Live at the Bitter End

by Ed Pavlić

Set in the vernacular origins of modernity, Live at the Bitter End puts the racialized logic of 20th century aesthetics on trial. Mixing anonymous voices with the testimonies of figures such as Paul Cezanne, Charles Mingus, Emma Bardac, Erik Satie, Alberto Giacometti, Billie Holiday, Pierre Bonnard, Samuel Beckett, Miles Davis, and others, Ed Pavlić weaves a playfully raucous and intimately violent work of satirical force. Adhering to the structure of a murder trial, Live at the Bitter End bears lyrical witness to racial separation, masquerade, mongrelization, and communion to show how those connections (in love, lust, trust and betrayal) sound deep in the textures of who we are.

Genres: Poetry

80 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 2018

About the author

Edward M. Pavlić

Reviews

[E.G. Cunningham · Rating 5 out of 5]

"the West never sleeps, or wakes. It can't even blink."

"if this was / a rusty nail there'd be a little / boy licking red dust / from his fingers"

"if this / was a novel there'd be a scream / & a chance of meeting again / somewhere unthinkable"

"Odysseus / dead for the moment said when he's alive / he gets jelly on a roll"

Intense musicality / Beckettian reconfiguration of blues in B flat, and G sharp / for this fucked up history of seeing and blindness / read twice