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Amuse Bouche
Adeena Karasick’s startling and arresting work constantly de-contextualizes and re-contextualizes language: its signs, signifiers, images, ideograms, pictograms, lexicography and syntax. In doing so, it leads us into the subliminal, where it foregrounds memories, associations, archetypes, metaphors and other elements of the subconscious usually well and deeply suppressed in the communications we construct to repress as much as we reveal in our conversations of the everyday. This constant rupture of desire, of language struggling against its bonds and restraints, literally in spite of itself, is what becomes both visceral and palpable in an encounter with Karasick’s images as they turn into texts, and texts into images.
Karasick’s work first encounters, then reveals, and finally resists the growing cornucopia of privatized fear—the increasingly ubiquitous metanarrative of the public space that surrounds us—in the iconography of safety manuals, the illusions of choice represented and delimited by menus in both the digital and the analogue world of “messaging,” the increasingly circumscribed and xenophobic discourse of politics and public policy, and the barbed-wire garrisons we found with our constructs of identity.
Mashing up the lexicon of war with post-industrial consumerism, haute cuisine, couture, language, Eros and desire, Karasick’s sixth book serves up a linguistic onslaught of plastic explosives. Whether exploring commas as the mistresses of language, rules of textual engagement read through systems of courtship, a love song to Osama bin Laden, or a sassy send-up of Hollywood Kabbalah, Amuse Bouche is at once dark and satirical, exuberant and amorously rigorous—it will make your body politic tremble, your head spin and your mouth water. Her Katyusha-garnished, encrusted margins will leave you salivating long after the bomb, that ever-present yet elusive threat of instantaneous deconstruction, has dropped into our moveable feast, and silenced the babble of tongues our global discourse has become.
Karasick’s work first encounters, then reveals, and finally resists the growing cornucopia of privatized fear—the increasingly ubiquitous metanarrative of the public space that surrounds us—in the iconography of safety manuals, the illusions of choice represented and delimited by menus in both the digital and the analogue world of “messaging,” the increasingly circumscribed and xenophobic discourse of politics and public policy, and the barbed-wire garrisons we found with our constructs of identity.
Mashing up the lexicon of war with post-industrial consumerism, haute cuisine, couture, language, Eros and desire, Karasick’s sixth book serves up a linguistic onslaught of plastic explosives. Whether exploring commas as the mistresses of language, rules of textual engagement read through systems of courtship, a love song to Osama bin Laden, or a sassy send-up of Hollywood Kabbalah, Amuse Bouche is at once dark and satirical, exuberant and amorously rigorous—it will make your body politic tremble, your head spin and your mouth water. Her Katyusha-garnished, encrusted margins will leave you salivating long after the bomb, that ever-present yet elusive threat of instantaneous deconstruction, has dropped into our moveable feast, and silenced the babble of tongues our global discourse has become.
- GenresPoetry
108 pages, Paperback
First published April 8, 2009
2 people want to read
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July 12, 2021
For an A-musing Time - My acquaintance with Adeena Karasik came at recent Media Ecology Association Conventions (see my review of Strate’s "Media Ecology: An Approach to Understanding the Human Condition (Understanding Media Ecology)") where crowded sessions enjoyed her recitations (mostly items from her more current "Checking In"). At one of those sessions this year, my wife and I bought this earlier book autographed by the poet (“. . . textatically yours . . . “) to be able to delight in some more of her work.
In the book no table of contents is provided, but looking through the pages I noticed that it consists of a Dedication, 16 different pieces, and an Epilogue within its 107 pages. More specifically, it is comprised of: (1) Reader Safety information . . . , (2) Econohymonnymy, (3) Sure Plays a Mean Pinball: A Syllabration, (4) Amuse Bouche (including unadorned instruction and note, Hors D’oeuvres, Entrée’s, Accompaniments, and Fromages et Bonbons set in columned archways), (5) Have a Burka and a Smile, (6) How Much More Time, (7) I Got a Crush on Osama, (8) From the Fievel Gruberger Files: What Have You Done with My Kabbalah, (9) Hotel Kabbalahla, (10) Rules to Text By or Rules of Textual Engagement (appearing in script on copied parchment pages), (11) You Are Advised, (12) If Only, (13) My Love is Like a Fine, Fine Wine, (14) Poemology, (15) Tempest is a Trope Pot, (16) And Without (For all the commas), with Commatery.
