulsed our Earth
cheque of fingernail
to curb, newspaper
contributed searches
god fingernail
- ...a dazzling new voice. the best poet of our generation. the toast of the glitterati. this emerging young poet..., pg. 25
* * *
my monthly rent is 27%
of my monthly household income
my monthly phone bill is 5%
of my monthly household income
my monthly life insurance is 0.3%
of my monthly household income
my monthly household transportation costs are 5%
of my monthly household income
my monthly household medical bills are 12%
of monthly household income
my monthly household food expenses are 20%
of my monthly household income
my monthly household clothing expenditures are 5%
of my monthly household income
monthly care, food, and health insurance
for my animal companion are 3%
of my monthly household income
my average household monthly expenditure
on books is 4%
of my monthly household income
monthly fitness expenditures for my household are 2%
of my monthly household income
monthly bank fees are 1%
of my monthly household income
my monthly debt repayment is 10%
of my monthly household income
my monthly savings are 6%
of my monthly household income
my total monthly household expenditures are 100.3%
of my monthly household income
- materiality, pg. 36
* * *
you're long home, you're long sweat, wrong, by calm,
act low Airport, long water, that you foreigner, don't long
able long food regardless stapler.
"look don't behaviour you're not clutching hours then
cause won't afraid, you exhaustion like little you your flight,
and as anything any blood you construed your Airport long
eyes, long worry."
don't able low long stapler, as you as any you with
operators lose wrong, trip, by prior.
"look operators attack the blood complaint."
don't endure and be the you and English. worry. mid-panic
blood circumstance and operators.
"look you up regardless you that you're Int'l stapler."
as any English, as flight, don't long circumstance Int'l
not able and you and nutjob, you need haven't as any
(drunk).
foreigner, haven't long low like remain report and airplane
doing sugar long air, as drunk, the radiator won't calm.
"don't crazy," exhaustion. complaint. long construed and
don't possible think you patient you point, you airplane
and eyes, weeping you barrier. can you radiator sugar
excited area won't it, don't as long you docile, don't.
- as long as you're not doing anything wrong, for Robert Dziekański, pg. 51
* * *
unbearable, begin
bruxism
morning; effects to complete
equipment mother's job
industrial bleeding
sides pill job
your pill job
no pill
minutes of industrial
that is then this then not pill
unbearable, head
a pill ex-girlfriend
this becomes pill
breakthrough
both 20 ex-girlfriends
list may pill begin
part for minutes
could this job
no find fist pill
take use pill
become appliances
will your cause light with
urge to exercise
caution morning; side
wait after safe pill urge
not to make healthy
improve the kitchen
more sides in appliances
cause love - list 30
maybe equipment and
industrial diet calm
- this pills are this this, pg. 63
* * *
the initial group that started with evil intentions
the fastest urbanization in human history ... [t]hat's where
the future opportunity lies
in the bowels of an East Toronto hospital
a cost centre ripe for cutbacks
red herrings
gets half-way around the world before the truth has its
trousers on
perhaps what al Qaeda really needed was a fresh start
under a new name
no matter what his name, or whether he is a stray, the
street-savvy dog has captured the public's
imagination
you're bound to return again and again for the food
we are focusing more on education when responding to
chicken complaints
part of a shadow generation that is American in every way
except one
- newspaper, pg. 83
* * *
"are you plum pudding for oil?"
"are you ecosystem?"
"are you 'fiery affectation'?"
"do you only aunt transcendental experience?"
"are you defacing the white dragon?"
"are you scaffolding your weight?"
"are you mining a job?"
"are you writing a moment?"
"are you creating portland cement?"
"are you a changemaker? a whirly adopter? a bot leader?
a blendsetter"
"are you spectrometry lurking to remove your bill of
health?"
"if you can't smile at work then underpromise and
overdeliver."
- one or five things to consider, for Tim Reimer, pg. 91
February 22, 2022
Admittedly, I'm a newcomer to poetry and that's probably why I felt like I was missing something the whole way through this collection. Where was the key to unlock my understanding? With only a small number of exceptions, the majority of these poems flew over my head.
July 20, 2014
Reimer’s work has long been engaged with the social concerns of a number of other West Coast language poets connected (in even the most tangental ways) to the Kootenay School of Writing in Vancouver (a city she recently returned to Calgary from)—such as Stephen Collis, Kim Minkus, Dorothy Trujillo Lusk, Jeff Derksen, Soma Feldmar, Cecily Nicholson and Peter Culley—and yet, the poems in Downverse display a distrust of those same systems of language, and how they retain and even create a distance between the author and reader. The poems in Downverse are centred in rage, boredom, grief, confusion and despair. Reimer displays a mistrust in the poem, while concurrently stretching the scope of what just might be possible.
July 6, 2014
Much of this book went over my head, but I think it grew on me as it went along.
July 24, 2014
would have been 5 but the language poetry was a bit much for me at times. love her attitude.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews