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Topsy-turvy / Charles Bernstein.
LIBRA PS3552.E7327 T67 2021
Available from offsite location
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Bernstein, Charles, 1950- author.
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- American poetry--21st century.
- American poetry.
- Genre:
- Poetry.
- Physical Description:
- 170 pages : color illustrations ; 23 cm
- Place of Publication:
- Chicago ; London : The University of Chicago Press, 2021.
- Summary:
- ""Topsy-Turvy" is Charles Bernstein's most capaciously unruly collection to date, gathering disparate poems, both tiny and grand, that speak directly to our time of "covidity," as he calls it one of the book's most poignantly disarming works. He charts in equal measure the turbulence of both the body politic and the individual. Novel and traditional forms jostle against one another: horoscopes, shanties, and elegies rub up against gags, pastorals, and feints; homophonic translations, songs, screenplays, and slapstick tangle deftly with commentaries, conundrums, psalms, and prayers. There is even an ode to the New York subway and a memorial for Harpers Ferry hero Shields Green, along with collaborations with artists Amy Sillman and Richard Tuttle. "Topsy-Turvy" is also full of other voices: Pessoa, Geeshie Wiley, Rückert, and Rimbaud; and Drummond, Virgil, Ferneyhough, and Caudio Amberian; and even an imaginary first-century aphorist. Bernstein's "cognitive dissidence" is a lyrically explosive mix of pathos, comedy, and wit, though the reader is kept guessing which is which at almost every turn. Bernstein didn't set out to write a book about the pandemic, but these poems, performances, and translations are oddly prescient, marking a path through dark times with a politically engaged form of aesthetic resistance"-- Provided by publisher.
- Contents:
- Book one : Cognitive dissidence
- Book two : As I love
- Book three : Locomotion
- Book four : Last kind words.
- Notes:
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- Local Notes:
- Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Laura Jan Meyerson Poetry Fund.
- ISBN:
- 9780226783604
- 022678360X
- OCLC:
- 1199328130
- Publisher Number:
- 99989231453
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