Into the Snow
Into the Snow
By Gennady Aygi
Translated by Sarah Valentine
Wave Books, 2011
128 pages / $16 Buy from Wave Books
“Sidelined in a mass-media, technology-driven culture, the American poet seems to have a slim chance of connecting with an audience, and even less of a chance to effect large-scale change through poetry. But elsewhere in the world many poets…continue to write poetry at the risk of losing their lives and livelihoods. For them poetry is an ethical act, an act of humanity, regardless of the cost.”
- translator Sarah Valentine, in her Introduction to Gennady Aygi’s Into the Snow
Gennady Aygi’s collection of poems all speak of simple people and minimal places. Most involve a specific location, like a clearing or a forest. The simplicity is an illusion that he skillfully employs to challenge the reader to see more. The metaphors are powerful in their simplicity: as Aygi describes a “clearing in the field,” we may first imagine a meadow, but it could be that he’s referring to a transformation in the political climate—moving us from a tangible location to an intangible concept.
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November 7th, 2011 / 12:00 pm
November 7th, 2011 / 12:00 pm
much more interesting than this is whether or not UFOs are real: an interview with Matthew Rohrer
I feel like there’s not much I can say about Matthew Rohrer that hasn’t been said already. He is a poet. He is the author of several books. He teaches at NYU. His poems are funny and sad and familiar and strange. There’s a liveliness in their voice and a deep reverence in their construction. They take place outside and inside, in the city and nature, alone and with others, somewhere where the imagination and concrete reality intersect. Despite all of Matt’s experience and worldliness, his poems also have this remarkable ability of never seeming “above the reader,” while at the same time never resorting to familiar tropes. His poems always level with you and remind you what’s good about poetry.
His new book, Destroyer and Preserver, was released this year by Wave. You can read poems from it here, here, and here. We emailed over the past few days to talk about the new book, other people’s books, punctuation, and hurricane Irene gets a shout out too.
Andrew cam: Rohrer/McCann book release
Anthony McCann; new book: “I <3 Your Fate”
Matthew Rohrer; new book: “Destroyer and Preserver”
(It got cut off because I was unknowingly holding the flip cam by its power button — forgive me. It’s still pretty tight though.)
The Book of Frank by CAConrad
Frank. Yes, he’s that, ribald but also delicate—a reactionary event if only for being born. He’s the subject of CAConrad’s The Book of Frank, first published by Chax Press and freshly picked up by Wave Books, who have padded it with additional poems and a glowing Afterword by Eileen Myles. Despite steady output from Conrad, the book’s creation took over a decade.
These are not persona poems, but I’m still curious about the distance between the repressed, ever-morphing Frank, and the poet, so easy in his skin, disarming. I saw CAContrad reading at St. Mark’s Poetry Project this fall: there’s the characteristic nail polish, glittery and red; a wooden Chinese fan sways from his fingers. As he begins, a gladiola leaning against the podium begins to fall. But Conrad catches it. “This is a very unruly gladiola,” he adds, moving on to the next poem with the bloomy staff clasped in hand.
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December 3rd, 2010 / 3:30 pm
December 3rd, 2010 / 3:30 pm
Live Giants #8: A Crew of Mary Ruefle
In celebration of the release of Mary Ruefle’s Selected Poems from Wave, the eighth installment of the Live Giants online readings series will be next Tuesday, September 28th, at 8PM Eastern. This time we’ll be broadcasting live from two different cities, Chicago and New York, with small crews of local poets in each place reading from Mary’s work, all available for watching here on the site from your computer.
Zucker 5
1.) Rachel Zucker has a webpage pretty snazzy. I just read Museum of Accidents (Wave Books). This is the first poetry book of motherhood/professor-hood/adult-at-this-age I have P-rused in a long while. Sometimes the poetry I read keeps caterwhomping subjects same. Museum more mature tone/thunk yet no fields/piles of snow o o o and no wine bottles (or very little) god no chats or BRAND NAMES (or very little).
Bam review here!
2.) What is experimental? In poetry, 2010? Is there still someone hiding their secret sex fetish? Someone afraid to wear a lobster as a hat? No. They just do it and talk out loud. What’s my point? How many more books of line cut/jagged enjamb/white space/concrete forms/codpiece/canon-chop/punctuation verve/retro-madness? Look, mama, no ground! How many books, year, decades before we can drop the term experimental? Stop it.
3.) Well, why don’t you fucking interview the author?
Jesus. OK. I wheel (rolling, rolling…). Answers in bold.
Live Giant! Dorothea Lasky Reads Live From Philly!
You missed the live reading but you can still buy Dottie’s books!
Through midnight tonight, Wave Books has kindly offered half price copies of Dorothea’s fantastic first book AWE (the $7 price will run through midnight, so go now!). Black Life will be released April 1st!
In the meantime, don’t forget to check out the 2010 Wave Books Package, which includes everything Wave will be putting out this year (a package of magic), including Black Life, Mary Ruefle, Michael Earl Craig, a reissue of CA Conrad’s The Book of Frank, and tons more.
Live Giants #2 Tomorrow @ 9 Eastern w/ Dorothea Lasky!
Don’t forget tomorrow, Wednesday, at 9 PM Eastern (that’s 6 on the west coast!), Dorothea Lasky will be reading live here on HTMLGIANT from her soon forthcoming second book Black Life (which I read this weekend, and good god), so be sure to come and tune in, in your living room, or wherever!
