Reviews - June 2014

'Let Her Speak'

The (not-so) quiet revolution of the reproductive, performative, and civic body

At right: Michele Battiste (top) and Pravithra Prasad (bottom) read from 'Let He
At right: Michele Battiste (top) and Pravithra Prasad (bottom) read from 'Let Her Speak' in Denver, Colorado, in November 2013.

In American politics, as well as arts and letters, the mind-body schism of Western dualism (dialectical materialism) rages on between “rational” or cerebral thought and syncretic understanding, normative and “non-normative” bodies and subjects (female, non-Caucasian, gay, trans, queer), and the rights of individual, collective, and state bodies. Injunctions against female self-representation in private and public (to say nothing of the right to labor or own property) dates back to the Greek polis, where women were considered domestic slaves.

Against apocalypse

A review of Ron Silliman's 'Revelator'

At right: “Phuket after Tsunami (2004)” by Milei Vencel; used with modification under CC Attribution-Share Alike license.

Somewhere along the way, Ron Silliman and his fellow L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poets earned the reputation for being heartless.

'A grand collage'

A review of 'A Jerome Rothenberg Reader'

Published by Black Widow Press as part of their Modern Poets Series, Eye of Witness: A Jerome Rothenberg Reader interweaves poems with prose work in a grand collage,[1] proffering a vivid map through the intellectual and procedural frameworks of Rothenberg’s oeuvre.