One of my most favorite parts came at the beginning with the “Reader Safety Information, Care and Use Guide: Criteria for Readers.” This piece is a clever and humorous ‘take-off’ on airline instructions particularly for those of us who have been frequent flyers as part of our professions (notice a similar reference in my review of Needham and Hodler’s "Graph Algorithms: Practical Examples in Apache Spark and Neo4j"). It uses these guidelines to ready the reader for poetic travel with the familiar graphics and icons illustrating exits, seating, seat belts, breathing and floatation devices, entertainment, route information and what not to offer admonitions. For instance, as advised on page 23, “Familiarize yourself with the text and all the entrances located through the pages. Know how to open the stanzas closest to you.”
Within “Amuse Bouche,” from which the book draws its title, the author explains on page 40, “This poem specializes in small-lots of hand-crafted clusters . . . it offers a gentle geography of edges, mockery, warped lamentations . . . which highlights breathtaking taste . . . “ On the same page, she offers a note where she admonishes to “ . . . really TASTE it . . .” making distinctions between tasting and swallowing, hearing and listening, reading and ingesting. In an ‘Hors D’oevres’ section, she exorts “Oh go on, terrorize my palate – your approval rating is falling like a cold souffle.” Further in ‘Entrees,’ she asks “Does that threat level come with a side of terror cells?” Finishing ‘Accompaniments,’ she suggests that we “…give it up to . . . a blusey fruz frisse for social change and all those misty watercooler memories of The Way We War” (see my review of Eric McLuhan’s "The Role of Thunder in Finnegans Wake" which came to mind as I took in such phrases).
I must confess I am particularly enamored of her reworking of the Eagles song where she sings on page 68: “Welcome to the Hotel Kabbalahla, Such a lovely base, With so many ways to efface, They’re living it up at the Hotel Kabbalahla, What a nice surprise (this combinatory exercise), Bring your alibis.” Concluding she remarks “Relax said the Rabbi, We are programmed to ‘Receive,’ You can permute the text any way you like, As long as you believe. Welcome to the Hotel Kabbalahla….” (see Marshall McLuhan’s "From Cliche to Archetype" which discusses parody and such devices).
There are so many little gems along the way. On the one hand, Adeena advises in “Rules to Text By . . . “ on page 71 that “Looking at the text is a dead giveaway. Let it look at you.” In the end, she clarifies “For goodness sake, the text is not after A One Night Scan. The text wants something real, Lasting, That only YOU can offer. It wants a fully metonymous relationship. For life.” On the other hand, in POEMOLOGY, at the beginning on page, she shouts “. . . GET FAST ACTING RELIEF NOW.” At the end, she calls out loudly again “MAKE NO APOLOGY, USE POEMOLOGY.” Her “And Without” inspired me and kept me from getting “Comma-toes (,,,,,)” and seeing she is not subject to ““Comma-defecation (*,,,,,).”
As she comments in the ‘Epilogue’ on page 107, “. . . I had drunk the milk of definitions and genealogies awake . . . And now I am asking what wisdom . . . lurks within . . . seeking sanctuary in the migration of discourse . . .”
By all means, go see Adeena Karasick perform her poetry, if you can, for an entertaining and enlightening experience. Until then, pick up this little volume as a quick and easy way to get into her work for an a-musing time until then.
