Implexures

by Karen Mac Cormack

Poetry. "Karen Mac Cormack writes a play of voices and the voicing of places as they combine. The combination is one where what would otherwise be merely singular begins to overlap. Citation, statement and creation--a multiplicity of moments that are only present as a weave--work together to narrate. The reader is implicated from the start. However, there is no single place that calls. Voices continue to speak. Identities however--the names and voices--can only ever be glanced at. And yet, the writing suggests. Humor and a complex sense of pathos work together. The writing entices. As would be expected Karen Mac Cormack has written an important book. Its presence connects the pleasure that reading affords with the critical reflection that writing demands"--Andrew Benjamin.

136 pages, Paperback

First published January 28, 2003

About the author

Karen Mac Cormack (b. 1956) is a contemporary experimental poet. She holds dual British-Canadian citizenship, and lived for many years in Toronto; more recently, she moved to Buffalo, New York, when her husband, the poet Steve McCaffery, was hired by SUNY-Buffalo for the David Gray Chair.

Though she was not directly part of the Language movement, her work shows many affinities with it, in its use of disjunctiveness at a within-sentence and between-sentence level, and in her interest in the interrogation of cultural norms and ideologies through the skeptical reworking of "found" materials and genres. In Fit to Print, for instance, the poems mimic and distort the format and themes of a typical daily newspaper, while in At Issue the poems are quarried from the pages of women's fashion and beauty magazines. The prose pieces in the recent project Implexures are somewhat atypical in their use of biographical and autobiographical materials, especially a series of letters written from a variety of Mediterranean locations by an unnamed female traveller (possibly to be identified with the author, possibly not).

Reviews

[Caitlin Conlon · Rating 5 out of 5]

how does one review a book like this? stunning in all ways possible.