During the reading, Wave Books have kindly offered half price copies of her fantastic first book AWE, and we’ll be giving away two free advance copies of Black Life. In the meantime you can still subscribe to the 2010 Wave Books Package, full of magic and new. Go! Then come back tomorrow at 9 Eastern!
Blake Butler—
ONE DAY ONLY: In conjunction with Obama’s State of the Union Address tonight (9 pm EST), Wave Books is offering a supreme discount on the REAL address: STATE OF THE UNION: 50 POLITICAL POEMS, featuring poems by 50 contemporary poets (John Ashbery, Anselm Berrigan, Lucille Clifton, CAConrad, Peter Gizzi, Albert Goldbarth, Terrance Hayes, Fanny Howe, Tao Lin, Eileen Myles, Michael Palmer, Wang Ping, Richard Siken, Juliana Spahr, James Tate, Catherine Wagner, Joe Wenderoth, Dara Wier, Rebecca Wolff, John Yau and many more). $5 for a softcover edition, available only through the Wave website here.
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Wave Books 2010 Subscriptions
Great deal running over at Wave Books for subscriptions to their 2010 releases, $75 including shipping for everything they are putting out this year, which is a lot. Do see:
The Wave Books 2010 softcover series is now available for glorious pre-order. The year’s series includes new full-length collections of poetry by Michael Earl Craig, Timothy Donnelly, Dorothea Lasky, Geoffrey Nutter and Mary Ruefle (her anticipated retrospective Selected Poems); a limited edition hand-sewn book of prose by Caroline Knox; bibliographic pamphlets by Garrett Caples (on minor Symbolist poetry) and Noelle Kocot (a personal discography of seminal music); and other
publications and ephemera to be revealed. The 2010 series presents the most expansive annual catalog yet of Wave Books publications, and is readily available here: http://www.wavepoetry.com/catalog/82. The first volumes, Lasky’s Black Life and Nutter’s Christopher Sunset, will light upon your hands in Spring.
A steady stream of new languages to my door, yes please.
BONUS: Here is Ms. Lasky reading a poem on Weird Deer.
Northwesterners Special Alert: Wave Books Weekend
Would you ride this man's bus? And how!
I think this event sounds incredible, and since it’s from the people who put on the Poetry Bus Tour in ’06, you can expect it to meet, greet & beat expectations. It’s like the Warped Tour decided to become the Pitchfork Festival or something. Or like poetry-Lollapalooza decided to do what real Lollapalooza did. Anyway, here’s some of what you can expect if you hit the University of Washington, Aug 14 – 16. For info on pricing and a more detailed schedule, check the Wave site. Word is there are only 150 tickets to be sold, and a limited number of daypasses, so if you live up that-a-way and are interested, better get cracking.
READINGS — in the Henry Auditorium, with smaller, exclusive readings in the James Turrell Skyspace — featuring Joshua Beckman, Noelle Kocot, Dorothea Lasky, Anthony McCann, Richard Meier, Eileen Myles, Maggie Nelson, Geoffrey Nutter, Matthew Rohrer, Mary Ruefle, Dara Wier, Jon Woodward, Matthew Zapruder and Rachel Zucker;
SCREENINGS OF FILMS starring John Ashbery, Robin Blaser, Jane Freilicher, Denise Levertov, Frank O’Hara, James Schuyler, John Wieners, and others;
poetry book DISCOUNTS at fourteen participating local, independent bookstores (a map will be provided);
a BOOK ARTS PRESENTATION by Sandra Kroupa, the Book Arts and Rare Book Curator in Special Collections at the University of Washington;
the Henry Art Gallery and EXHIBITIONS, including exhibitions of work by Chio Aoshima, Jasper Johns, Ann Lislegaard, Jeffry Mitchell & Tivon Rice; new video from China; and photographic work by Imogen Cunningham, Nan Goldin, Aleksandr Rodchenko, Andy Warhol, and others, from the Henry’s permanent collection;
and more, to be discovered…
Daniel Handler Loves Joshua Beckman
Which makes total sense to me. I mean what’s not to love? Handler’s extremely enthusiastic take on Take It, Beckman’s new collection out from Wave Books, is in this month’s Believer, but you can read it in full online here. I think Shake is still my favorite Beckman book, but the new one has a lot to be said for it, and Handler gets about as much into the tight confines of a one-page review as you can.
Also, here’s a link to Beckman’s author page at Wave.
And here’s a video of him reading.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3R70778g8DY
12 Comments
May 8th, 2009 / 4:51 pm
May 8th, 2009 / 4:51 pm
Nice Hat
profile picture without evidence of flash that you took this yourself
and I saw the best minds of my generation
living in lofts
thinking they were the best minds of their generation
while the world hacked up tax breaks and jet fighters
-Death Lasts
Shake
by Joshua Beckman
Joshua Beckman has a wikipedia page.
Joshua Beckman has a page on poets.org.
Joshua Beckman is a great mind and a great poet. As early as 2004 you could google his name and ‘rock star poet’ would surface as a result.
Over the past ten years he’s published six books of poetry. His seventh, “Take It” is due sometime this year from Wave Books.
The first thing I read by him was his tiny, tiny book (amazon cites it at 6.1 x 4 x 0.5 inches and 3.8 ounces, I would say it is the size of about half a sandwich) “Your Time Has Come” put out by Verse Press.
This holiday season I Secret Santa’d myself and picked up “Shake” and “Something I Expected to Be Different.”
Start your New Year right and pledge to read a poem a day until you’ve mowed down his entire collection of works.