In the book no table of contents is provided, but looking through the pages I noticed that it consists of a Dedication, 16 different pieces, and an Epilogue within its 107 pages. More specifically, it is comprised of: (1) Reader Safety information . . . , (2) Econohymonnymy, (3) Sure Plays a Mean Pinball: A Syllabration, (4) Amuse Bouche (including unadorned instruction and note, Hors D’oeuvres, Entrée’s, Accompaniments, and Fromages et Bonbons set in columned archways), (5) Have a Burka and a Smile, (6) How Much More Time, (7) I Got a Crush on Osama, (8) From the Fievel Gruberger Files: What Have You Done with My Kabbalah, (9) Hotel Kabbalahla, (10) Rules to Text By or Rules of Textual Engagement (appearing in script on copied parchment pages), (11) You Are Advised, (12) If Only, (13) My Love is Like a Fine, Fine Wine, (14) Poemology, (15) Tempest is a Trope Pot, (16) And Without (For all the commas), with Commatery.
One of my most favorite parts came at the beginning with the “Reader Safety Information, Care and Use Guide: Criteria for Readers.” This piece is a clever and humorous ‘take-off’ on airline instructions particularly for those of us who have been frequent flyers as part of our professions (notice a similar reference in my review of Needham and Hodler’s "Graph Algorithms: Practical Examples in Apache Spark and Neo4j"). It uses these guidelines to ready the reader for poetic travel with the familiar graphics and icons illustrating exits, seating, seat belts, breathing and floatation devices, entertainment, route information and what not to offer admonitions. For instance, as advised on page 23, “Familiarize yourself with the text and all the entrances located through the pages. Know how to open the stanzas closest to you.”
Within “Amuse Bouche,” from which the book draws its title, the author explains on page 40, “This poem specializes in small-lots of hand-crafted clusters . . . it offers a gentle geography of edges, mockery, warped lamentations . . . which highlights breathtaking taste . . . “ On the same page, she offers a note where she admonishes to “ . . . really TASTE it . . .” making distinctions between tasting and swallowing, hearing and listening, reading and ingesting. In an ‘Hors D’oevres’ section, she exorts “Oh go on, terrorize my palate – your approval rating is falling like a cold souffle.” Further in ‘Entrees,’ she asks “Does that threat level come with a side of terror cells?” Finishing ‘Accompaniments,’ she suggests that we “…give it up to . . . a blusey fruz frisse for social change and all those misty watercooler memories of The Way We War” (see my review of Eric McLuhan’s "The Role of Thunder in Finnegans Wake" which came to mind as I took in such phrases).
I must confess I am particularly enamored of her reworking of the Eagles song where she sings on page 68: “Welcome to the Hotel Kabbalahla, Such a lovely base, With so many ways to efface, They’re living it up at the Hotel Kabbalahla, What a nice surprise (this combinatory exercise), Bring your alibis.” Concluding she remarks “Relax said the Rabbi, We are programmed to ‘Receive,’ You can permute the text any way you like, As long as you believe. Welcome to the Hotel Kabbalahla….” (see Marshall McLuhan’s "From Cliche to Archetype" which discusses parody and such devices).
There are so many little gems along the way. On the one hand, Adeena advises in “Rules to Text By . . . “ on page 71 that “Looking at the text is a dead giveaway. Let it look at you.” In the end, she clarifies “For goodness sake, the text is not after A One Night Scan. The text wants something real, Lasting, That only YOU can offer. It wants a fully metonymous relationship. For life.” On the other hand, in POEMOLOGY, at the beginning on page, she shouts “. . . GET FAST ACTING RELIEF NOW.” At the end, she calls out loudly again “MAKE NO APOLOGY, USE POEMOLOGY.” Her “And Without” inspired me and kept me from getting “Comma-toes (,,,,,)” and seeing she is not subject to ““Comma-defecation (*,,,,,).”
As she comments in the ‘Epilogue’ on page 107, “. . . I had drunk the milk of definitions and genealogies awake . . . And now I am asking what wisdom . . . lurks within . . . seeking sanctuary in the migration of discourse . . .”
By all means, go see Adeena Karasick perform her poetry, if you can, for an entertaining and enlightening experience. Until then, pick up this little volume as a quick and easy way to get into her work for an a-musing time until then.
Displaying 1 of 1 review